One of the first questions I am asked by business owners is, “How do I know what my SEO company is doing for me?” Ask them.

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You should receive a monthly report outlining the work they completed with links to the work for that month. I’ve had more than one business owner come back and tell me their SEO company said the work they do is in the backend of the website and can’t be seen. If anyone ever tells you this, you need a new SEO company.

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If your SEO content is pushed back into your site or hidden in the backend, Google will know it. Google will put little to no value on content that is hidden or difficult for visitors to find. If the content isn’t important enough for you to make visible, why would it be important to Google?

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Years ago, one of our customers had an 80% visibility rating for their products throughout their market area. We were measuring them against 35 competitors in the same markets. It only took us six months to build that level of visibility. Their closest competitor had only 25% visibility.

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After about a year, the customer called and said they wanted to push the content farther back in the website’s menu structure so it would be harder to find. They asked how it would affect their rankings. I had never tested this before, so I wasn’t sure. I told them it would probably affect their rankings, but I didn’t think the damage would be that bad. I was wrong. Their visibility dropped from approximately 85% to 28%.

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I showed the customer and asked if they wanted to change it back. They still wanted to keep the content buried several levels back in the menu. They believed we could quickly rebuild their visibility because we had gained it so fast the first time. That was not the case.

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With the content pushed back Google was not giving it the weight is did before. It took more than a year to build their visibility back to approximately 65%. That was a major lesson for me. Google placed much less value on content that was buried deep inside the website. That being the case, how much value is Google going to give SEO work that isn’t visible at all?

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Your SEO company should be able to explain its strategy in plain English. You should know:

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• What they are trying to accomplish.

• Why they are doing it.

• What work was completed each month.

• How success will be measured.

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If the explanation is nothing more than technical buzzwords, keep asking questions. A good SEO company should be able to show you the work, explain why it matters, and provide reporting that shows whether the strategy is working.

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If your SEO company can't clearly explain what they're doing, show you the work they've completed, or measure the results, that's a major warning sign. Transparency isn't optional in SEO. You should always know what you're paying for and how it's helping your business grow.

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