Featured · SEO
When SEO is not working: diagnosing before you switch companies
Nine or ten months in, the reports look busy and the enquiry line has not moved. The partnership wants to know whether to switch companies, and switching is the most expensive available response to a problem nobody has diagnosed.
There are five things that produce this situation and only one of them is the agency. Establishing which you have takes an afternoon, and it frequently changes the decision.
The five causes, and how to tell them apart
Work through these in order. Each has a distinct signature in data you already hold.
Too early. Competitive practice-area terms take quarters, not weeks. If impressions are climbing and positions are improving from a low base, the engagement may be working exactly as it should.
The wrong searches. Rankings and traffic are up but the terms are informational — definitions, procedures, how-to questions — so the visitors were never going to instruct anybody.
The site. Rankings are decent and visitors arrive, but the pages do not convert: no clear next step, slow on a phone, or nothing specific enough to be believed.
Intake. Enquiries are actually arriving and dying between arrival and callback, which shows up as a healthy channel producing no matters.
The agency. Nothing meaningful has been done: no technical work, thin content, no links worth naming, and reports that recycle last quarter.
The signatures are distinct. Impressions rising with flat clicks points at the wrong searches; clicks rising with flat enquiries points at the site; enquiries rising with flat matters points at intake or at the matters being targeted.
Only the last cause — nothing being done — justifies switching immediately, and it is the least common of the five in our experience of reviewing these engagements.
What switching actually costs
Firms tend to price a switch as the difference between two retainers. The real cost is elsewhere.
Three to four months of momentum while a new company learns your firm, your matters and your site.
The relearning of everything the previous company knew about what had already been tried and failed.
Access transfer, which is straightforward when accounts are in the firm's name and painful when they are not.
Content and technical work that may be paused or reversed by a successor with different opinions.
The risk of switching for a cause that travels with you — a slow site, or an intake process nobody has fixed — and arriving at the same place a year later.
And the partnership's patience, which is finite and will not extend to a third engagement.
The afternoon that settles it
This can be done with data you already have, in a few hours, before any decision is taken.
Pull impressions, clicks and average position for the last twelve months and look at the trend rather than the level.
List the searches actually producing clicks, and mark each as instruction-shaped or informational.
Take the three most-visited practice-area pages and attempt your own enquiry on a phone, from a search.
Count enquiries by month from organic search, and how many became instructed matters.
Ask the agency, in writing, what technical work was completed, which pages were published and which links were acquired, with sources named.
Compare that answer against what was agreed at the outset, using the original brief rather than memory.
Then name the cause explicitly before deciding anything, and put the specific problem to the agency with a quarter to address it.
Switch only if the cause is the agency, or if the response to being told is evasive.
A firm that diagnoses first either fixes the actual problem or switches with a clear specification of what the next company must be better at. A firm that switches blind repeats the engagement, one company later and a year further on.
FAQs
Our SEO is not working — should we switch companies?
Not before diagnosing. Five things produce that situation — it is too early, the wrong searches are being won, the site does not convert, intake is losing the enquiries, or the agency has done nothing — and only the last justifies switching immediately.
How long should SEO take to show results?
Technical work can move impressions within weeks; competitive practice-area terms take quarters. If impressions are climbing and positions are improving from a low base at month nine, the engagement may be working exactly as it should.
How do we tell whether the problem is the site or the agency?
By the signature in your own data. Impressions rising with flat clicks points at the wrong searches being targeted; clicks rising with flat enquiries points at the site not converting; enquiries rising with flat matters points at intake or at which matters are being chased.
What does switching SEO companies really cost?
Three to four months of momentum, the relearning of everything the previous company knew, access transfer, work that may be paused or reversed, and the partnership's finite patience — plus the risk of switching for a cause that travels with you.
What should we ask our current agency?
In writing: what technical work was completed, which pages were published, and which links were acquired with the sources named. Compare the answer against the original brief rather than against your memory of what was promised.
End Note
Switching companies is the response that feels decisive and most often changes nothing, because the cause frequently travels with the firm rather than sitting with the supplier.
Spend the afternoon on your own data, name the cause, put it to the agency with a quarter to answer it, and switch only if the answer is nothing was done — or if there is no answer at all.
Key Takeaways
Five causes produce a stalled engagement; only one is the agency.
Impressions up, clicks flat means the wrong searches are being won.
Clicks up, enquiries flat means the site, not the search work.
Switching costs three to four months of momentum before anything improves.
Name the cause, give a quarter to fix it, then switch only if it is the agency.
