How long to give an SEO ?

I have been working with an SEO for some months now and was wondering how long to give him or even find out how well he was even doing before seeking a more aggressive service. Dont get me wrong, I really like the guy and his rates are very reasonable .... and there has been an increase in business to an extent but the physical SE results are confusing. My question is, how long do/should I give him before I move to the next step which is finding a new SEO ? or should I wait for a certain update ? who knows ... is there even a time frame or determining factor ?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Inertia1

A question for you..... Are you signed up for a budget that is competitive or are you spitting on the fire? SEO can be done at a variety of levels. You say his rates are reasonable... maybe you should pay him 2x for a bigger attack.

For myself (I only work on my own sites and know them and the competition well)..... I have some attacks that build to great rankings in just a few months but some that I have been puttering at for a couple of years. The slow ones are moving up gradually but if they are not busting down the door at #1 then who should I blame?

Well as an SEO consultant I say....keep paying him forever. That is what I want my customers to do! Just kidding! LOL! Egol's points are to the mark as usual.

For me it depends on the competitiveness of the phrases you are targeting and the competition you face for those terms. Every situation is different and each SEO firms capabilities might be somewhat different as well as their fees. If you are using someone who is affordable but you aren't seeing a significant increase in your Google rankings then you might have to hire a bigger gun instead of paying them more.

If the physical results are confusing then you have a problem. The results should be something like.......your Google rankings are x position, x position and x position when you started and they are now, x higher position, x higher position and x higher position. You started with x amount of backlinks and you have x increase each month. Seems pretty specific to me.

Follow up to first comments. I took a look at your site and the on page SEO is o.k. but most of your links come from this website:

http://limos.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/7886063332/m/9541002893

One of the primary influencers in your Google rankings is getting links from related web sites using "anchor text" that describe your product or service. In your case the primary phrase other sites are using to link to your site is:

Phoenix Airport Limo.

The physical evidence you should be seeking is how many additional links are coming into your site from other related sites and how is that impacting your rankings. There are a lot of other related phrases you could and should be targeting.

You can take a look at the links you have by going here:

http://www.backlinkwatch.com

Try your top competitors and see how many links they have and where they are coming from. Then you will have a target to shoot for. If you want to get a feel for some of the other related terms for your business go here:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Keep in mind, getting links will help but quality, quantity and the length of time the links are in place are the primary factors for increasing your Google rankings over time. So if your SEO hasn't told you this already then.....sorry they aren't very experienced and it would be time to move on.

The issue is that you can not put a time cap on SEO, it is an on going never ending battle and strategy.

Now, that being said you should expect to see some change / results from your SEO's work within approx 3-4 months.

If that time has been surpassed and you see no changes or benefit to their work, then it would be time to seek another firm or consultant.

You might also want to look into the original agreement you had with the SEO. If you are only looking to increase ranking with a couple keywords, you'll need to make certain that your SEO is working on link building for those phrases.

There's a lot of different things that an SEO can do for you. Make sure that you know what you want first. Ranking #1 for keywords is great, but how much quality traffic are you going to get for those keywords? Sometimes building traffic from other sources can bring in more sales. You may want to think about talking to your SEO about increasing quality customers rather than just getting to #1 for certain terms.