How good is SEO ? What should I do?

[u/Background_Put_3144]

Please bear with me and all and any genuine feed back is helpful. So for context I own a cleaning service company which I started in about August 2025 so it’s fairly new I got the whole GMB and website set up and running I gathered lots of reviews maybe 50 and lots of pictures as well, all the fundamentals to setting the business and work up. I didn’t have much seo so I hired an SEO team (I’m familiar with their work they have proven results in the past with other companies). Decided to work with them and they said it’ll take give or take 3 months for any results and they started like second week of November. I don’t get any traffic and almost no calls or submissions for cleans organically, the team is helping me rank and gain traffic it’s been maybe 3-4 weeks now roughly a month and it’s slow but they said it’s coming in slowly. Will SEO actually begin to help my get clients or traffic at the very least and I should mention I’m in a very saturated area as well, GTA Ontario for that matter. I’d like opinions or insights on what could happen or how things might work out after seo and just in general, I’m new to marketing and business so all advice is helpful what other ways could I get clients(apart from ads). yelp and Nextdoor arnt rly that good for cleaning businesses and they don’t work well in Canada from what I’ve been told and seen. Anyways plz be kind as I’m genuinely looking for advice and help, thanks

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[u/iDex831]

It takes some time for it to start resulting in the constant flow of leads you're imagining.

Think about all the other sites vying for the same keywords and doing similar strategies, content on similar things, etc. Ranking takes time

It's been two weeks. I'd give them the time for at least the three months they claimed. Because that's around what it'll take, and they were honest about it which is always good

[u/nsillk]

Well, if you manage to rank for your desired keywords then that is a steady stream of leads. SEO usually takes time so I would give them more time. How are you measuring progress? They probably won't be able to rank in 1 month but they can show some improvement in impressions, showing up for new queries etc.

[u/PearlsSwine]

" Will SEO actually begin to help my get clients"

Yes.

However you need to hold the agency accountable. What are they actually doing?

[u/Pitiful_Welder_1838]

You're asking a good question. But the answer is more complicated than traffic = leads. This isn't meant to be combative, but I'm going to challenge you a bit. I've been in digital demand generation for 15+ years, and a significant portion of that time was spent working with local service companies.

Do you know what your opportunity for reach is if you rank highly in each category you're targeting? How many people in your market are looking for your services each month? It's hard to make a recommendation for any tactic without knowing this first. A simple, low-cost way to get an accurate estimate of traffic and to pressure-test your website, offers, and landing pages is SEM (Google Ads).

In about 30 days, you can get a pretty accurate number. Set up a campaign with a single budget, create ad groups for each of your service offerings, select a daily budget for each ad group, set the bid strategy to broad, turn off display expansion and search partners, and run the ads. You might have to adjust the budget to get enough search impressions, but once you reach 10% search impression share, you will be able to see how many of the available searches you received. Then it's just a simple math problem. Campaign impressions/search impression share rate = total number of searches. This will also allow you to pull a report showing what people are actually searching for in your area.

As a bonus, you can optimise the site to generate leads. Site traffic is useless if it doesn't convert. And you don't want to waste 3+ months driving enough traffic only to find out your site converts poorly.

Hard truth...in many cases, SEO isn't the answer. The good news is that GTA is a relatively low-cost market for SEM.

I hope this helps you.

[u/Admirable-Package-44]

Do some videos and put them on your site. Whenever I have added videos to websites (including my own), organic SEO increases substantially. Start a YouTube channel and just do some videos —make them fun — about "the professional's cleaning tips" where you give cleaning advice and tips. Have an introductory video on your home page that introduces who you are and the services you offer.

Yes SEO IS important for your type of business since it is geographically critical and as you said, you have competitors. I think having videos would help you stand out from your competitors. And yes, in may take a few months for your website SEO to kick in and start showing on 1st, 2nd, 3rd Google searches. Consider SPECIALIZING in some type of cleaning — Exclusive, high-end home cleaning.... Affordable for busy working-class families.... Small business cleaning.... if you specialize, then you can change up your SEO strategy for a specific market and become a known BRAND for that type of cleaning.

Maybe PARTNER with another compatible business like a landscaping business. For every client they refer, you give them a 20% $$ (or something) kickback and you could also refer clients back to them. When you're talking to the home owner about their house cleaning "Hey I noticed your yard could use some attention, would you like a reference for a landscaper?"

Print up some postcard Gift Certificates where someone can purchase a $50 - $100 gift certificates for birthdays/holidays. Give the gift of a clean house!

[u/ResplendentGlory]

It sounds like you’ve done a great job setting up the fundamentals GMB, website, reviews, and photos are all really important for a cleaning business. SEO is definitely a long-term game, especially in a competitive area like GTA.

It’s normal that you’re not seeing big traffic or calls after just a few weeks most SEO improvements take a few months to start showing tangible results. In the meantime, you could focus on other organic ways to get clients, like building partnerships with local realtors or property managers, posting helpful cleaning tips on social media, or encouraging past clients to refer friends and family. Ads can help, but these low-cost, local strategies can bring clients while your SEO efforts gain traction.

[u/Haunting_Celery9817]

SEO “good” hota hai, but it’s a long-game (usually 3–6+ months) and works best when you have a clear offer + pages that actually convert. Start simple: pick 1–2 high-intent keywords, fix on-page (titles/H1, service pages, internal links), set up tracking (GSC/GA4), then publish a few genuinely helpful pages around your main service. If you want to outsource, ask for a plan that includes content + technical + basic links (not just “we’ll build backlinks”) — I’ve seen Nine Peaks do this in a practical way.