Summary:
- Many SEO agencies overpromise but underdeliver on monthly work
- Foundational tasks like content updates and backlink checks should happen regularly
- SEO should support real business goals, not just boost search metrics
- Transparent reporting and proactive communication are signs of a strong agency
Introduction
We’re seeing the digital marketing industry take off in the last decade, with many Melbourne businesses working with agencies to outsource their SEO work. If you are working with a marketing agency or consultant, you should never be left guessing what they’re doing each month. But too often, that’s precisely what happens. You get a report filled with numbers, maybe a few graphs, and some vague commentary about “steady progress.” Meanwhile, your phone isn’t ringing any more than it was last month, and you’re wondering where your money’s going.
The reality is that the work of a good SEO agency is rarely flashy, but it should be visible in the form of measurable, incremental gains over time. And more importantly, it should align with your actual business goals, not just look good in a report. If your agency can’t explain what’s being done and why it matters, they’re not doing enough.
Monthly SEO work should be active, strategic, and tailored to what your market is currently doing. Whether you’re running a local business or managing a national brand, you deserve to know exactly what your investment is funding and how it’s driving results. Let’s explore this further.
Where Most Agencies Drop the Ball
You’re not alone if you’ve ever felt underwhelmed by your agency’s monthly updates. It’s incredibly common to see businesses with horror stories about SEO companies in particular, with many people feeling like they have been burned or taken for a ride. Many agencies rely on auto-generated reports that look impressive at first glance but say very little when you read between the lines. A bump in impressions here, a slight drop in bounce rate there — all without context, explanation, or next steps.
The bigger issue is passivity. If your marketing team isn’t bringing ideas to the table each month — new content angles, fresh keyword targets, technical fixes you haven’t considered — then they’re coasting. SEO isn’t a static process. Google’s algorithm changes, competitors tweak their strategies, and your business shifts. Your agency should be able to adjust in real-time and have ideas.
You should also be getting clear answers when results stall. Silence or vague optimism is a red flag. A strong agency won’t wait for you to notice a problem. They’ll flag it early, explain what they’re doing about it, and suggest ways to adapt. If you find yourself constantly chasing them for updates, you’re not getting the partnership you’re paying for.
The Must-Have Monthly SEO Activities
Regardless of your industry, there are baseline tasks that should be completed on a monthly basis. First is a technical review of your site. This doesn’t mean a full audit every time, but your agency should be checking for crawl errors, slow-loading pages, and indexing issues that could hurt rankings.
Content updates are another big one. If your site hasn’t changed in months, that’s a problem. Google values freshness, and your competitors aren’t standing still. Your agency should be improving existing pages, adding internal links, and planning new content based on what’s trending in your space.
Backlinks also need regular attention. If your site’s authority isn’t growing, it’s likely because no one is building or maintaining high-quality links to it. That’s not something you can leave to chance. And finally, keyword strategy should never be set and forget. Your agency should be reviewing what’s working, what’s not, and how to adjust based on shifts in search behaviour or seasonality.
Aligning SEO Work With Business Goals
There’s no doubt that good SEO will drive traffic, but there is more to it than just that. It’s about attracting the right traffic and what that traffic does once it lands on your site. Is it filling out your contact form? Booking a service? Walking into your shop? If your agency can’t connect the dots between their work and your bottom line, then they’re not working strategically.
Every update should tie back to a clear goal. If you’re trying to increase bookings in a particular suburb, for example, your SEO content should reflect that, not just target generic search terms. Likewise, if your revenue depends on a few core products, your agency should focus its efforts on those, rather than spreading itself too thin across pages that don’t drive results.
This is where a good agency begins to feel like an extension of your team. They ask insightful questions, challenge assumptions, and adjust tactics based on the business’s current needs. If instead you’re getting a generic monthly list that looks the same every time, the work probably isn’t tailored, and the results will reflect that.
What Real Transparency Looks Like
A monthly report should do more than tick boxes. It should tell a story. What changed, why it changed, and what happens next. Good reporting doesn’t hide behind jargon. It explains in plain English what was done, what worked, and what needs more attention.
If your agency includes ten hours of “technical SEO” in your retainer but can’t explain how that time was utilised, ask more probing questions. Were they cleaning up the site structure? Fixing crawl errors? Adjusting schema markup for better indexing? Or just running tools and skimming over the output?
You also deserve visibility into things that aren’t working. SEO takes time, and not every change yields a positive result. But your agency should be upfront about that and use the data to inform smarter decisions next month. If all you hear are vague positives and no actual plans, you’re probably being managed, not partnered.
If you’ve made it this far and you’re mentally comparing your reports, that’s a good thing. Most businesses don’t realise how little they’re getting until they start asking more challenging questions. And that’s where the value of a real seo agency becomes obvious.
If your current agency treats you like a recurring invoice rather than a valued client, it may be time to look elsewhere. Because the best SEO work doesn’t just get you seen — it drives the right kind of growth, at the right time, for the right reasons.
