Look for movement in the metrics that matter: rankings on real target keywords, impressions and clicks in Google Search Console, Business Profile calls and direction requests, and — above all — actual leads and calls. If your reports are all traffic and no business results, and your provider can't explain what they did this month, you're probably being taken for a ride.
Here’s a situation I run into constantly: a business owner is paying an agency a few thousand a month for SEO, has been for a year, and genuinely cannot tell you whether it’s working. They get a report full of graphs, the graphs seem to go up, and yet the phone doesn’t ring any more than it used to. If that’s you, I want to give you the tools to check for yourself — because you shouldn’t need to hire me to find out whether they are doing their job.
You’re not alone in asking, either. One of the top-ranked threads in r/SEO is literally an owner asking how to know if their SEO person is doing good work — and the answers all circle the same truth: ignore the vanity metrics and follow the ones that connect to your business.
First, the metric that beats all the others
Is your SEO producing more customers? More calls, more form fills, more booked jobs, more consultations — the actual business coming through your door. That’s the scoreboard. Everything else on this page is a supporting indicator that helps you see why the number is or isn’t moving. But if leads are up over where you started, something is working. If leads are dead flat after six-plus months of paying, no amount of pretty rankings graphs should satisfy you.
Now, SEO takes time — real results usually show in six to twelve months — so I’m not saying panic in month two. I’m saying that by the time you’re several months in, you should be seeing movement in the leading indicators, and by the back half of the first year you should be seeing actual business. Here’s how to read the leading indicators yourself.
The signals that show real progress
You can check most of these yourself, for free. If your provider won’t give you access to the accounts to see them, that itself is a red flag — remember, you should own every one of these.
Google Search Console (this is the big one). This is Google’s own free tool, and it doesn’t lie. Two things to watch: impressions (how often Google shows your pages) and clicks (how often people click through). In a working campaign, impressions climb first — Google is showing you more — and clicks follow. If impressions have been flat for months, Google isn’t finding you any more relevant than it did before. That’s a problem.
Rankings on your actual target keywords. Not “we rank for 4,000 keywords” — that number is almost always padded with terms nobody searches or that you already ranked for. Ask which specific, meaningful keywords you’re targeting, and whether you’re moving up on those. Real progress looks like a target term climbing from page four to page two to page one over months.
Your Google Business Profile insights. If local SEO is part of the plan, your Business Profile shows calls, direction requests, and profile views. These often move earlier than anything else. Rising calls and direction taps are real people trying to reach you.
More of the right traffic. Not just more visitors — more visitors who do something. Traffic that lands and immediately leaves isn’t worth much. Traffic that reads, calls, or fills out a form is.
The vanity metrics they hide behind
Here’s where you get played. A report can look impressive and mean almost nothing. Watch for these:
| What’s in the report | Why it might be hiding nothing |
|---|---|
| ”Total keywords ranking: 4,200” | Padded with junk terms and things you already ranked for. Ask about the target keywords. |
| ”Impressions up 300%” — with no clicks | Impressions without clicks or leads can mean you’re showing up for irrelevant searches. |
| ”Domain authority increased” | A third-party score, not a Google metric, and not money in your pocket. |
| Pages of traffic graphs, nothing about leads | If it never connects to your phone ringing, it’s measuring what looks good, not what pays. |
| ”We published 8 blog posts this month” | Activity isn’t results. Ask what those posts were for and whether they rank. |
None of these are lies exactly — they’re true numbers arranged to distract you from the one number that matters. A real report connects the work to business outcomes. A smokescreen report buries the absence of outcomes under a pile of activity.
The clearest warning sign of all
More than any single metric, watch for this: your provider can’t clearly explain what they did this month and why. A real one can tell you, in terms you understand, “here’s what we worked on, here’s why, and here’s the early signal it’s producing.” If every month you get vague updates, jargon, and “SEO takes time” as the answer to every question — with no leading indicators moving after six-plus months — you’re very likely paying for very little.
“SEO takes time” is true. It’s also the single most abused sentence in my industry, used to buy another month of doing nothing. The tell is whether the leading indicators are moving underneath. If impressions, target rankings, and Business Profile activity are all trending up, “it takes time” is honest. If nothing at all has moved in half a year, it’s an excuse.
What to do if you’re not sure
Pull up Google Search Console yourself and look at the last six months of impressions and clicks. Check your Business Profile insights. Ask your provider which specific keywords you’re targeting and to show you the movement on those. Ask them to walk you through what they did last month. How they respond will tell you almost everything — a good partner will happily walk you through it, because they’ve got real work to point to.
And if you go through this and the honest answer is “nothing’s moving and they can’t explain why,” you now know enough to stop paying for it — and how to choose a better one next time. That’s the whole point — you shouldn’t have to take anyone’s word for it, mine included.
If you want a second set of eyes, that’s something I’ll do straight — send me your situation and I’ll tell you whether what you’re paying for is actually working, with no pitch attached. And if you want to see what real, business-metric reporting looks like, that’s the whole basis of how our Growth Plan reports: leads and calls first, always.
— David, founder, Kava Digital Marketing
