SEO in Turkey: What to Check Before Hiring

Hiring an agency for SEO in Turkey looks straightforward: send your website, agree on a monthly fee and wait for traffic. The problems show up later. The English pages are not indexed, the Search Console property belongs to a former contractor, or the reports show rankings for keywords no customer types.

This guide is for international companies, foreign-owned businesses and founders whose customers in Turkey search in Turkish, English or Arabic. It covers the checks to make before you hire anyone: language versions, ownership of your data, local search, technical basics, reporting and the warning signs in an agency's pitch.

What does SEO in Turkey involve?

SEO in Turkey means making your website easy for Google to find, understand and show to people in Turkey who search in the languages your customers use: separate, properly linked pages for each language, a technically sound site, a complete Google Business Profile where local search matters, and reporting based on your own Search Console and Analytics data.

Solya Agency: an Istanbul-based digital agency that provides SEO consulting, covering both SEO and GEO (visibility in AI-generated answers), and conversion tracking and analytics for businesses in Turkey, working in English and Turkish. Fees are listed on the packages page.

Language versions and hreflang

If your customers in Turkey search in more than one language, the way those language versions are built decides whether each one can be found at all.

According to Google Search Central on multi-regional and multilingual sites, Google uses the visible content of a page to determine its language, not code-level settings or the URL. The same guide recommends a separate URL for each language version and advises against automatically redirecting visitors from one language to another.

Google's page on localized versions explains how to connect those versions with hreflang:

• Each language version lists itself and all the others. If two pages do not point to each other, Google ignores the tags.
• Use language codes, with a region where it matters, and provide an x-default page for visitors whose language you do not cover.
• Translate the main content, not only the menu. Google treats localized versions as duplicates only when the main content stays untranslated.

Ask the agency how your language versions will be structured, who writes or checks each language and how they will test hreflang. If you also need a new site, our guide on web design in Istanbul covers the build side.

Domain choice: .com.tr or your existing domain

Some foreign companies ask whether they need a Turkish domain. The Google guide on multi-regional sites describes the trade-offs: a country-code domain such as .com.tr gives clear geotargeting for one country, while subdirectories on a generic domain (for example /tr/ and /en/) are easy to set up and low maintenance. It also notes that some countries restrict who can register their country-code domains, so check the registration rules before you decide.

A good agency explains these trade-offs for your situation instead of recommending one option for every client.

Search Console ownership stays with you

Google Search Console is where you see how your site performs in Google Search, which pages are indexed and which problems Google has found. It should belong to your business.

Search Console Help on users and permissions explains that an owner has full control over a property, that a property must have at least one verified owner, and that if the only verified owner leaves your team, you should verify ownership again to keep access.

• Verify the property with your company account, not the agency's.
• Add the agency as a user with the access level their work needs.
• At the review stage, give read access only. Google's guide Do you need an SEO? advises granting only read access to Search Console before you hire, not write access.

The same principle applies to Google Ads and Analytics; see our guide on Google Ads in Turkey for foreign-owned businesses.

Local search and Google Business Profile

If customers find you through Google Maps or searches with a district or city name, local search matters as much as your website. Google's page on improving your local ranking says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, and that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up.

• Complete the profile: category, address or service area, hours and contact details, in line with your website.
• Reply to reviews, in the language the customer used.
• Ignore anyone selling local rankings. Google states there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Technical basics come first

Before content and links, the site has to be accessible. Google's technical requirements list the minimum conditions for a page to be eligible for indexing: Googlebot is not blocked, the page works and returns a success status code, and the page has indexable content.

Ask the agency how they check these on every language version, how they find pages that are blocked or not indexed in Search Console, and who fixes the problems: their team, your developer or both.

Reporting you can check

Reports should come from your own Search Console and Analytics accounts, so you can check the numbers yourself. Useful reports connect search visibility with what matters to the business: enquiries, calls, form submissions or sales. If enquiries are not tracked, fix measurement first.

Agree in advance on what will be reported, how often and in which language, and ask the agency to explain every change it makes to your site and why.

Questions to ask before you hire

Google's guide on hiring an SEO suggests questions worth asking any agency. Adapted for businesses in Turkey:

1. Can you show examples of previous work and explain what you changed?

2. Do you follow Google Search Essentials?

3. What results do you expect, in what timeframe, and how will you measure them?

4. What is your experience with multilingual sites and with customers in Turkey?

5. Will you share every change you make to the site, with the reasoning behind it?

6. Who owns the accounts and the content when the work ends?

A good agency also asks you questions: what makes your business different, who your competitors are and how your customers find you today.

Red flags

• A promise of first place on Google. Google's guide warns that no one can guarantee a top ranking, and that if someone guarantees first place in search results, you should find someone else.
• Buying links or mass-producing pages. Google's spam policies describe buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam, and generating many pages mainly to manipulate rankings as scaled content abuse.
• The Search Console property or website account in the agency's name.
• Machine-translated pages that no one has checked, or one page mixing several languages.
• Reports that show rankings only, with no link to real enquiries.

Talk to us about SEO in Turkey

If you are planning SEO in Turkey, start with the parts you will need to own anyway: your language structure, your Search Console property and your measurement. Solya Agency works with businesses in Turkey in English and Turkish. Send your website, the languages you serve and your main goal through the contact page to get a quote, or message us on WhatsApp, and we will discuss the scope of work with you.