Living Websites

You Pay an Agency for SEO. Here Is How to Tell Whether It Is Working

Bryan Benner has built for the web for 20 years and runs Living Websites in St. Catharines.

A construction business owner asked a plain question on Reddit: eight months and $1,750 a month into an SEO retainer, is it actually worth it. Fifteen people answered the same day, and almost none of them said yes or no. They answered a different question instead, because it turned out to be the real one: he does not have the report that would tell him. Here is what the thread converged on, and the three checks any business paying a monthly SEO retainer can run for itself.

The question, in his own words

On r/smallbusiness, a construction business owner laid out the situation plainly: "I pay about $1750 a month for seo for my website. Realistically its been about 8 months with them and have gotten decent results with a decent roi." He was not describing a retainer that had failed. He was describing one he could not evaluate: "But realistically I can't tell if it would just be better to part ways and use some kind of seo tool to further progress my company." He added that a lot of the monthly work looked to him like AI-generated blog posts, and that everything was noted and dated, but he still could not justify the spend.

Then he gave the numbers that made the question answerable at all: "We average 15-20 leads a month with a close rate of 30% with an average of $3,000 per job." That is not a business in trouble. It is a business owner who cannot connect a real monthly cost to a real monthly result, which is a different and much more common problem.

The report you should be getting

The top reply named the actual gap, not the retainer itself: "Ask for a simple monthly report showing organic form fills/calls, booked jobs, and the landing pages that produced them, not rankings or blog count. If they can't connect the $1,750 to real leads, cut the scope to local pages, Google Business Profile work, and technical maintenance before canceling everything." (u/No_Concept_9909)

Notice what that reply does not say. It does not say cancel the retainer. It says get the report that would tell you whether to, and if the report comes back thin, narrow the scope before you walk away entirely. Rankings and blog-post counts are activity. Form fills, calls, and booked jobs tied to specific pages are the only things that answer "is it worth it."

The five-minute Search Console check you can run yourself

A second reply gave a check that does not require waiting on the agency at all: "eight months in, i'd go into search console and filter to the queries that actually mean money for you, 'concrete driveway [town]' and that sort of thing, then look at which page comes up for them. it's often a blog post rather than the service page, and that traffic doesn't call. if the service pages still aren't the ones ranking for those terms, you're paying for blog volume." (u/achiya-automation)

That is a five-minute check, not a month-long audit. Google Search Console is free, it is already tied to any indexed website, and it will show which specific page ranks for the searches that actually lead to a booked job. If the money queries are ranking with a blog post instead of the page that lets someone request a quote, that is the retainer visibly optimizing for the wrong page, and it is checkable today.

What you actually own if you leave

The third reply raised a different risk entirely, one that has nothing to do with whether the retainer is currently working: "before you decide either way, go look at who's the primary owner on your google business profile. i've taken over a few sites from agencies and that's the one that bites. the listing sits in their account and getting it back is a request-access form they get 3 days to just deny. search console too, if they verified it with their own account the history goes with them when you leave." (u/Working_Quote_3029)

This is worth checking regardless of what the report and the Search Console check turn up, because it is the one problem that only shows up after you have already decided to leave. A Google Business Profile listed under the agency's own account is not something you can quietly take back. Neither is a Search Console property they verified with their own login. Both are a five-minute look today, and both are considerably harder to fix the day you actually need to.

This is not a verdict against the agency

None of the three checks above require assuming the retainer is a bad deal. One reply made that point directly, answering the same thread: "If most of what they publish looks like AI text, and you have solid results after about eight months, then your SEO base is likely in place. Still, paying this amount each month just for blog posts may not be the best use of cash." (u/Apprehensive-Fan2492)

That is the honest shape of this whole question. A retainer that has produced real results for eight months has probably done real, hard-to-see work already: technical fixes, local pages, Google Business Profile setup, the groundwork that does not show up in a monthly blog count. The report, the Search Console check, and the ownership question are not a case against paying for SEO. They are the difference between trusting a retainer because you cannot see inside it, and trusting it because you checked.

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A retainer that cannot show you the leads it produced is not proof it failed. It is proof nobody built you the report yet.

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FAQ

How can I tell if my SEO retainer is actually working?

Ask your agency for a monthly report showing organic form fills, calls, and booked jobs by landing page, not rankings or blog-post counts. If the retainer cannot be connected to real leads, that is the signal to narrow its scope, not necessarily to cancel it outright.

What should I check in Google Search Console myself?

Filter your queries to the ones that actually mean money for your business (a service plus a town, for example) and see which page ranks for them. If a blog post ranks instead of your service page, that traffic usually does not convert, and it means the work has been going into volume instead of the page that gets you calls.

Who owns my Google Business Profile and Search Console if I switch agencies?

Check now, before you need to leave. If an agency set up your Google Business Profile or verified your Search Console property under their own account, getting it back can mean a request-access process they control, and Search Console history can leave with them entirely.

Does this mean I should stop paying for SEO?

No. A retainer that has produced real results over several months has likely already done real technical and local-page work that a monthly blog count does not show. These checks are about knowing what a retainer is doing, not about assuming it is a bad deal.

Sources

  1. reddit.com/r/smallbusiness: Is paying for seo for my construction biz really worth it? (original post)
    • The thread's original poster (a construction-business owner) says he pays about $1,750 a month for SEO on his business's website.
    • The same post states an average close rate of 30% on the leads he gets.
    • The same post states an average job value of about $3,000.
    • The same post states the poster has been with this SEO provider for about 8 months and averages 15 to 20 leads a month.
    • Commenter u/No_Concept_9909 recommends asking for a monthly report showing organic form fills, calls, booked jobs, and the landing pages that produced them, not rankings or blog count, and connecting the $1,750 cost to real leads before deciding whether to cancel.
    • Commenter u/achiya-automation recommends checking Google Search Console for the queries that actually mean money (for example a service plus a town) to see whether the service page or a blog post is the one ranking for them.
    • Commenter u/Working_Quote_3029 recommends checking who is the primary owner on the Google Business Profile and who verified the Search Console property, noting that regaining access from an agency can require a request-access process the agency has 3 days to deny.
    • Commenter u/Apprehensive-Fan2492 says that if results have been solid after about eight months, the SEO base is likely already in place, even though most of what is published reads like AI-generated text, but paying this amount each month just for blog posts may not be the best use of the money.
    • All 15 real comments on the thread were posted the same day, 2026-08-27; the thread's RSS feed returned HTTP 200 with 17 entries total (the submission, AutoModerator, and 15 comments).