I use real data from real client accounts to show you what's actually happening with SEO, Google Ads, website traffic, and online visibility. No client names, no fluff, just real numbers and what we can learn from them.
I recommend watching the video first, then reviewing the information below. I'll walk you through the data, what I'm seeing, and what it means. You can then use these examples to look at your own Google Analytics data and better understand what's happening with your website traffic.
For this example, I'm looking at a single client, a single traffic channel, and three years of data. We're focusing on organic search, meaning people who found this business through Google or other search engines without clicking on a paid ad.
I'm also looking specifically at April of each year, which gives us a clean apples-to-apples comparison of how organic search traffic has changed over time.
Here's what 3 years of consistent SEO looks like in real numbers:
That trendline on the chart tells the whole story. It goes up. Not in a straight line — there are dips and bumps along the way — but the direction is up every single year. This client started with the basics, stayed consistent, and let it compound. That's it. No tricks. No thousands of backlinks. Just solid foundational SEO done consistently over time.
Now here's where it gets interesting. If you look at the chart, you'll see a drop in early 2026. April 2026 is actually down from where we were a few months prior. And I want to talk about that because it matters.
Google runs what they call core updates — these are broad changes to how Google's algorithm ranks websites. They happen a few times a year; they can affect many sites at once, and they don't always make sense. A site that was doing everything right can take a hit during a core update for reasons that aren't always clear even to people who've been doing this for 15 years.
We believe this client was caught in one of those updates. Wrongly. Her site is solid, her content is relevant, her basics are all in place. This is not a case of something being broken. This is Google doing what Google does sometimes — and the right response is not to panic and start changing everything. The right response is to stay the course, keep doing the work, and let the next update correct it. Which is exactly what we're doing.
Here's what I want you to take from this. Look at April 2023 — 342 sessions. If this client had looked at that number and said “this isn't working, I'm done” she would have walked away from what eventually became 1,576 sessions a month in organic traffic. SEO takes time. If you never get started you're never going to get anywhere. And when you hit a bump — and you will hit bumps — that's not the signal to stop. That's the signal to stay consistent and trust the data over time, not just the data right now.
Pull your own organic search numbers and look at them year over year, not just month to month. Month to month will make you crazy. Year over year tells you if the work is actually paying off. If you don't have 3 years of data yet, that's fine — start now so you will.
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Welcome! My name is Glenneth and I live in beautiful East Tennessee. I wear many hats: CEO of The Visibility Method, SEO & Google Ads Expert, content creator, and more. I love technology, social media, and weight lifting. My favorite place to hang out is the hammock in my backyard. My favorite colors are pink and orange. My favorite team is the Vols. And I LOVE to get email so please drop me a note and say hi!
