Steer Away From   Page 1 SEO Ranking Guarantees

Written by Michael Jones, Senior SEO Specialist

 

After working in the SEO industry for the last 10 years, I have personally experienced many industry changes over this time; from the rise and fall of major search engines, witnessing questionable SEO tactics of the early 2000s, and sequentially the many updates the search engines have made to their ranking algorithms to combat the influx of spam.

As the SEO industry has changed and evolved over this time, unfortunately there have been a large number of companies who saw the niche and jumped on the SEO bandwagon, but not necessarily armed with the experience and true understanding & wealth of SEO.

As far back as September 2007 (possibly earlier), there was an article written by one of the most popular and respected International SEO strategists, who stated that guaranteed page 1 rankings claims are nothing but "a slimy catchphrase to lure in gullible buyers with too-good-to-be-true promises".

Now 4 years down the track, regrettably there are a large number of SEO companies in Australia that are preying on the inexperienced business owner and are still using "guaranteed rankings" and number-based keyword packages as a sales trick to sign businesses up to lengthy and costly contracts.

Here are the major reasons that I recommend you steer away from companies that offer these keyword based SEO packages and that guarantee page 1 ranking positions.

Rankings are a Poor Metric for Overall SEO Campaign Performance
Rankings simply do not equal traffic! Even having a listing on the first page of the search engines means very little if your ranking position is below the fold of the page (as close to 70% of people click on the top 4 results). A great SEO campaign should be measured by the increase in search engine traffic and the rate at which that traffic performs. (Achieving search engine rankings simply is a means to an end, NOT the end itself!)

Keyword based SEO packages are deceitful and simply limit the overall potential of a SEO campaign / website
Keyword packages are quite deceptive and are not in a company's best interest. In essence, if you choose a 10 keyword SEO package, that is the exact maximum amount of work / scope that will be undertaken on your website, which in reality could translate to a small amount of work at the beginning of the campaign.

Also, if there is additional keywords which you want be added / emphasised, you can be charged a higher monthly fee for keywords which could be ranked with little additional onsite work / link building. (i.e. Doubling the amount of keywords in your SEO campaign does not equal a doubling in the amount of work that needs to be undertaken.)

Guaranteed Top 10 Positions
As the SEO goals are simply set out by the number of top 10 positions, the SEO companies themselves will be gauging their own performance on this particular metric. If they have achieved their "guarantee" amount, regardless if you have seen an improvement in search engine traffic / website conversions, contractually they have met their obligation and you will have to pay on a monthly basis for the remainder of the contract, even if you are not seeing any results.

Initial Long Term Contracts
Simply, if your SEO company is providing measurable improvement in search engine traffic / website conversions, provides transparent communication, clear SEO expertise and is looking after your best interests, naturally a long term partnership will develop and the SEO company will be a critical part of your company's online presence.

 

Now that you know what to look out for, here is a short list of questions that you should be asking your prospective SEO Company: (sourced from Google themselves)

- Can you provide examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
- Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
- What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
- What's your experience in my industry?
- What are your most important SEO techniques?
- How long have you been in business?
- How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

 

Now equipped with this knowledge, I hope you have a better understanding of how to avoid a very long and costly SEO campaign, and how to ensure you select the most ethical and experienced SEO company to improve traffic and sales for your business.