Here are 3 signs that it’s time to look for greener pastures:

You’re constantly chasing them down.

I take pride in my customer service and do my best to get back to my SEO and consulting clients as quickly as possible. I think that customer service is an important component of the SEO client-provider relationship, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. As an SEO client, you deserve to work with a nice company! Your SEO partner should actually be your partner and you shouldn’t have to spend two weeks, a dozen emails, five phone calls and a smoke signal to get a hold of someone when you have a question. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Some SEO companies might be afraid that if they give too much of their process away, a client might decide they don’t really need that SEO company and will leave. While I understand the reason behind the fear, (who will buy the cow when the milk is free?) your SEO provider should not be hesitant to explain their SEO method and process. A good SEO firm is going to understand that having an involved and educated client is going to make for a much stronger partnership and effective SEO campaign in the long run.

A good SEO campaign relies on the client as much as it does the SEO firm! You understand your business better than anyone else, and while a good SEO provider will take the time to learn your business, you need to provide an outline for them to work with. How will they get that direction from you if they aren’t willing to explain what they are doing or why they need your input?

You’re not seeing results.

I’m not trying to say that if you aren’t seeing the results you wanted inside of three months that you should dump your SEO partner. Remember, SEO is an incredibly long term process and depending on your company’s sales cycle, age of site, competition and other factors, it may take 6 months to a year after launching your SEO campaign before you see big results. What I am saying is that you should see a steady upward progression over time. What you don’t want to see when combing through your analytics is huge peaks and valleys with how many visitors your site is getting—this is a good indication that your SEO provider is employing black hat practices. If that is the case, drop them as fast as you can!

After a few months after implementing your link building campaign, a good SEO provider should be able to show you some tangible products from their efforts. What business profiles have they created? How many blog posts have they written and promoted on social networks? Did they send out any online press releases? Even if you aren’t seeing the numbers in your analytics just yet, a good SEO provider should be able to show you exactly what they’ve done for your company.