The most common thing I hear from business owners who’ve tried SEO before is some version of:
“I have no idea what I’m actually paying for.” - You (maybe?)
They know they need SEO. They understand the goal is getting more people to their website. Seems simple. But what they just can’t figure out on their own is whether any of it is even working, and if it is, why their business doesn’t feel any different yet.
That’s a super fair frustration. And a lot of SEO professionals make it worse by sending monthly reports packed with numbers that don’t directly connect to anything resembling business success or any direct tie to the SEO work they’re billing you for.
This post is about what to actually look for, what the numbers really mean, and how to tell the difference between SEO that’s working the way its supposed to and SEO that’s just a useless drain on your marketing budget.
Why is SEO so hard to measure?
SEO doesn’t have a clean one-to-one relationship with revenue, and that’s by design. I’m upfront with every client I work with: I don’t guarantee sales. It’d be cool if I could, but that’s just not how SEO works. What I can do is increase visibility, put more qualified eyeballs on your site, and improve the odds that the right person finds you at the right time.
Whether they actually give you money for something depends on key factors outside of SEO like:
💰 your pricing
🗡️ your competitors
💬 your reviews
🤔 how clearly your site communicates what you do
SEO contributes, sure, but it does so indirectly and over a longer timeline than most people expect.
On the other hand, paid advertising feels more intuitive because the math is obvious. You spend money, you get clicks, you can trace a purchase back to an ad. SEO doesn’t work that way. Progress is slower and subtler, and that makes it easier to question even when it’s heading in the right direction.
Is “Is my SEO working?” even the right question?
Honestly, not really. SEO is always working one way or another. And unless you’re doing something to actively grow it, I’d guess it’s working against you.
Even if no one has touched your website in a year, your SEO is still changing. Rankings are influenced by Google algorithm updates, what your competitors are doing, how your brand recognition is growing or shrinking, and shifts in how people search.
Left alone, most sites slowly decline as others invest and improve their visibility. SEO isn’t something you turn on and off. It’s always in motion whether you like it or not.
The more useful question is: which direction is it moving, and why?
Think about how a business grows. No company opens its doors with instant name recognition and a full customer base. It starts small. One customer. Then ten. Then fifty. It hires, refines its offering, and slowly more people start to know it exists. SEO works the same way.
Expecting fast results from a standing start isn’t a strategy.
It’s just ignorant optimism that will inevitably lead to frustration.
This guy gets it…
And if someone sold you SEO with those expectations, then I’d recommend making a change before you waste any more money. Stop the bleeding.
What does good SEO actually look like in practice?
SEO isn’t a formula. I know that’s not what anyone wants to hear, but it’s just true. There’s data and research involved, but there’s no universal blueprint that works the same way for every business. That’s why most of the SEO advice you read online is mostly useless and not actually written for you.
A good example is blogging. (Sorry if that word alone just triggered your gag reflex. I get it.) You’ll find heaps of advice out there claiming that publishing once a week or hitting a certain word count guarantees growth. Reality: That’s correlation being sold as causation. Without experience and actual human critical thinking, those numbers mean nothing.
I sometimes explain it this way: if two cars won’t start and a mechanic runs some tests and finds the first one has a blown transmission, it would be stupid for him to just go ahead and change BOTH transmissions. Especially if the second car just has a dead battery or is out of gas. You don’t want to be the driver of the second car with a giant bill for a new transmission and a car that still won’t start. SEO works the same way.
Similar SEO problems can actually have completely different causes, and applying the same fix across the board is rarely effective.
What should I look for in the first few months of SEO?
The first thing I look for early in any SEO engagement is impressions, even small ones.
Why do impressions matter if no one clicks?
Impressions mean Google has indexed your page, understands what it’s about, and is actively testing it in search results. That’s a pretty positive signal in my opinion. It means you got your foot in the door. Google has noticed you.
Early on, impressions are kind of undersold as a success indicator. They aren’t sexy and don’t signify anyone actually viewing your website. But when a page that previously had no visibility starts showing up in search results, that’s a big deal. Clicks will come later, but not without those impressions first.
Are all impressions good? Not exactly.
Something else I watch early on is whether the search terms driving those impressions actually match what we we’re aiming for. If Google is indexing your page but showing it for completely unrelated queries, the content needs to be reworked. If the terms are on target, that’s real progress and a sign to double down and keep optimizing that page.
A few realistic expectations for the first few months:
- Little to no movement in clicks is normal, not a sign something is wrong
- Temporary ranking drops after a site is optimized are common and usually correct themselves
- Broad, competitive terms are almost never where early wins come from
If someone is managing your SEO and you’re a few months in with zero impressions on any page, you may want to ask them about that. If they act shocked or try to tell you impressions don’t matter, then look for a new SEO provider. 😬
When do clicks actually start happening?
Quality clicks won’t start coming until a page is consistently ranking in the top 15 to 20 positions. Even then, consistent clicks usually take a couple of months of solid page 1 placement to build.
Helpful page ranking reminder for click expectation:
- Positions 1-10 = Page 1 🏆
- Postions 11-21 = Page 2 🆒
- Positions 22-100 = No man’s land 👎
If you’re working with me and lead generation is your ultimate priority, I’ll remind you that SEO isn’t a fast lead source in year one. Long term, it’s super reliable and will elevate your business tremendously. But it builds. If you’re not patient, it won’t work.
Once a page starts climbing, I use the impression data to guide the next round of optimizations.
Helpful guiding questions to ask:
What exact phrases are people searching when they find this page?
Are those phrases a match for what the business actually offers?
That data tells me where to focus next.
How is AI search changing how we measure SEO success?
This is one of the bigger shifts in how I think about SEO right now.
Before I start optimizing a page for better click-through rates, I check whether those search terms show an AI-generated answer at the top of Google.
These are searches where Google answers the question directly, and users often don’t need to click anything. We call these “zero click searches.” Sounds dreadful, right? Not exactly.
The goalposts aren’t moving, but they are narrower.
Visibility in those AI answers is becoming the new win. Not just the click. Let me explain why.
Here’s the new reality: Google is going to show an AI overview whether you like it or not. Your website may as well be mentioned/linked there. Because if its not you, it will be your competition.
Real client example: Niche B2B EdTech Company
I work with an EdTech client in a very specific niche with a very small potential audience. A lot of the search terms they care about showing up for are answered directly by Google’s AI.
So we set a different goal: show up in those AI answers.
Short term: After just a few months, they were appearing in roughly 27 of the 40 search queries we were targeting for AI visibility. Brand recognition increased.
Long term: When people eventually searched for something where they were ready to actually make a purchasing decision, they clicked, and they converted at a better rate. Prospects had already seen the brand earlier in AI searches and it subconsciously built trust.
That’s why AI visibility matters and can’t be ignored or sluffed off because there’s no clicks to track.
That’s how SEO works in 2026. Visibility builds recognition. Recognition builds trust. Trust is what eventually drives someone to reach out. The click is the last step for SEO, not the only step.
What are the warning signs that SEO isn’t working right?
Here we go. Red flag time. 🚩
“Viral SEO” is an oxymoron.
A sudden big spike in traffic or rankings is actually a red flag, and not always a reason to celebrate. That’s not how healthy SEO moves.
When rankings jump that fast, it usually means something manipulative happened, like paid backlinks inflating the site’s authority artificially.
When Google catches this anomaly, and trust me they always do, the penalty that results often strips away more than just the gains. Sites can end up way worse off than where they started.
What the heck is “indexing” and why should I care about it?
A more common problem is indexing. “Indexing” just means that the page has been crawled by Google and deemed as eligible to be shown in search results. It’s indexed for search.
If Google can’t read your pages, it can’t rank them. When I work with a client who has almost no rankings, indexing is one of the first things I check. Google Search Console will tell you directly which pages are indexed and which ones are not. It also usually tells you exactly why its not indexed. Super helpful.
A missing sitemap, broken links, incorrect technical settings, these things can all prevent Google from reading your site no matter how much great content is being published.
If you ask your SEO person for an indexing report and they can’t provide one or try to steer you away from it, time to look for a different SEO provider.
Beware of SEO over-promisers.
If someone ever promises guaranteed SEO results, leave.
Google is a third-party business that can change its algorithm tomorrow, and no one can control that. Anyone who guarantees specific rankings either doesn’t understand how this works, or they’re hoping you don’t. It’s a cash grab preying on false hope.
What questions should I ask my SEO person?
Before hiring someone, ask them how they approach SEO and actually listen to their answer. If the conversation immediately goes to backlinks or keyword density, that’s an extremely outdated approach.
You want to work with someone who talks about your website as a whole: the content, the technical health, the user experience, and how those things all work together for better SEO.
Ask what tools they use. Good SEO professionals use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console. If they’re vague about it or claim they use some kind of AI that can improve your SEO faster, that’s a red flag.
A good SEO person isn’t protective of their tools because the value is in how they use them, not in the tools themselves.
I can’t fix my own car just because I have a set of wrenches. I go to the mechanic who actually knows which bolts to turn.
Ask these questions consistently to gauge SEO performance
Once you’re working together, these are worth asking regularly:
- Which pages are underperforming and why?
- Which pages are consistently doing well?
- Are all of my pages indexed?
- Which pages have the lowest click-through rate?
If those questions get vague answers or lead to quick subject changes, that’s a problem.
What does a good SEO report show me?
A good SEO report focuses on specific pages, not just site-wide totals.
SEO work happens at the page level. A report that only focuses on overall clicks and total rankings isn’t telling you much and usually means your provider isn’t looking deep enough to actually be doing meaningful SEO work.
You want to see which pages are moving, which aren’t, and what’s happening next as a result. If you can’t see that in your SEO reports, then they’re largely useless.
After six months with someone, you should be able to ask what has changed specifically because of their work and get a direct answer. Not a general “things are improving.” Actual examples.
The foundation matters more than most people expect
Before any of this feels like it’s working, there’s usually a less glamorous phase: getting the website itself into shape. I talk a lot more about this in another post.
Technical performance, usability, and how clearly the site communicates what you do form the foundation. Not because Google is checking boxes for load speed or layout, but because those things directly affect whether people stay or leave.
If users struggle or feel confused, no amount of optimized content compensates for that.
Take a physical store for example. You can have great expertise, a quality product, and excellent customer service. But if your storefront is falling apart and the checkout doesn’t work, making sales is going to be an uphill battle. Websites aren’t different.
This is also why early reports and audits can feel discouraging out of context. Google doesn’t reassess every page instantly. Changes take time to get processed and reflected in results. Sometimes a newly optimized page drops before it climbs. Without context, those dips look like failure even when things are on track.
If you’ve read through this and you’re questioning whether your current SEO is actually doing anything, start by asking the questions above. If the answers don’t hold up, reach out. I do audits and ongoing SEO work, and picking up from where someone else left off is something I do regularly. You’d be talking to me directly, not a project manager passing notes down a chain.