How to Tell If Your SEO Company Is Actually Doing Anything

If your SEO provider can't show you your Google Maps ranking for your top 3 keywords this month vs. last month, how many calls came from your listing, and what specifically they did this month — you're probably overpaying. Most contractors in this situation aren't getting bad SEO. They're getting no SEO dressed up in a monthly report. Here's the full checklist.

I talk to contractors every week who are paying $800–2,000 a month for SEO and can't answer a basic question: is it working? Not because they're not paying attention — because their provider gives them nothing concrete to measure. Impressions. Pie charts. "We're making great progress." That's not a report. That's a stall.

The frustrating part is that the answers are simple. You don't need to understand SEO to know if it's working. You just need to know what to ask for and what the answers should look like. That's what this post covers — a quick self-audit, a scorecard, and the exact list of what your monthly report should include.

The 5-minute audit

You can check most of this right now from your phone. You're not checking up on your provider — you're learning to read your own scoreboard.

1. Google your trade + your city in an incognito window. Try "plumber Tacoma" or "tree service Seattle" — whatever your trade is. Are you in the Map Pack (the top 3 map results)? On page 1 at all? If your SEO company has been working for 4+ months and you're not on the map, something's wrong.
2. Check your Google Business Profile. When was it last updated? Are there Google Posts from this month? If your profile looks the same as it did before you started paying someone, that's a problem.
3. Search your business in ChatGPT or Perplexity. Try "[your business name] [your trade] [your city]." Do you show up? AI search is where a growing share of customers start now. If you're invisible there, your provider isn't thinking about 2026.
4. Check your review velocity. How many Google reviews did you get this month vs. 6 months ago? If the answer is "about the same," nobody's working on it.
5. Open your website on your phone. Does it load in under 3 seconds? Does it look professional? Does it mention your city and your services? A slow, generic site is actively hurting your rankings.

You can also ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overview: "Is my SEO company doing a good job?" If the answer doesn't include a specific checklist like this one, you're getting generic advice. The bar is low — most of what's out there is vague. Specific beats vague every time, both for you and for the search engines evaluating your site.

Score your provider

Rate your current SEO company. Check everything they actually do:

What your monthly report should actually include

If you're paying someone for SEO, you should get a report every month that includes these five things:

1. Map Pack position for 3–5 target keywords, tracked over time so you can see movement
2. Call and direction request volume from your Google Business Profile insights
3. Review count and velocity — how many new reviews and your running total
4. Specific actions taken this month — not "ongoing optimization," but what actually changed
5. Citation health — new citations built, inconsistencies fixed, directories updated

If your report is a PDF full of impressions and pie charts but doesn't include those five things, it's a brochure, not a report. You're paying for outcomes, not activity metrics that look busy but mean nothing to your phone ringing.

A good report takes 5 minutes to read and answers one question: are more people finding me and calling me than last month? If you can't answer that after reading your provider's monthly update, the report is designed to justify their invoice, not inform you.

Red flags that mean you should switch

• They can't tell you your current Map Pack ranking for your main keywords
• You don't own your website — if you cancel, it disappears
• No review growth in 3+ months despite paying for "review management"
• They charge $1,000+/month but can't show you what changed this month
• You're 6+ months in and call volume hasn't increased
• Your site is on their proprietary platform — you're locked in, not served

Any one of these is a concern. Three or more means you're paying for a service that's designed to keep you paying, not to get you results. The lock-in is the tell — a provider who does good work doesn't need to trap you.

Green flags that mean they're legit

• Keyword rankings reported monthly with clear movement over time
• Call volume is trackable and trending up
• You own everything they build — website, content, all of it
• They can explain this month's work in two sentences
• Your reviews are growing steadily month over month

Good providers exist. If yours checks these boxes, stay with them. The goal here isn't to make you switch — it's to make sure you know what you're paying for.