How do you tell real SEO work from busywork?
Busywork is countable and easy to report: a number of blog posts, a number of directory submissions, a number of tweaks. Real work is less countable — fixing what stops pages being indexed, building pages for searches customers actually make, earning reviews. Ask what changed in enquiries, not what was produced.
The test
For any item on a report, ask: what search, by what customer, does this help us appear for?
Real work has an answer. Busywork does not, or the answer is a search nobody makes.
Common busywork
Blog posts on generic topics. "Five tips for spring cleaning" published by a plumbing company. Nobody searching for a plumber reads it, and it ranks for nothing worth ranking for.
Bulk directory submissions. Hundreds of low-quality listings. Once effective, now mostly noise, and each is another place a wrong detail can propagate.
Keyword density edits. Adjusting how often a phrase appears. This has not been how ranking works for a long time.
Meta description rewrites at scale. Worth doing once; not a monthly activity.
Reporting on impressions and rankings for terms with no search volume.
Social posting presented as SEO. It is not, for a local service business.
What real work looks like
Google Business Profile work. Categories, services, service area, photos, answering questions, and the review flow. Unglamorous and the highest-return activity in local SEO.
Service pages that answer buying searches. One page per service, written around what people actually type.
Area pages that say something specific. Not the same page with the city name swapped, which does not work and can hurt.
Technical fixes that matter. Speed on mobile, crawlability, structured data, broken links, duplicate pages competing with each other.
Content answering real questions. What a job costs, how long it takes, what goes wrong, what to check first.
Internal linking so pages support each other.
Consistent business details across the web.
The volume tell
Be cautious of reports emphasising quantity — twenty posts, three hundred citations, forty optimisations. Quantity is easy to produce and easy to bill.
One genuinely good service page that ranks is worth more than twenty blog posts nobody finds. A report full of counts is often a report avoiding outcomes.
The question to ask your provider
"Which of last month's work do you expect to produce enquiries, and roughly when?"
A good provider answers specifically and is comfortable being held to it. A poor one talks about building authority over time without naming anything.
Checking your own
Take last month's report and apply the test to every line. Whatever survives is the work you are actually buying.
If you want a second opinion on a report, call James on 832-338-2926.
Frequently asked questions
How do I test whether SEO work is real?
For each item, ask what search, by what customer, it helps you appear for. Real work has an answer. Busywork does not, or names a search nobody makes.
Are blog posts busywork?
Generic ones are. "Five tips for spring cleaning" from a plumbing company ranks for nothing worth ranking for. Content answering what a job costs or what goes wrong is real work.
What is the highest-return SEO activity for a local business?
Google Business Profile work — categories, services, service area, photos, answered questions and the review flow. Unglamorous, and it outweighs most website work.
What should I ask my provider?
Which of last month's work they expect to produce enquiries, and roughly when. A good provider answers specifically; a poor one talks about building authority without naming anything.