How to Check if My SEO Company Is Doing Anything

To check if your SEO company is doing anything, ask for two things. The first is a dated list of the work done on your site this month. The second is proof in your own Google accounts: Search Console, Google Business Profile and your leads, not only their report. If they can show you both, they are working. If they can't, or won't, you have your answer, and it has nothing to do with how fast Google moves.

This guide answers the question many owners type into Google, "how to check if my SEO company is doing anything", with a plan you can run in one evening. First come the checks you can do alone in 10 minutes. Then five questions for your agency, each with the proof to ask for. Last, a simple rule for day 30, 60 and 90. If you want plain-English checks like this in your inbox, get The SEO Brief newsletter free.

First, make sure you own your accounts

Do this before you judge anything. You can't check work you can't see.

You should be the owner of each of these. The agency should be a user you added:

Google Search Console. This is Google's free report on how your site shows up in search. Go to Settings, then Users and permissions. Your own Google account should be listed as Owner. Google's help page explains the difference between owners and users.
Google Analytics. You should be an Administrator on the account. The agency should not be the only one.
Google Business Profile. This is your listing on Google Maps. You should be the primary owner and the agency a manager. Google explains how to add owners and managers.
Your domain and website login. The domain should be registered in your name or your company's, with your email on it. You should have an admin login to the website itself.

Google's own advice adds one detail. When an SEO audits your site, Google says to only grant read access to Search Console and not to grant write access at that stage. A company you already pay may need more. But the owner should always be you.

If the agency set up these accounts in its own name, ask them to transfer ownership this week. That's not an insult. It's normal practice, and a good company will say yes without fuss.

Is my SEO company doing a good job? The 10-minute check

You don't need to read their report for this. Open your own accounts.

Minutes 1 to 4: Search Console, Performance report

Open Search Console and click Performance. Set the date range to the last 3 months and click Compare against the 3 months before. Google's guide to the Performance report explains each number.

Look at:

Impressions: how often your site appeared in Google results. This tends to move before clicks.
Clicks: how often people clicked through to your site.
Queries tab: the searches you showed up for. Are there new ones that match your services and towns?
Pages tab: which pages get seen. Are the pages the agency says it improved or published in this list?

Minutes 5 to 6: Search Console, Page indexing report

Click Pages under Indexing. This shows how many of your pages Google has stored and can show, and why others are left out. Google explains each reason in the Page indexing report. If the agency published new pages, they should appear as indexed after a while. If the "not indexed" count keeps growing and nobody has told you why, ask.

Minutes 7 to 8: Google Business Profile performance

Open your Business Profile and look at Performance. Google lists what it counts there: calls from the profile, website clicks, messages, direction requests and the searches that found you. For a local business, this is often where the work shows up first. If local SEO is part of the deal, compare it with our Google Business Profile checklist for service businesses and see what's still missing.

Minutes 9 to 10: search like a customer

On your phone, search the way a customer would: your main service plus your town ("emergency plumber Leeds", "family dentist Plano"). Note where you appear in the map results and in the normal results. Do the same for two other services. Write it down with the date. It isn't a precise measurement, since results change by location and device. But it's a fair snapshot you can repeat next month.

If all of these look flat after several months and nobody can explain why, read our guide on why a site isn't ranking. It covers the five causes to rule out, in order.

How do I know if my SEO is working? Early signs vs real results

SEO results come in two waves. Owners who judge the first wave by the standard of the second fire good agencies too early and keep bad ones too long.

What you look at	When it tends to move	Where to see it
Work done (pages changed, content published, fixes)	From the first month	The agency's change log
Pages indexed	Early	Search Console, Pages
Impressions and new queries	Early	Search Console, Performance
Positions for your main services	Later	Search Console, average position, and your own searches
Clicks to your site	Later	Search Console and Analytics
Calls, forms, quote requests, bookings	Last, and the only ones that pay	Your phone, inbox, Business Profile, Analytics

How long is "later"? Google gives no official timeline. The time it takes depends on how old your site is, how strong your competition is and how much work is actually being done. Be wary of anyone who gives you a fixed date.

The first row doesn't depend on Google at all. You should see the work itself from the first month.

Track the leads, not just the traffic

A report full of rising graphs means little if the phone isn't ringing more. Make sure someone counts real enquiries:

Calls: Business Profile shows calls made from your listing. For calls from the website, ask the agency how they measure them.
Forms and quote requests: each form submission should be counted in Analytics, ideally by page. Ask the agency to show you where.
Ask every new customer: "How did you find us?" Write the answer down. It's free and it catches what software misses.

Then ask the agency one simple question each month: how many enquiries came from Google search and Maps, and from which pages? A company doing good work will want to answer that.

The first check takes one evening. Then repeat it monthly. The SEO Brief sends one email the day new guides come out, in plain English, so you know what to look at next. Get it free.

Five questions to ask your SEO company, and the proof to expect

Google's guide to hiring an SEO suggests asking what results they expect and in what timeframe, how you can expect to communicate with them, and whether they will share all the changes they make to your site. John Mueller of Google, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable, suggested scheduling regular meetings to review what the SEO team did, reviewing their reports to see progress, and talking through the work coming up. He added that this takes extra time on both sides, and that there's still a component of trust involved. Here's how that becomes questions:

"What did you change on my site this month?" Proof: a dated list with page addresses. "Rewrote the title and intro of /boiler-repair on 12 March", not "on-page optimization".
"What did you publish, and is it indexed?" Proof: links to the new pages, and a screenshot of each one's status in Search Console's URL Inspection tool.
"Which searches are we going after, and how are they doing?" Proof: a short list of target searches tied to your services, with the trend from Search Console, which you can check yourself.
"How many enquiries came from search last month?" Proof: calls, forms or bookings with their source, or an honest "we don't track that yet, here's how we'll set it up".
"What's the plan for next month, and why?" Proof: three to five planned tasks, each linked to a problem they found. If next month's plan always looks like last month's, ask why.

Put the questions in writing and give them a clear deadline. A week is fair.

Red flags Google itself warns about

These come from Google's page on hiring an SEO:

A guaranteed number one ranking. Google says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Secrecy. An SEO that won't clearly explain what it intends to do.
Link schemes. Talk of "link popularity schemes" or submitting your site to thousands of search engines.
Out-of-the-blue emails. Google says to be wary of SEO firms and agencies that email you out of the blue.
A "special relationship" with Google, or a "priority submit" to Google.

Two more warning signs are our own observations, not Google rules. One is reports that only show data from the agency's own tool and never your Search Console. The other is monthly reports that look the same every month apart from the dates.

The 30/60/90 day rule for deciding

This is our rule of thumb, not something Google publishes. It separates "no work" from "work that hasn't paid off yet".

Day 30: you own all your accounts, you have a change log, and you have a written plan. If any of this is missing, the problem is the work, not the timeline. Ask once, in writing.
Day 60: the change log keeps growing, and the agency can point to what's happening in your Search Console, such as pages indexed, impressions and new queries. You don't need big results yet. You need an explanation that matches what you can see.
Day 90: the agency reports enquiries by source, or has set up a way to count them. If nothing has moved, they should be able to say why and what changes next.

If the answers keep coming back vague, it's fair to leave. You own the domain, the website, Search Console, Analytics and the Business Profile, so you keep everything that matters. Before you go, ask for every login they created, any content they wrote for you, and a list of any accounts or tools set up in your name.

What to do today

Open Search Console, Settings, Users and permissions, and check that you are the Owner. Do the same in Analytics and Google Business Profile.
Run the 10-minute check above and write down the numbers with today's date.
Email your agency the five questions and ask for answers within a week.
Start asking every new customer how they found you, and keep a tally.
Put a reminder in your calendar to repeat the check in 30 days.
Get the new guides in your inbox, free: Get it free. If you'd also like a second opinion on a page, our free Claude connector includes a full page audit.

FAQ

How long before SEO shows results?

Google doesn't give an official timeline. It depends on how old your site is, how strong your competition is and how much work is actually being done. You should see the work itself from the first month.

Can an SEO company guarantee me first place on Google?

No. Google says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, and lists that promise among the things to watch out for.

What should my SEO agency send me each month?

They should send a dated list of changes with page addresses and the new content they published. They should also send the trend for your target searches from Search Console, your enquiries by source and the plan for next month.

Can I check what they changed on my site?

Yes. Google suggests asking your SEO whether they will share all the changes they make to your site. With an admin login to your website, you can usually also see when each page was last edited.