I was speaking with a potential client the other day who is currently using another company's service for their web development and SEO. Over the course of the last 6 months of this year they have seen a steady decline in traffic and inquiries/sales on their website, and for no apparent reason. For confidentiality of both the company and the friend I will not be linking to either website. When they ask their SEO/Web company what's going on and how they can fix it, the answer they keep getting is "well it's the economy, fewer people are searching for your products."

How can they justify what they are saying?

The company noted above happens to be in an industry that services some of the areas of the marketplace that have been doing well and in most cases growing during this economic down turn (recession for those who aren't afraid to say it!). So how is it that the SEO/Web company can use the excuse of the economy? Growing and stable industries, from my experience, tend to see steady if not increased traffic during any economic time. Sure there may be short spurts of decreased interest/traffic, but months on end?

It seems to me that the SEO company has run out of "ideas" on how to bring traffic to the site. This particular site is rather large for a medium size company and my feeling is that they rode the initial "Google Loves All This New Content" wave as far as it could go and are now stuck with a lack of things to do. But what is a company to do when this happens, and they aren't completely sure if the economy really isn't the issue?

My 2 cents on what to do:

My personal thought would be to get a 2nd, 3rd, and possibly 4th opinion. This doesn't necessarily mean getting quotes for entirely new SEO from other companies, but perhaps paying a consultant or two to do an overview document of what they feel is "wrong" with the site and where they could take it. It might cost a little money, but in the end you'll have a document that can give you several things. 1) It now gives you data to go back to your original SEO company and say "well why aren't we doing this, or that?". 2) It gives you things you might be able to do on your own, such as starting some social media efforts, etc. 3) It could give you a few new possibilities on where you can go for a fresh start with your SEO. A good consultant should be able to do this with little time from you, except for at the start to get some background details on the site and goals.

Keeping your head in the game:

I think one of the most important things that needs to be learned here though is that as a company no matter how big or small, you need to keep your head in the game. You can't just trust that things are going well, only to one day figure out your traffic has dropped off remarkably. You may not know exactly what the SEO company is doing to help your site, but you can tell if the numbers in the traffic report are getting larger, smaller or staying the same.You should also be able to see if inquires or sales from the website are decreasing or declining.