Hi Daniel,
I have had much the same experience as you though not the same amount of patience. I have used about six different SEO companies at various ends of the pricing spectrum and have ended up terminating their services of all except one due to this same lack of transparency. Normally I give them around 4 months to make a tangible difference to my business.
My business which is basically a man with van service whereby I offer removals and deliveries has grown 5-6 times over the last three years during a time when the removals business itself has been languishing at around 33% below it's long term average and 66% off it's peak in 2007/08. I put this down pretty much entirely to the extra traffic that the internet brings to my business. It's a shame that it is so tricky to find that perfect SEO company as from my own research I probably have only around 14% coverage at the moment on Google and so there is a lot more upside potential in my own business.
The only ideas I have for you would if you have the budget then taking control of your entire SEO and other internet marketing inhouse. If you employed someone you would have far more control over what they do for you, they would probably do far more than an SEO consultant would do (I am convinced that some SEO's literally just do a very basic link building campaign and then take the ongoing payments without doing anything else. the other benifit is that you could even market your inhouse SEO services and the employee could then make a small profit for your business on top of providing your SEO services free of charge.
My only SEO recommendation out of the six I used would be to have a look at Gareth Mailer of Clickwork Media. This man will spend as much time as you need to go over everything relating to your website and it's SEO. He is a very honest and straight talking chap and will attempt to de-mystify the whole process. He was and still is the only SEO to get me to No 1 in Bristol for my chosen keyword "man with van". He does not tend to hang out on UK business forum to my knowledge but you can normally find him putting it about on 4networking.
I have had much the same experience as you though not the same amount of patience. I have used about six different SEO companies at various ends of the pricing spectrum and have ended up terminating their services of all except one due to this same lack of transparency. Normally I give them around 4 months to make a tangible difference to my business.
My business which is basically a man with van service whereby I offer removals and deliveries has grown 5-6 times over the last three years during a time when the removals business itself has been languishing at around 33% below it's long term average and 66% off it's peak in 2007/08. I put this down pretty much entirely to the extra traffic that the internet brings to my business. It's a shame that it is so tricky to find that perfect SEO company as from my own research I probably have only around 14% coverage at the moment on Google and so there is a lot more upside potential in my own business.
The only ideas I have for you would if you have the budget then taking control of your entire SEO and other internet marketing inhouse. If you employed someone you would have far more control over what they do for you, they would probably do far more than an SEO consultant would do (I am convinced that some SEO's literally just do a very basic link building campaign and then take the ongoing payments without doing anything else. the other benifit is that you could even market your inhouse SEO services and the employee could then make a small profit for your business on top of providing your SEO services free of charge.
My only SEO recommendation out of the six I used would be to have a look at Gareth Mailer of Clickwork Media. This man will spend as much time as you need to go over everything relating to your website and it's SEO. He is a very honest and straight talking chap and will attempt to de-mystify the whole process. He was and still is the only SEO to get me to No 1 in Bristol for my chosen keyword "man with van". He does not tend to hang out on UK business forum to my knowledge but you can normally find him putting it about on 4networking.
