Firstly it is important to say that you should build a relationship with your SEO company so that you feel confident with them. You need to know that they understand your business and what you want to achieve with your business and website. There are some things that you can measure and below is a list of things you should be looking at:

1. Search Engine Rankings

Clearly one of the main objectives is to get higher search engines rankings but there are a lot of things to consider here. Firstly it is important to know that no company can guarantee you top rankings as no one has control over the search engines and how they rank your website.

The second thing to think about is what you are getting top rankings for as there are top rankings and top rankings. What we mean by this is that some keywords might be relatively easy to get to the top for but are they right for you, will they bring the right people and enough people? Always go through the chosen keywords with your SEO company and discuss the search volume for them so that you know how many people you are likely to be targeting.

It is important to note that if you should wait at least 90 days to see any real results from your SEO efforts and in some cases where keywords are competitive up to a year. It is a slow process but your SEO company should be monitoring your positions and you should see improvements on a regular basis. It is also worth knowing that search engine rankings can be erratic and can move up and down on a regular basis. A good SEO company will be aware of this and will be able to act quickly if the movements are in the wrong direction.

2. Increased Traffic

The aim of any SEO campaign should be to bring more people to your website and so increase your traffic. You should have things all set up to be able to monitor how many people that are coming to your website and be able to see increases.

Remember that if your business is in a niche area then your increases will be less significant than a company in a more competitive area. However if you are in a competitive field you may have to wait longer to see those increases in traffic as you compete against a lot more companies.

3. Increased Conversions

This is basically the percentage of your visitors that you convert into sales. It is important to say that your SEO company has very little control over you as they are not running your business. A good SEO company should be able to give you advice and tips on ways to improve conversions but this will need your input and you will need to follow their advice.

4. Return on investment

This should be something that you measure for every form of advertising that you have. This will be determined but the increased traffic that you get and your conversion rate. The important thing to remember with SEO is that it might take some time before you see the results and as with your search engine rankings you should wait at least 90 days before you see the fruits of your labour. It is important not to be impatient and pull out before you get the real benefits of your campaign.

The above are the 4 main things you should be looking for from your SEO campaign, however it is important to talk to your SEO company. If there is anything you are not happy with talk to them and find out from them what they think you can expect.