How to tell if your SEO agency is actually doing anything

You signed a 6-month SEO retainer. Every month, the agency sends a PDF report with charts showing “impressions up 23%” and “42 keywords improved.” But when you check the numbers that matter to your business (leads, calls, revenue), nothing has changed.

You’re not sure whether they’re bad at their job or SEO just takes time. They keep saying “trust the process,” so you keep paying.

This is the marketing problem I run into most. The SEO usually isn’t bad so much as invisible: work that looks like progress on paper and produces nothing you can bank.

This is how you tell the difference.

The monthly SEO report is designed to make you feel good about continuing to pay. Reading it critically is one of the most useful skills a founder can pick up.

The vanity metrics trap

SEO agencies report metrics that are technically real and practically meaningless. These are the ones to watch.

“Impressions are up”

What they’re telling you: More people saw your site in search results.

What it actually means: Your pages appeared in searches, and nobody clicked. Impressions without clicks mean your titles and descriptions aren’t compelling, or you’re ranking on page 3 where nobody scrolls.

What to look at instead: Click-through rate (CTR) and actual clicks. If impressions tripled and clicks stayed flat, you haven’t made progress.

“We ranked for 150 new keywords”

What they’re telling you: Your site now appears in search results for more terms.

What it actually means: They probably mean positions 40–100 (pages 4–10 of Google), which nobody sees. Ranking #47 for “best marketing consultant” is statistically the same as not ranking at all.

What to look at instead: Keywords in positions 1–10 (page one). How many page-one keywords did you gain, and are they keywords your customers actually search?

“Domain authority increased”

What they’re telling you: Your site is more authoritative according to third-party tools.

What it actually means: Domain Authority (DA) is a Moz metric. Google doesn’t use it. Agencies like it because it goes up when they build any links, even low-quality ones.

What to look at instead: Referring domains from relevant, real websites. Forget DA and DR and count actual links from sites in your industry that real people read.

“We published 8 blog posts this month”

What they’re telling you: Content is being created.

What it actually means: Quantity without quality is noise. If the posts are 600-word summaries of topics your competitors covered better three years ago, they won’t rank and won’t attract links.

What to look at instead: How many of those posts rank for anything? How many bring traffic after 3 months? How many attract backlinks?

The audit you can run yourself

You don’t need to be an SEO expert to audit your agency. You need two free tools and 30 minutes.

Step 1: Check Google Search Console (15 minutes)

Your agency should have given you access. If they haven’t, that’s your first red flag. Ask for it, and if they resist, take note.

In Search Console, check:

Performance → Search Results → Last 6 months

• Is total clicks trending up, flat, or down?
• Compare this quarter to last quarter
• Filter by page: are specific pages driving growth, or is it scattered?

Pages → Indexing

• How many pages are indexed?
• Are there increasing errors?
• Are pages that should be indexed being excluded?

What you’re looking for: A steady upward trend in clicks from organic search. Clicks, not impressions. If clicks haven’t grown after 6 months of paid SEO work, something is wrong.

Step 2: Check actual business impact (10 minutes)

Open Google Analytics (or whatever you use to track leads):

• Are organic leads/calls/form submissions increasing?
• What’s the trend over the SEO engagement period?
• Compare organic performance to the period before you hired the agency

The question that decides it: Is SEO bringing in more business than it was before you started paying for it?

Step 3: Verify the work is real (5 minutes)

Check the content: Read the blog posts the agency published. Are they well written? Are they about topics your customers care about, or generic filler like “Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends in 2026”?

Check the links: Ask the agency for a list of backlinks they built this month and visit those sites. Are they real websites with real audiences, or spam directories, blog comment links, and “guest posts” on sites that exist only to sell links?

Check the technical work: Ask what technical SEO changes they made, then check whether they actually made them. If they said they “optimised meta titles,” look at your pages. Did the titles change?

Learn just enough about SEO to ask awkward questions. It’s the best way to evaluate your agency.

Red flags that mean your agency is underperforming

1. They won’t share Search Console access

If they hold your data and only show you their own dashboard, they get to decide what story you see. Google Search Console is your data, and you should always have direct access.

2. Reports focus on activity, not outcomes

“We published 4 posts, built 12 links, and optimised 8 pages” is activity. “Organic clicks grew 18% MoM, 3 new keywords entered top 5, organic leads increased by 12” is an outcome, and outcomes are what you’re paying for.

3. They can’t explain their link building strategy

Ask: “Where are the links coming from and why those sites?” If the answer is vague (“we have a network” or “outreach to relevant blogs”), push harder. If they can’t name specific sites or explain why they’re relevant, the links are probably low quality or from their own network of sites.

4. Traffic grows but leads don’t

This means they’re ranking you for the wrong keywords. Traffic from “what is digital marketing” doesn’t produce leads for a marketing consultant. Traffic from “digital marketing consultant Mumbai” does. Ask which keywords are driving the growth.

5. The same report every month

If the insights and recommendations in this month’s report read like last month’s with different numbers, the report is a template. Nobody is actually thinking about your account.

6. No technical SEO work after month 2

Technical SEO (site speed, schema, crawl optimisation, indexation) is the foundation. Most agencies do a token audit in month 1 and then work only on content and links. If your Core Web Vitals are failing and your agency hasn’t mentioned it in 6 months, they’re ignoring half the job.

7. They guarantee rankings

No one can guarantee page-one rankings. Google’s algorithm changes constantly, and rankings depend on what competitors do, which no one controls. An agency that guarantees specific positions is either lying or planning tactics that put your site’s long-term health at risk.

What good SEO work actually looks like

For comparison, this is what a competent SEO engagement should deliver:

Month 1–2: Foundation

• Technical audit with specific issues identified and fixed
• Keyword research tied to business objectives, not vanity terms
• Content strategy mapped to customer journey
• Google Search Console and Analytics properly configured
• Benchmark report with clear KPIs

Month 3–4: Building

• Content published targeting specific, achievable keywords
• Internal linking structure improved
• Schema markup implemented
• Backlinks from genuinely relevant sources
• Monthly report showing search visibility trends (with honest context)

Month 5–6: Compounding

• Measurable increase in organic clicks
• Target keywords moving into page-one range
• Content starting to attract organic backlinks
• Technical health improving (fewer errors, better Core Web Vitals)
• Clear line from SEO work → traffic → business leads

Every month, the agency should be able to tell you: “Here’s what we did, here’s the impact so far, here’s what we’re doing next, and here’s when we expect to see results.”

Agencies hiding this kind of detail is why my own agency publishes per-keyword SEO pricing and sends monthly reports in plain language. If a client can’t tell what they’re paying for, that’s our fault.

The conversation to have with your agency

Don’t fire them without talking to them first. Send this email:

Hi [agency name],

I’d like to schedule a 30-minute call to review our SEO engagement. Specifically, I’d like to discuss:

1. The net change in organic clicks and leads since we started
2. Which keywords are driving traffic and whether those align with our business goals
3. A list of backlinks built in the last 3 months, with the source sites
4. What technical SEO improvements have been made to the site
5. Your assessment of our trajectory — where should we be in 3 months?

I’d also like direct access to our Google Search Console if I don’t have it already.

A good agency will welcome the conversation. They’ll have the data ready and will be open about what’s working and what isn’t.

An underperforming agency will get defensive, deflect, or bury you in jargon, and that tells you what you need to know.

If you’re paying for SEO and not sure it’s working

Start with one question: Are you getting more organic business than you were before the engagement started?

If yes, even gradually, the work may be legitimate and building on itself. Give it time.

If no, after 6 months and ₹3–9 lakh spent, something is wrong. Either the strategy doesn’t fit your business, the execution is poor, or the agency is doing the minimum to keep you paying.

You don’t need to become an SEO expert. Learn to read your own Search Console data, ask those five direct questions, and you’ll know whether your money is working.