What Should an SEO Agency Actually Deliver Each Month?
You pay $800 a month. Your report shows rankings went up. But your phone is not ringing any more than before. Here is exactly what a legitimate agency delivers every month – and what questions to ask if any of it is missing.
Work Completed – Not Just Metrics
Published 4 posts targeting [keywords]. Fixed 12 broken links. Added schema to 5 pages. Built 8 citations. If your report has charts but no work log, ask for one.
GSC Data – Impressions, Clicks, Position
Third-party estimates are useful but GSC is Google actual data. Rising impressions mean rankings are about to improve. Flat impressions for 6 months means something is wrong.
Conversion Data – Not Just Traffic
Phone calls, form submissions, bookings from organic search. Traffic without conversions is a vanity metric. Your report must connect SEO activity to business outcomes.
A Plan for Next Month
Not “continue optimization.” Specific: “Next month – two landing pages targeting [keywords], 10 citations on [directories], case study page.”
Published Content – With URLs and Keywords
Not “4 blog posts.” Four specific URLs you can visit. If content is hosted on external sites that pass no authority – that is a red flag.
Monthly Call With the Practitioner
A 15-30 minute call with the person doing the work. Not an account manager reading from a script. If you cannot ask “why did impressions drop?” and get a specific answer, you are not getting full service.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Rankings without work logs, conversion data, and GSC trends tell you what happened – not what the agency did. Ask for a specific list of tasks completed each month alongside the metrics.
Ask for the work log. If they cannot provide a specific list of tasks completed – content published with URLs, technical fixes made, citations built – they are not doing work worth logging. 12 red flags ?
At minimum: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and a professional SEO platform (Semrush, Ahrefs, or similar). These accounts should be set up in your name with full admin access granted to you.
Monthly at minimum – a written report plus a call with the practitioner. More frequently in the first 90 days. If you go months without hearing anything beyond an automated report, you are not getting full service.
Not sure if your agency is doing real work?
Send us your last two reports. We will review them honestly.
Related: Questions to ask before hiring ? | Red flags ?