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- Ask for direct access to Search Console, GA4 and your own site.
- Real reporting ties work to impressions, clicks, leads and decisions.
- Activity lists and vanity metrics are not results.
- Early months show leading indicators, not sales, so judge fairly.
Start with access and ownership
The simplest test costs nothing. Do you have owner-level access to your Search Console property, your GA4 account, your Google Business Profile and your website hosting? If an agency holds these under its own login and gives you only a PDF, you cannot verify anything. Good agencies add you as owner on day one and are happy for you to see the raw data.
Next, find out what is actually being done on your site. Ask for a change log or a list of pages edited, created or redirected. If the answer is vague, or the work cannot be traced to a page, that is a warning sign. You are paying for specific actions with a reason behind each.
Signs the work is real
A working engagement leaves visible traces.
- A baseline was recorded at the startYou can compare today with the starting impressions, clicks, ranked terms and leads.
- Reports explain what changed and whyNot just charts. Each month says what was done, what moved and what comes next.
- Impressions and indexed pages growIn Search Console, rising impressions on target pages show Google is testing your content.
- Rankings are tracked for chosen phrasesWith commercial phrases, not only brand name or easy terms.
- Work targets the pages that earn moneyServices and product pages get attention, not only blog posts.
- Leads are trackedCalls, forms and WhatsApp chats are measured as conversions in GA4 and, where relevant, your CRM.
- You can reach someone who knows your accountQuestions get specific answers within a reasonable time.
Real signals versus vanity numbers
Some figures look good and mean little.
Reported figure | What it really shows | Better question |
|---|---|---|
Number of keywords ranked | Could include meaningless phrases | Which commercial phrases improved? |
Domain authority score | A third-party estimate | Are rankings and leads rising? |
Backlinks built | Volume, not quality | Where do the links come from, and are they relevant? |
Traffic up | Could be unrelated visitors | Is it traffic to the pages that convert? |
Hours worked | Effort, not outcome | What changed because of that work? |
Page one for brand name | Easy to achieve | Do you rank for non-brand services? |
A 30-minute audit you can run yourself
You do not need to be technical for this.
- Open Search Console performanceCompare the last three months with the previous three. Look at clicks, impressions and the pages gaining or losing.
- Filter out brand searchesSee whether non-brand queries are growing. That is where new customers come from.
- Check GA4 conversionsConfirm that form submissions, calls and chats are tracked and that organic traffic produces some of them.
- Review the work log against the reportMatch the pages edited with the pages that improved. Do the two connect?
- Search your main services yourselfUse a private window and your target city. See where you appear and who is above you.
- Ask three direct questionsWhat did you do last month, what will you do next month, and what is the biggest risk to results?
Be fair about timing
An agency can be doing good work and still show little revenue in the first months. Fixing technical faults, rewriting pages and building authority take time before they move rankings. That is why early evaluation should rely on leading indicators. Our lesson on how long SEO takes to show results describes the sequence you should expect.
There is a limit to patience, though. If after a reasonable period you see no change in impressions, no growth in indexed pages and no clear plan, something is wrong. Competitive niches are slower, but a competent provider can explain exactly why and what they are doing about it.
Questions to put to your agency this week
A good agency welcomes questions, and the answers tell you a lot. Ask which three pages they consider most important for your revenue and what they changed on each. Ask which phrases they are targeting and why they were chosen over others. Ask what they expect to see in the next quarter and what would make them change the plan.
Listen for specifics. Strong answers name pages, phrases, constraints and trade-offs, such as a slow template that needs developer time, or a competitor with far stronger links that makes one phrase a long project. Weak answers repeat general statements about content and authority without pointing at your site.
Finally, ask what you are responsible for. Real SEO depends on you too: approving content, supplying photos, answering sales questions, giving developer access and replying to leads fast. A provider who tells you what they need from you usually runs a more honest engagement.
Red flags worth acting on
Any one of these deserves a direct conversation.
- Promised rankings or a fixed dateNobody controls Google. Honest providers describe what they do and what they cannot control.
- Secret methodsYou are entitled to know what is being done to your site.
- Mass low-quality linksPackages of directories and comment links can harm rather than help. Compare with how backlinks should be earned.
- Reports full of jargon and no decisionsReports should lead to action.
- Content copied or spunThis risks the issues in duplicate content.
- Lock-in without exit termsYou should keep your site, content and accounts if you leave.
A note for Pakistani businesses and overseas buyers
Many local agencies sell fixed packages with lists of tasks, which is easy to confuse with outcomes. Ask what the plan is for your market, not what is in the package. Businesses buying from Pakistan from the UK, USA or UAE should also check communication overlap, invoicing in a clear currency and contract terms about data ownership.
If you are comparing providers, the lesson on hiring an SEO freelancer or an agency covers how the models differ. For a plain view of what a good month of work looks like, see what an SEO agency does month to month.
If you want an independent second opinion
We regularly review accounts that others manage. We ask for read-only access, go through the data and tell you what is working, what is not and what we would change. There is no obligation to move. If your current agency is doing well, we will say so.
Our SEO audit services are built for this, and you can see sample work on the SEO ranking results case studies page. To start a review, contact us with your site and your current report.
Junaid has worked on SEO for more than 18 years, across SEO, paid media, web development and custom software. He founded SEOnumber1, builds WordPress plugins, CRMs and web applications, has served 500+ clients in 48 countries, and holds Google Ads, Analytics and Google Blue and Green Belt certifications. He is a National Level Award Winner in Digital Marketing. Read his story or ask a question about this article.