Google's John Mueller laid out a few ways to determine if your SEO team is doing the actual work they promised to deliver. While trusting your SEO team is important, John said you can also do the following to ensure the SEO team is doing their job.
This question came up in the last SEO office hours at the 9:54 mark and John responded that you can do the follow:
- Schedule regular meetings to review what the SEO team did
- Review SEO reports to see progress
- Discuss any upcoming work
He added that this does require more time both on your SEO team's end and of course, your end but it is worth it in many cases.
Question: If I have an agency that is managing our organic SEO on a monthly basis, how can I tell if anyone has been actively optimizing? I have a suspicion that the agency has not been optimized out of site for years.
Answer: This is a great question. When we worked with an SEO agency for some of the Search Central content, we had regular meetings to discuss the work that they did, to look at reports about the site's progress, and to discuss any upcoming work. This did require a bit more time, both from them and from us, but I found it very insightful. I think it helps to lightly understand the kind of work that an agency would do, so that you can confirm that they're doing what you expect them to do, and even then there's a component of trust involved. We have a page about hiring an SEO which has some insights, and there's our SEO starter guide, which can explain a bit more. And also, perhaps some folks from the SEO industry can comment on how they'd help a client understand how they're spending their time.
Here is the video embed:
John later posted on LinkedIn asking for more feedback on this. He said, "If a small business owner comes to you and asks how they can tell whether their SEO is doing something useful, what would you tell them?"
He continued:
I find it super-challenging to answer in general, *and* - this is awkward - I don't know first-hand what all an SEO for a small business would or should do. What would you tell a friend to watch out for as an objective sign that the SEO is doing something useful? What would you consider a sign that they're not? (Assume you have no stake in whether or not they keep the SEO - what are some objective things to check?Thanks, and I know, I should have asked here first, but sometimes things move quickly.
Forum discussion at X.
