Is Your SEO Company Truly Earning Its Keep? A Candid Examination

Recently, I embarked on an exciting journey to modernize five websites for a client, transitioning them from WordPress to a more robust JavaScript framework. The main goal? To significantly enhance their site performance and ultimately improve their SEO rankings.

However, a concerning detail has come to my attention: the company is investing thousands of dollars each month—per site—into an SEO firm with the hope of boosting their online presence. While this might sound promising, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off.

Upon reviewing communication from the seo firm, the claims of ‘optimized on-page content’ and ‘ongoing improvements in search rankings’ raised my eyebrows. As the sole individual with access to the GitHub repository, I can confirm that there hasn’t been any intervention on the actual codebase, nor have they established any authoritative backlinks in over a year.

As I delve deeper into seo practices, I’ve identified numerous foundational errors: poor keyword targeting, lack of or incorrect schema markup, and minimal effort to earn rich snippets, to name a few.

My boss, who has been incredibly supportive throughout this process, is understandably concerned. He’s considering bringing me on board to manage seo efforts directly, yet he’s hesitant to sever ties with the current firm for fear of losing the rankings they’ve allegedly attained.

This leaves me pondering: Is there a ‘secret sauce’ that this SEO company is leveraging? Are they utilizing unorthodox software or methods that don’t involve direct code access, backlink acquisition, or genuine content creation—everything that I am now actively addressing?

I’m reaching out to the community for insight. Have you encountered similar situations? How can an SEO company justify its fees without performing fundamental tasks that truly affect rankings? Any advice would be immensely appreciated. Thank you!