SEO · Checking the work
Ranking charts are easy to make look good. Non-brand clicks and inquiries you can name are harder to dress up, and you can check both yourself in twenty minutes a month.
Watch non-brand clicks, not rankings
Count leads that came from search
Six months without more leads: ask why
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Most monthly SEO reports I’ve seen are built to reassure you. There’s a ranking chart going up and to the right, a count of “keywords in the top 100”, and maybe an authority score from a tool Google doesn’t use. None of that tells you whether the money is coming back.
SEO is working when, over about six months, more people who don’t know your name click through to your site from Google, the handful of pages that sell what you sell climb toward page one, and inquiries from organic search go up with them. If clicks and positions rise and inquiries don’t, something is wrong, and it is fair to ask what. You can check all of it yourself in about twenty minutes a month, without opening anything the agency controls. That last part matters more than it sounds.
Do this on the same day each month and write the numbers in a spreadsheet. Compare against the same month last year whenever you can, because seasonality fools everybody (a pool company’s July always looks brilliant).
That gives you five numbers: non-brand clicks, money-page positions, organic key events, organic inquiries you can name, and the date you checked. If you want a walk-through of the Search Console screens, our Search Console guide covers them.
Progress is never a straight line, but for a site that isn’t penalized and an agency doing real work, the rough shape is this (an illustration, not a promise):
A personal injury firm in Miami will take longer than a plumber in a small town, because the competition is fiercer. There is more detail on timelines in how long SEO takes.
Picture a 20-person HVAC company in its fourth month of paid SEO. Here is one quarter compared with the same quarter last year:
The agency’s report would open with the 26%. But most of that growth is people typing the company name, which usually comes from trucks, referrals or a radio ad, not from SEO. Non-brand clicks are up a modest 17%, the money page has reached page one only just, and inquiries barely moved. My read is that the work is starting to bite but hasn’t paid yet. At month four that’s acceptable. At month ten, the same numbers would be a conversation.
I’ll be plain about rankings. They are a means, and agencies like them because they’re easy to move. You can rank first for a phrase nobody searches and the chart will look wonderful. Google’s own page on hiring an SEO points out that nobody can promise a top spot anyway. What I care about is whether the pages that sell are being found by people who don’t already know your name, and whether those people get in touch.
My rule, for what it’s worth: if leads from search aren’t rising after six months, ask why, in writing, and expect a specific answer. “Google is volatile” isn’t one. A good answer sounds like “we fixed indexing in month two, rewrote the service pages in month four, and we think the contact form is losing people on mobile; here is the fix.” A bad answer usually arrives with a new chart.
The one exception is a site that needed rebuilding first. If the early months went to fixing a broken site, start the six-month clock from the relaunch.
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your own numbers, book a free 30-minute call. We’ll look at what you have with you and say what we’d change first, with no obligation.
A few things are worth checking once, even if the numbers look fine. The first is who owns the accounts. Search Console, Google Analytics and your Google Business Profile should sit under a Google account your company owns, with you as owner and the agency added as a user. If the agency set them up under its own login, sort that out this week while everyone is friendly. Our note on SEO contract terms covers what to put in writing.
Then look at where the visitors are. In GA4, check organic users by city. A roofer in Boca Raton whose new traffic comes mostly from another country has a bigger number to show you and no extra jobs to show for it. While you’re there, read one of the articles or service pages the agency wrote. If you wouldn’t send it to a customer, why would Google be impressed?
Last, make sure phone leads are counted. Plenty of service businesses get a large share of their organic inquiries by phone. Without call tracking, or at least a “how did you hear about us” question, organic search will look worse than it is, and you might fire an agency that was doing its job.
None of this needs technical skill, only the habit of doing it every month and asking a direct question when the numbers stall. If you’d rather hand the work to someone who reports in those terms, that’s what our SEO service is built around, billed month to month.
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You should see impressions rise within two or three months and non-brand clicks rise by month five or six. Inquiries from search usually follow a little later. If nothing has moved by month six, ask for a specific explanation. Very competitive industries take longer, and a site that needed rebuilding first should start the clock at relaunch.
Not on its own. Rankings for phrases nobody searches, or for your own company name, are easy to improve and don’t bring new customers. Ask which of those rankings are for the pages that sell your services, and whether clicks and inquiries to those pages went up too.
Then nobody can show you whether SEO is working, including the agency. Set both up under a Google account your company owns, add the agency as a user, and set up key events for form submissions and calls. It takes an hour or two and it’s the first thing I’d do.
They need access to do the work, but as a user you added. You should be the owner. If the agency created the accounts under their own login, ask them to transfer ownership now while the relationship is friendly.
