Paying for SEO with no results: how to tell if it's working

Judge SEO on enquiries and on whether you rank for phrases people actually type. Not on traffic graphs, not on impressions, and not on domain authority scores. If you cannot name one thing your provider changed on your site last month, the timeline is not your problem.

The two questions that settle it

Have enquiries gone up? Compare this quarter with the same quarter last year, so seasonality does not confuse you. Count calls, forms, emails, walk-ins. If that number has not moved after six to nine months of paying, something is wrong.

Do you rank for phrases customers type? Open a private browser window, type the three or four phrases a customer would actually use, and look. “Emergency plumber Leeds”, not “plumbing services”. If you are nowhere for the real phrases, ranking improvements elsewhere are not helping you.

Everything else in an SEO report is supporting detail.

Metrics that mislead

None of the top four are fabricated. They are simply chosen because they move more easily than the one that counts.

The question to ask this month

Email your provider and ask: “What did you change on my website and profile last month?”

A good answer is specific. Two location pages published, three page titles rewritten, four Google profile posts, a slow image fixed on the homepage, review requests sent to eleven customers.

A poor answer is abstract. Ongoing optimisation, continuous monitoring, technical improvements, content strategy refinement. Those describe an absence of specific work.

The quality of that one answer tells you more than any report.

The honest timeline

So you can tell impatience from a genuine problem:

Weeks 1-4. Setup, audit, technical fixes, Google profile work. Little visible movement. Normal.

Months 2-3. First content published, profile becomes active, some Maps improvement possible. Search rankings mostly unchanged. Still normal.

Months 4-6. Rankings should start moving for the phrases being targeted. Some increase in enquiries. This is where you should see something.

Months 7-12. Compounding. Enquiries should be measurably up on the same period last year.

Beyond 12 months with nothing. Not patience any more. Either the work is not happening, the wrong phrases are being targeted, or the market is more competitive than the plan allowed for. All three are worth a conversation.

What might actually be wrong

Before assuming bad faith, these are the common explanations:

Targeting phrases nobody searches. Ranking first for a phrase with no volume produces nothing. Ask which phrases are being targeted and check that they are what customers would type.

Traffic arriving at a site that does not convert. If visits are up and enquiries are not, SEO may be working while the website loses everyone. That is a page problem, not an SEO problem, and blaming the wrong one wastes months.

Enquiries arriving and not being counted. Calls not tracked, a broken contact form, emails in spam. Test your own form before concluding SEO failed.

A market that needs more than you are spending. Competing in central London on £150 a month is not going to work, and an honest provider would have said so at the start.

Before you leave

If you decide to move on, do it in the right order.

Check the notice period. Confirm in writing that you own the domain, the website and the content produced, and get any accounts transferred: Google Business Profile ownership, Analytics, Search Console. Content written for you should stay on your site.

Then give notice politely and keep the relationship civil. You may need something from them during the handover.

Red flags when choosing a provider covers vetting the next one, and how long SEO takes explains the mechanics of why it is slow.

What good accountability looks like

Whoever you use next, agree upfront on: the list of phrases being targeted, the actions expected each month, how enquiries will be counted, and when you will both review it honestly.

That conversation takes twenty minutes at the start and prevents a year of uncertainty.

Our plans include local SEO at £49-£199 a month with no contract, and we report actions taken alongside enquiries rather than impression counts. If you are unsure whether your current provider is delivering, send us your web address and what you are paying and we will give you a straight assessment, including if the answer is that they are doing fine and you need patience.