It is a clawback, but if you think about it how in another way...
The client pays a premium, they have life cover. They are getting the product straight away. Just because they havnt made a claim does not mean they have not had the product. If i give bad advice they are covered by me, my insurance company and the FSCS.
SEO is different, if someone says they can get you to page 1 and they havnt, why shouldnt they pay the fees back? You havnt delivered.
I would only use an SEO that is prepared to say what they can deliver.
The SEO should then be stating what theyre confident of getting. If theyre not prepared to put their money where their mouth is then why say it?
The client pays a premium, they have life cover. They are getting the product straight away. Just because they havnt made a claim does not mean they have not had the product. If i give bad advice they are covered by me, my insurance company and the FSCS.
SEO is different, if someone says they can get you to page 1 and they havnt, why shouldnt they pay the fees back? You havnt delivered.
I would only use an SEO that is prepared to say what they can deliver.
The SEO should then be stating what theyre confident of getting. If theyre not prepared to put their money where their mouth is then why say it?
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IMO, this is the crux of the matter: what is the SEO leading the client to expect?
"Hire me and you'll get the rankings"?
Or "Hire me and I'll try to get you the rankings, but I might fail"?
Steve
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I suppose ive gone around the houses but that is my argument.
If you give an indication, back it up.
If you just charge a set fee to improve rankings (more generic) then you probably dont need to.
If you give an indication, back it up.
If you just charge a set fee to improve rankings (more generic) then you probably dont need to.
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Wise.
Sadly many deluded website owners are prepared to listen to the less scrupulous suppliers because they actually believe their zero effort website can (should) rank highly.
d
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If you have it in writing, then the small claims court should give you your money back. Likely a lot easier, cheaper and quicker than getting compensation through Financial Services compensation scheme IMHO.
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JohnnyCash
Small claims will get you nowhere if it turns out you were dealing with a Banglore call centre or a British teenager in his mums spare bedroom.
Even outside of those 2 pain in the ass groups, an seo is only ever a £7 domain away from being a brand new seo expert so when the complaints/refunds get too much they could always just start again...
Even outside of those 2 pain in the ass groups, an seo is only ever a £7 domain away from being a brand new seo expert so when the complaints/refunds get too much they could always just start again...
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But then the same applies if you bought your insurance from an offshore outfit or a teenager operating out of bedroom
Some common sense and due diligence is needed...
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JohnnyCash
But then the same applies if you bought your insurance from an offshore outfit or a teenager operating out of bedroom
I know (or at least I hope!) that you're joking there
My point is anyone can buy a domain name, install a theme on Wordpress, maybe buy a few badges/awards and they (appear to be) an instant, credible seo expert. You can't do that in insurance, law, banking and so on. So in SEO you're far more likely to get ripped off.Its easy for me or you to do due diligence on an seo company. What about the plumber or the electrician who knows how to fit boilers but can barely use a computer. How is he meant to navigate this mess? Look at how many companies are using topseos badges and awards as "proof" of how great they are. Then when you dig a bit deeper you find the scams and complaints. I won't name any company in particular as don't want to take this thread off topic or have my post edited, but I'm sure we all know of at least one doing that.
And when these companies are going out their way to bury the bad results in the search results, and using fake testimonials at every opportunity, how is the little guy going to tell the good from the bad?
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You are naive. There are rip off merchants in every industry. Why do you think the Banks almost collapsed and need bailout by taxpayers? Do you think they were acting with total integrity?
Why do you think the FSA is needed? Or laws such as s140a Consumer Credit Act?It shouldn't be too difficult to:
1. Ensure you know the physical location of the business.
2. Ensure you have a written agreement or proposal defining the work to be done.
3. Ensure you have a written definition of what is considered a success and the consequences of failing to meet that criteria.
What amazes me is how many so called business men/women will hand over thousands to a stranger with nothing in writing or without reading what's in writing...
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JohnnyCash
You are naive. There are rip off merchants in every industry. Why do you think the Banks almost collapsed and need bailout by taxpayers? Do you think they were acting with total integrity?
I'm not naive about it at all. Outside of an outright criminal act, you can't just decide to be a bank or an insurance company one day - you can do that with seo if you want. Perfectly legal, even although you don't even know what "seo" stands for. I realise there is ripoff merchants in every industry, but if you get stung in seo there is far less likely to be any recourse available to you than most other industries. Its also far far more likely to happen in the first place.
All the topseos scammers have their physical locations listed - they would all pass this test.
The agreements are extremely vague and written to heavily favour the scam companies. Again because of the way they've set themselves up (fake awards and so on) you think you're dealing with someone reputable so don't check into this deeply - you think you're in good hands.
Again people are getting ripped off and took advantage of due to a combination of them not knowing any better & thinking they are dealing with a reputable business.
Same as above.
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I have recently been dealing with the fallout and an investigation into a company who has been charging £300 plus a month for SEO. It looks like all they have done is put analytics on the side.
It would be lovely to have a governing body for SEO / Web Design but I don't think it will ever happen, it certainly would maybe clean the industry up a bit.
It would be lovely to have a governing body for SEO / Web Design but I don't think it will ever happen, it certainly would maybe clean the industry up a bit.
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People talk glibly about governing bodies and how SEO and web design should have one. With few exceptions most professions governing bodies attract only a few of the people who practice in that profession and few if any governing bodies exercise global control.
This isn't a web or SEO problem it's widespread across many if not most professions and there's no fix. For goodness sake we call people who fix washing machines engineers in this country, most of them couldn't spell it!
d
This isn't a web or SEO problem it's widespread across many if not most professions and there's no fix. For goodness sake we call people who fix washing machines engineers in this country, most of them couldn't spell it!
d
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realmaverick
Companies shouldn't make claims they cannot guarantee. When it comes to SEO, nothing can be guaranteed, similar with heart surgery. I guess the SEO could offer a guarantee in advance, that promises x,y and z and should they fail, they'll not charge for their services.
Biggest issue with SEO, is that 95% of those charging for services, don't really know what they're doing. They hear that more links equal higher ranks and think they know enough to start charging companies for their "services".
Biggest issue with SEO, is that 95% of those charging for services, don't really know what they're doing. They hear that more links equal higher ranks and think they know enough to start charging companies for their "services".
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That's a joke, right, 95%? Globally?
That has to be the most stupid statement in this thread.
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S-Marketing
So very true. My dad (a fully skilled precision engineer for most of his working life) cant bring himself to ask Sky, BT or any other service provider to send out an 'engineer' to fiddle around with a couple of cables to get the tv or phone working again.
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realmaverick
Do you have any idea just how many "SEO's" there are. They're everywhere, they plague every website I use, business related or not. Only about 5% of those I see and talk with, actually know what they're doing. At least in my eyes.
I own a large website and get several emails every single day, offering so called SEO services. Randomly I'll question them, on what they propose and they hardly ever have a solid strategy.
What makes you believe that more than 5% of people selling SEO services, really know what they're doing?
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ScottB
TBH I don't think that number is too far off. I know one large SEO agency that boasts 200+ employees only actually has a couple of experienced SEOs - the 20-40 or so that deal with dishing out SEO advice do so pretty badly.
I've also just spent most of this week fixing the "SEO work" of some low cost supplier that only did keyword research and tweaked title tags (badly may I add) - there was at no point any discussion about the tech issues the sites were facing. This was sold as "SEO".
During my time working for the aforementioned large agency (years ago now), about half my clients in the space of a year were on their 2/3/4th SEO provider and go nowhere with the rest.
The industry is plagued with the "SEO is easy" crowrd who after "optimising" a small website or blog decide to pack in their day job and start offering consultancy services with no real understanding of how SEO works.
For every decent SEO there's probably 3 or 4 who are a) new to SEO within the past year, b) only have a basic understanding of SEO or c) employ quick fix spam techniques.
In fact I'd go as far as to say in 10 years from SEO, I've probably made more money from fixing other people's work than providing SEO first time for a client.
I've also just spent most of this week fixing the "SEO work" of some low cost supplier that only did keyword research and tweaked title tags (badly may I add) - there was at no point any discussion about the tech issues the sites were facing. This was sold as "SEO".
During my time working for the aforementioned large agency (years ago now), about half my clients in the space of a year were on their 2/3/4th SEO provider and go nowhere with the rest.
The industry is plagued with the "SEO is easy" crowrd who after "optimising" a small website or blog decide to pack in their day job and start offering consultancy services with no real understanding of how SEO works.
For every decent SEO there's probably 3 or 4 who are a) new to SEO within the past year, b) only have a basic understanding of SEO or c) employ quick fix spam techniques.
In fact I'd go as far as to say in 10 years from SEO, I've probably made more money from fixing other people's work than providing SEO first time for a client.
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I didn't start the figure quoting, I'll throw that back to you to quantify.
Yeah sure I get emails too, but I speak to excellent SEO's on this site and no way does 95% not know what they are talking about. I get a lot of help and quality support and answers from this forum.
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S
S-Marketing
The other 95% keep quiet!
They dont, its the 95 % who are usually making all the noise.
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Half the seo people ask basic questions and have never tested things but they must be right as seomoz or matt cutts said do in 1997!
I listen to advice people who are getting results have to give, not when people think they can charge for seo but dont know how to ftp or change meta tags but just argue using old articles as ammo!
There are also the "buy seo from me" people who ask the most simple questions and just make them selves look silly!
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We had someone ring us last week, saying they could set up and run a twitter and Facebook page for us and set us up a Google places page for......wait for it ...only £175.00
When I told the lady we already had all of this, and anyone can set it up for free, the phone was put down.
I'm sure a lot of people who do SEO are honest, but seems to be loads of people out to just take the money and run.
We have done most of the work on our website ourself, but we have spent loads of time trying to get our name out, in other ways, and have had some really great results.
When I told the lady we already had all of this, and anyone can set it up for free, the phone was put down.
I'm sure a lot of people who do SEO are honest, but seems to be loads of people out to just take the money and run.
We have done most of the work on our website ourself, but we have spent loads of time trying to get our name out, in other ways, and have had some really great results.
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C
Chloe Taylor
Well if you want your website to suffer, just give me a period of 1 month and you will see the ranks of your website dropping out of Google.Com.... Its due to those continuous change of Algo's of Google.
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Its a ukulele not a banjo.
And I just seen a pink elephant fly past me window playing a banjo.
Earl
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