Crunchy Data Note: The following post was written by Crystal of SavvyPracticality, who writes an awesome DIY-in-the-country blog. Not many people can skin a deer AND hang an SEO scam artist out to dry, but Crystal can! Even if you’re not into DIY, her blog will keep you entertained for weeks, so stop by, say hello, and ask her how many people can fit under one mattress when a tornado hits town. She will have an answer for that, too.
Anyone who has been online longer than a minute knows that effective SEO (search engine optimization) is the key to their online success. Whether you’re building an online business or advertising your brick-and-mortar establishment, SEO is how your customers will find you. Without applying SEO strategies, the best website will never be seen and you won’t earn a dime.
SEO management firms aren’t all equal. Some will lead you on with false claims of security and “proof” that means very little if you can’t duplicate it.
Can you spot the difference between the truth and a lie? Every business relationship should start with honesty. You’ll keep the firm you work with honest by understanding the basics of SEO, knowing what you’re paying for, and knowing how to spot a fake “progress report” from a real one.
What to watch for: Honest SEO companies will document the work they did and share it with you, but scammers will simply say, “You’re on page one of Google, so obviously you’re getting what you paid for.” And you’ll never get an actual statement of work completed that you can verify for yourself.
SEO LIE #1: “Get Top Ranking, Page One Results We Guarantee It”
If your search engine optimization firm guarantees page one Google results, buyer beware. I can’t rank you on page one for relevant search terms that will help search engines link YOUR customers with your business without knowing who you are, and scammers can’t either. To make a blanket statement like that on a sales page is dishonest. The reason scam SEO companies make wild promises is because these firms scumbags know that you don’t know how to check their work.
They can send you a monthly screenshot showing you on the firstpage of a Google search result and you’ll continue thinking they’re good, when that rank is likely doing nothing at all to help your business. Let me show you what I mean…
*Type the term “Lighting” without the quotations, into a Google Search and over 1.7 billion sites are returned for that keyword search term.
*Open the Google Keyword Tool and use the same term. Those green bars you see indicate the market saturation for any given keyword term. The numbers to the right tell you how many times that keyword term was searched for in a month.
If you own a company that specializes in lighting, what would be the most relevant term to rank #1 in Google Search for? Ranking for “Lighting” which gets over 20.4 million searches a month with a new site would be impossible, but ranking you for “some sucky lighting” would be easy. To prove my point, I’m going to purposely rank for that keyword term here on CrunchyData. The post went live in the wee hours of Monday, September 5th .
The SEO management firm you work with should be able to display proof of your ranking for the agreed-upon keywords. The keywords should be relevant to your business and have enough searches to drive targeted traffic to your site. If an SEO company fails to meet any of these requirements, or balks when you ask for the proof, walk away. When the company provides you with proof, you should be able to verify it.
Verification means that you can type in the keyword term and come up first. As a diligent business owner, it’s imperative that you check for results. You should never, ever accept a screenshot or a company’s software logs as proof. This is what can happen if you do:
The above screenshot isn’t proof of anything, but it is a ploy used by scumbags to make you think it is. Don’t be fooled, be diligent in weeding out bad business, and stay Crunchy!
P.S. If your rotten SEO company tells you it can take months to rank for a set of keywords or be found in search tell them I did it in 45 minutes.
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