Lies Your SEO Company Told You
More and more people are looking toward SEO companies to help boost their own rankings in the search engines. Now that the vast majority of people use search engines before they make purchases, companies are trusting SEO companies to give them the edge they need in competitive times. Most of the time, their trust is well-placed. Most SEO companies are faithful to their promises and provide legit services that their clients would have spent years learning how to do themselves. But every now and again, SEO companies will make a host of false claims that even the most skilled SEOs could never be held accountable to.
Ranking Guarantees
The most common type of false claim is the infamous SEO company "Ranking Guarantee." SEO Companies may guarantee that you will rank #1 for your keyword, if you give them enough time and money to work on your site. And hey, who doesn't want a #1 ranking, right? Every day, unsuspecting clients look to these over-promising SEO companies to gain them #1 rankings for extremely competitive keywords.
Imagine that you want to rank #1 for the keyword "how to write a resume." You find an SEO company that promises you that they can give you the #1 ranking in 6 months. But of course, they aren't the only such SEO company that gives #1 ranking guarantees. Now let's say that your competitor (also targeting the same phrase as you) finds another SEO company that makes the same promise. Obviously, you can't both be #1! Someone here is going to get disappointed, but it doesn't stop SEO companies from continuing to make the same promise.
Especially for the most competitive keywords, there is just too much competition nowadays for ranking guarantees to have any meaning. An SEO company may tell you, "#1 Ranking or your money back!" That would be fair. But if an SEO company absolutely guarantees that you'll hit #1, take that as a big red flag!
Speedy Rankings
Just as no SEO company can guarantee #1 rankings, it would be equally irresponsible to guarantee quick rankings. This is especially true if you have a brand new site. It is well known that it can take Google up to 3 months to even begin to trust a brand new site, let alone rank it highly.
Take a look at the Google rankings for some of the most competitive keywords, and what you'll find is that most of the Top 10 ranked sites are 3, 5, even 10 years old. Google knows that its searchers of certain keywords are looking for established sites, and is reticent to include brand new sites in their Top 10.
Build it and they will come
Some companies will downplay the importance of links and they'll insist that it's the content of your site that isn't good enough. On top of that, they'll want to overcharge you for web design work to spruce up your site. Don't fall for this trap. Although web design is important, the truth is that most sites are already nice "enough" to bring in plenty of profit. As long as your site is easy to navigate, it doesn't have to be a work of art in order to make great money. And as long as you're properly interlinking your pages and aren't overusing images, videos, and Flash, #1 rankings have little to do with web design. Even poorly-designed sites can rank #1. In fact, it happens all the time (more often than not, even).
When I hear an SEO company tell their clients that "what's missing is great content," I call this the Field of Dreams version of SEO: "Build it and they will come." Here's the thing...they need to find your house before they come through the door!
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