Skeptical about SEO? Why?

[neils3]

too busy running their own businesses

I have experience of this too, I actually started off trying to train them to do it themselves, but realised they were just too busy. The education now is not really a training session, it's just about giving them enough information so they are informed of what we will be doing and importantly to set expectations. It does though depend from client to client, some just want us to get on with it, and others have more appetite to know what's going on.

 

[justinaldridge]

Very true. All clients are different. We have a complete open book policy with our clients but many don't really want to get involved whilst others do love to understand what we do and immerse themselves in the whole process.

 

[webgeek]

I'd bet there's a lot of skepticism when companies like @Marek Skoczylas whose website homepage meta description (showing in search results) claims:

Get 500% more CUSTOMERS within next 3 months for 150£ per month!

I'm confident that I can find 10 companies willing to pay £450 in order to receive 5x more customers than they currently do from their SEO activities.

I'm equally confident that this claim is absolute horse***t, meaning there is no way even one of those would get a 500% increase in customer signups within the 30 days. Wonga.com, quickquid.co.uk.... a 500% increase would be worth millions for that measly £450 over 3 months.

When industry representatives make such 'too good to be true' claims, it's no wonder that the public, and ASA for that matter, are skeptical.

 

[Marek Skoczylas]

I'd bet there's a lot of skepticism when companies like @Marek Skoczylas whose website homepage meta description (showing in search results) claims:

Get 500% more CUSTOMERS within next 3 months for 150£ per month!

I'm confident that I can find 10 companies willing to pay £450 in order to receive 5x more customers than they currently do from their SEO activities.

I'm equally confident that this claim is absolute horse***t, meaning there is no way even one of those would get a 500% increase in customer signups within the 30 days. Wonga.com, quickquid.co.uk.... a 500% increase would be worth millions for that measly £450 over 3 months.

When industry representatives make such 'too good to be true' claims, it's no wonder that the public, and ASA for that matter, are skeptical.

Thanks I appreciate it

 

[elad]

I associate people in the SEO business as slippery snakessssSSEO

 

[justinaldridge]

Hisssssssssss

 

[Richard Ashton]

Yep this post has certainly created quite a bit of discussion.

Other than Moz DA , I also prefer other tools, in particular Ahrefs.

If you can crack it in Search, you can have some amazing results, so to your point about not succeeding, I also think this is a big reason for putting people off.

Cheers

The Moz Crawler is absolutely awful!

 

[Richard Ashton]

@neils3 with regards to point 2, we used to offer our clients a free online course for them to learn about SEO....but very few ever bothered to log in and watch the videos. Most are simply too busy running their own businesses and most have little interest in really understanding what stuff like penguin and panda has to do with SEO.

this sounds like such a great resource for clients, its a shame it wasn't used much.

 

[justinaldridge]

this sounds like such a great resource for clients, its a shame it wasn't used much.

I know! We deal with a lot of small businesses and sole traders and and they really just don't have the time to learn it all. As long as they are getting leads and are busy they really don't get involved much in trying to understand how it all works. If they are busy they are happy!

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I admit only read the first page and last so missed a few

Lets face it if he is looking for Dentists in Dover then there is probably only a handful to compete with so all will be on first page for a local search whatever he does regarding SEO

If he is in London then he will need to define a area somehow to get on page one otherwise competing with hundreds of others but normally he would be looking for Dentist in Lamberth or simular

 

[StevePoster]

"Get 500% more CUSTOMERS within next 3 months for 150£ per month!"

The same as " I Guarantee your website number one in the first page of Google "

Its sad because SEO is usually use for this kind of deceiving tactics.

 

[Marek Skoczylas]

"Get 500% more CUSTOMERS within next 3 months for 150£ per month!"

The same as " I Guarantee your website number one in the first page of Google "

Its sad because SEO is usually use for this kind of deceiving tactics.

Here is a much better example of as you call it "deceiving tactic" with guaranteed word included as you mentioned above:

"Carbide site marketing services are guaranteed to improve rankings, increase traffic and ultimately drive conversions." I get it from http://www.carbidemedia.com/

Any SEO can't guarantee anything, just because Google is not SEO's demesne.

 

[Shopclicks]

Any SEO can't guarantee anything, just because Google is not SEO's demesne.

Marek. You probably need to look up the definition of 'Guarantee'.

a formal assurance (typically in writing) that certain conditions will be fulfilled, especially that a product will be repaired or replaced if not of a specified quality.

And then read the example you posted again.

And then of course you know where I read this: I deliver an SEO Service with a Lead Guarantee.

By all means explain the difference.

 

[Digital Resellers]

Great thread, love Fisicx what a character and he is very knowledgable.

It's hard for me not to be bias here, I personally love SEO because it's cost effective and works but that being said just yesterday I had to call up a Dodgy SEO provider who was threatening a client .

I requested proof of this agreement/contract and they sent through Terms and conditions?

Long story short there was no agreement, no signatures they were just trying to take SMBs for a ride.

These disgusting people are the driving factor of mistrust, unpleasant experiences and leave a sour taste in many businesses mouths in the UK.

 

[justinaldridge]

@Digital Resellers looks like this thread is going to get even more interesting now with your guarantee comment in your sig:

"We Guarantee your business on page 1 of Google in 3 months"

I don't know how anyone can guarantee anything where Google is concerned.

 

[Digital Resellers]

I'm just going to chime in here on the Guarantee discussion.

You can offer guarantees like a first page when you understand the Google guidelines and what SEO strategies work for certain industries and countries.

I do not believe you can offer a guarantee for leads as you cannot control if someone picks up the phone to call a business or fill out a form.

 

[justinaldridge]

So you can guarantee that I can be on page 1 for "car insurance" in 3 months, with no restricted budget?

 

[Shopclicks]

"We Guarantee your business on page 1 of Google in 3 months"

I don't know how anyone can guarantee anything where Google is concerned.

Not that difficult if the search term is the name of your business

The term guarantee implies that if you don't deliver what's stated, you either refund or compensate in some way. So you can guarantee almost anything.

 

[Ian J]

These disgusting people are the driving factor of mistrust, unpleasant experiences and leave a sour taste in many businesses mouths in the UK.

The above quote refers to your experience with an SEO company but could your quote not also be applied to almost any other trade or profession

 

[Digital Resellers]

Yes your right justin this thread is interesting.

Before everyone picks up their pitch forks and shovels I think we should really take a granular look at these guarantees as there is always more to them then what we read.

For example my business is around empowering other digital providers and supporting them with white label services and some great offers and guarantees that help agencies close more business.

Now the agencies I support don't just go around throwing away First month free SEO or we guarantee page 1 in 3 months to every businesses. They first establish if they even need to offer this and if they do we will conduct an SEO audit to make sure we can deliver the desired results.

Because at the end with my business I have to make sure two parties are happy the agency and the agencies clients.

 

[Digital Resellers]

Not that difficult if the search term is the name of your business

The term guarantee implies that if you don't deliver what's stated, you either refund or compensate in some way. So you can guarantee almost anything.

We don't include business names in our SEO guarantees as part of the keyword selection that is immoral.
Most business names rank page 1 organically without any SEO work done in a few months.

As I mentioned earlier there are more to guarantees them what you read and each company will be different in how they approach the guarantee.

 

[Shopclicks]

We don't include business names in our SEO guarantees as part of the keyword selection that is immoral.
Most business names rank page 1 organically without any SEO work done in a few months.

As I mentioned earlier there are more to guarantees them what you read and each company will be different in how they approach the guarantee.

So who chooses the keywords you guarantee to put a business on page 1 for? And how do you compensate if you can't do it in 3 months? Or do you decline if it's too competitive?

 

[Digital Resellers]

So you can guarantee that I can be on page 1 for "car insurance" in 3 months, with no restricted budget?

No it's not that simple, for starters that is one keyword and we do not offer 1 keyword packages.
Secondly our Google Page 1 guarantee is only for keyword packages of 20 keywords or more.

To add the keywords must be agreed to by Digital Resellers, the agency and the client.

Again this is just one offer we support out agencies with and to be honest it's up to the agency if they choose to use the guarantee.

Personally I find the agencies I support use our 1 month free offer to get more business and there is no risk or contract with that offer, I find it gives the agencies a month to work with new clients and continual build that relationship before they sign an agreement with that agency.

 

[Digital Resellers]

So who chooses the keywords you guarantee to put a business on page 1 for? And how do you compensate if you can't do it in 3 months? Or do you decline if it's too competitive?

Great question when an agency decides to come on board with Digital resellers we give them sales tools to help close more business because when an agency grows we grow, and one of these is unlimited SEO audits.
Within these SEO audits we uncover what keywords are most valuable to the client and what keywords could deliver the most traffic to that potential clients website.

From this SEO audit we can identify straight away if we are happy to support that agency with a Google 1st page guarantee.

Most of the time we are happy to support the agency with the offer because of the process undertaken prior to proposing the offer to the client.

 

[Shopclicks]

To add the keywords must be agreed to by Digital Resellers, the agency and the client.

So very much like the 'No win, no fee' catchphrase lawyers use in their advertising. They don't take on cases that they know they can't win.

The original question was
Skeptical about SEO? Why?

 

[Digital Resellers]

I feel like I've high jacked this thread lol

 

[Digital Resellers]

So very much like the 'No win, no fee' catchphrase lawyers use in their advertising. They don't take on cases that they know they can't win.

The original question was
Skeptical about SEO? Why?

I disagree respectfully, as I mentioned we are usually always happy to support the agency if they choose to offer that guarantee.

I can say we have never said no to an agency when they have wanted to use this offer of support, personally I believe it's due to the calibre of the agencies and the knowledge of there sales staff.

I'd like to think all agencies I support have held back on offering a guarantee simply because the potential clients expectations are unrealistic and we have all encountered a business wanting the world for nothing and sometimes it's better to say No Mr client I don't think this is a good business decision for our companies to work together.

 

[Ian J]

I feel like I've high jacked this thread lol

you're new here but once you've been around for a while you will see that almost all SEO threads turn into a bunfight as the various SEP boys jockey for position in case someone is looking for their services and it's normally done by rubbishing everyone else whether overtly or covertly

 

[Shopclicks]

Within these SEO audits we uncover what keywords are most valuable to the client and what keywords could deliver the most traffic to that potential clients website.

I guess that's the difference isn't. The agency tells the client which keywords are going to drive more business. It's only the client that needs convincing and they won't be any the wiser until they try a different agency.

Do you think that statements like 'We Guarantee your business on page 1 of Google in 3 months' which are blatantly misleading, make people skeptical about SEO services?

 

[Digital Resellers]

Hi Ian,
Thank you for the heads up, I had an inkling that might have been going on.

Personally I will never rubbish another's business it's unnecessary and one of the first lessons I was taught in business.

Anyway I think I've explained enough in this thread around guarantees, look forward to hearing from you Ian.

Have a great day

 

[RedEvo]

We get a LOT of SEO enquiries thanks to some decent related rankings. Most are utter trash from people with no budget who want us to make guarantees. So, IMHO there's an element of the SEO "industry" pandering to an uneducated market who make unrealistic demands.

People take comfort from guarantees and many, I believe, keep quiet when it doesn't work out (nearly always) because most of us don't like admitting we've been taken for a ride. The snake oil brigade exploit this and often the sums involved are at a level that can be easy to walk away from.

The number of conversations I have where I feel as if we've done something wrong, when we haven't, is silly

d

 

[Digital Resellers]

I guess that's the difference isn't. The agency tells the client which keywords are going to drive more business. It's only the client that needs convincing and they won't be any the wiser until they try a different agency.

Do you think that statements like 'We Guarantee your business on page 1 of Google in 3 months' which are blatantly misleading, make people skeptical about SEO services?

I'm not sure why you would think this way?

Why would an agency bluntly mislead a potential client they are trying to build a long term relationship with? A reputable digital agency would not do this.

Your conclusion is based on shaky assumptions at best.

I'm sorry but it seems like all the clear responses I have given are falling on your deaf ears.

A true digital professional deals with data and facts my friend not assumptions and misdirection.

 

[fisicx]

On the other hand, anyone can call themselves a professional whatever. Just because you say you are doesn't mean anything. The forum has had many people over the years saying the same things as you and most of them have been exposed as being charlatans. This doesn't mean you are, it just means people are sceptical.

 

[Tom_Dwan]

Sorry, that I am turning this in a slightly different direction. A few months ago I read an article ( I think it was written either by Brian Dean or Neil Patel) that was about the future of SEO. It was mainly about how Google is pushing reviews sites like Yell, Thomsonlocal, Yelp and so on top spots in the SERP for local searches and fewer company pages. It's obvious they want to make it almost impossible for SEOs to rank and make people pay for Adwords. For example, a search for "plumbers Washington" brings 4 reviews site in the top 4 spots. This trend, of course, is not new, but these days we can see it for more and more for local searches (and not only). So, what do you think, what is the Future of SEO?!

 

[NickGrogan]

Are you sure these review sites aren't ranking because SEO "experts" have been telling people to get more and more reviews to drive up their rankings. Thereby increasing the amount and quality of content on review sites and giving the review sites more backlinks?

It's almost like these SEO "experts" don't think about the long term effect of their advice.

Like with free directories, article sites, blogs, blog comments, etc. Seems like a pattern to me.

 

[Tom_Dwan]

It's definitely possible, good point. Although I don't rely on this strategy, but so many "specialists" out there using different techniques who knows. On the other hand, we know Google more or less greedy, so they won't mind to have more people paying for adwords I guess

 

[IanG]

First page of Google, indeed first result.

No SEO, no guarantee, no long term vision, just an obscure part number.

https://www.google.co.uk/#safe=off&q=97MF-6L713-AA

Of course you can be on the first page, that I can guarantee. Just make sure you only want to sell niche things to very few people.

Car insurance salesmen are free to disagree.

 

[Shopclicks]

Are you sure these review sites aren't ranking because SEO "experts" have been telling people to get more and more reviews to drive up their rankings. Thereby increasing the amount and quality of content on review sites and giving the review sites more backlinks?

The flipside of that is, it will become more difficult to get into the Google local business pack without a good star rating in a competitive local market. The business pack 'outranks' the directories. I know where I'd rather be.

 

[Graham Tyers]

I've seen a few unscrupulous SEO's registering websites in random genuine company names to get Business Pack listings. They make the site out as if it belongs to the genuine company and then populate the site with their own links.
They just ring the company and pretend to be google and explain that they'll be sending a postcard that needs authorising to get their free Google listings. They say someone will call back in a few days to collect and verify the code.

 

[Shopclicks]

I've seen a few unscrupulous SEO's registering websites in random genuine company names to get Business Pack listings. They make the site out as if it belongs to the genuine company and then populate the site with their own links.

Yep, it's valuable space in a competitive search.