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Hiring Local SEO Help

How Do I Know If My SEO Company Is Doing a Good Job?

Look for calls, form fills, and direction requests going up, not just rankings. A good company sends a regular report that says what it did, what changed in your Business Profile and Search Console numbers, and what happens next. Give it a few months before you judge, and longer in a competitive market.
By Eric Walker · Last updated October 2026

What a useful report contains

  • What was actually done this month: pages published, profile changes, reviews requested, links earned.
  • Business Profile numbers: calls, direction requests, website clicks, and the searches that found you.
  • Search Console numbers for your main service and city searches.
  • Rankings for the searches that matter, from several locations, not one.
  • What comes next and why.

If you cannot tell what the company did in the last thirty days, that is a problem on its own.

Numbers that sound good and mean little

Impressions without clicks, rankings for obscure terms, a visibility score from a tool you have never heard of, and a graph labeled traffic with no explanation are all easy to produce and hard to act on. Ask for the number that ties to your phone ringing. If that is not in the report, ask why.

Check it yourself

You should have your own access to your Business Profile, your Search Console, and your analytics. Log in once a month and look at the same numbers the company is quoting. Compare the call count in the profile with your own phone log. The goal is not to catch anyone out. It is to trust the report because you can see where it came from.

Give it enough time, but not forever

Local rankings rarely move in the first few weeks. I give my usual ranges on the local SEO timeline page. A fair standard is that by month three you should see clear work done and early signs in profile views or impressions, and by month six you should be able to see calls and leads moving. A company that cannot explain the lack of movement after that is worth questioning.

Questions for your review call

  • What was the most important change you made this month and what did it do?
  • Which competitor moved, and why?
  • What is the biggest obstacle between us and the next level?
  • What would you do with twice the budget? With half?

If you decide to leave

Make sure you can leave cleanly. You should already own your Business Profile, website, and analytics, as I mention in how do I choose a local SEO company? Ask for exports of anything the company holds, such as reports, content, and listings, and change passwords after the handover. If they have refused you access during the contract, treat that as the answer.

What a fair first 90 days looks like

This is my rule of thumb, not a standard. In the first month a good company reviews your profile, website, and competitors, then fixes the clear problems. In month two it puts a review routine in place and starts publishing or improving the pages that matter. By month three you should see the early signs, such as more profile views, more searches that include your service and city, and the first changes in calls.

If after three months you have only received a report and nobody has touched your profile or site, ask what the plan is and get the answer in writing.

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