How do I know if my SEO is actually working?

Rankings are the first, most direct signal, but only for the right terms. Ranking well for a phrase nobody searches is meaningless. Ask specifically which keywords you’re being tracked against, and whether those are terms a real prospect would actually type in before contacting a business like yours.

Organic traffic is the second signal, and it needs to be read over months, not weeks. Search rankings move gradually, and a single slow week or a seasonal dip doesn’t mean something’s wrong. What matters is the trend across a full quarter, not any individual data point inside it.

Enquiries are the signal that actually matters commercially. Rankings and traffic are leading indicators – enquiries are the result. If rankings are climbing and traffic is growing but enquiries aren’t following, that’s usually a conversion problem on the website itself, not a failure of the SEO work bringing people there in the first place.

Be cautious of reporting that leans heavily on activity rather than outcomes. Number of articles published, number of backlinks acquired, and time spent are all real inputs, but none of them are proof of results on their own. A good SEO provider should be able to show you rankings, traffic, and enquiries changing over time, not just a list of tasks completed that month.

If you’ve been running SEO for six months or more and can’t see movement in any of the three, that’s worth a direct conversation, either about the strategy, or about the provider.

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