We've sacked the agency

[Scotty71]

I posted here around 2 months ago about lacklustre results from our SEO agency, the post was 3 months into a campaign, we're now 5 months in and have seen no change in ranking on our main search terms, and no increase in traffic since before we appointed them. The agency are blaming our on site SEO on this, the fact they said it was very good when we started the campaign has been forgotten, it also ranks far better than our competitors. Worse still ,we are already at number 4 (page 1) on google for our main term and only wanted to raise to 1, 3 points, in a niche that's not overly competitive.

We went with the agency because of their reputation, their own rankings, testimonials and what they've done for others we know of - what I'd have thought a good foundation on which to choose an agency. Instead we've spent £3k and got around 400 very weak directory links, plus some articles written in Bangladeshi English on sites no one has ever heard of. Oh and blog comments on Japanese Anime sites and others that have no relevance whatsoever to our business. That's all fair and good if these had worked, but they haven't. At all.

The agency state they've widened our key terms. Yep, with terms that have brought us on average 2 hits each in 5 months. It would take over 2000 of these terms to equal a few ranks rise in our main term. We've had 170 new terms. Our traffic has actually stayed flat, in fact it's down compared to last year.

At the outset the agency suggested how many links / articles / blog comments etc we'd receive per month, we've received not even a quarter of this. They claimed it would only take a few month to see gains on our main search term. Nope, that neither.

Having looked at this in more depth, we're bringing it in house. Our strongest links are those we built ourselves (when we had time!), links from the press due to our PR, links on authoritative sites where our customers go, links on charity sites. And no Japanese Anime. On Woorank our site gets a score of 64, good but still some work to be done, but we're much more confident now about doing it ourselves having seen how this agency have gone about things.

This post is definitely a case of Buyer Beware, unfortunately I don't know what else we'd have done differently in choosing an agency?

Ironically we were ready to put £1.1k per month behind another site, the agency still thought they were in with a chance on this despite the appalling results.

Hey ho.

 

[RedEvo]

At the outset the agency suggested how many links / articles / blog comments etc we'd receive per month.....

IMHO this should have caused alarm bells to ring.

d

 

[Scotty71]

Sorry if this is a daft question, but why?

 

[Scotty71]

Sadly reading other posts on here I realise this isn't unusual and we probably made a relatively cheap escape.

What price for the wisdom of experience?

 

[WhiteRoseSEO]

Sorry to hear about your experience. This really annoys me about some SEO providers and one of the reasons that our business is often approached with such trepidation.

There are so many poor providers who have absolutely no idea what they are doing and offer such poor work that we are almost like the man in the trenchcoat standing in the shadows.

For the many of us that actually provide good work and result that matter, people and companies such as this make our job so much harder and only serve to push people like you away from reputable companies who could actually help.

Everyone gets tarnished with the same brush and it just annoys me intensely. I am forever having 'SEO providers' and 'link-builders' in the sub-continent contact our company to offer their services and they are duly ignored, simply due to the general state of their so-called SEO services. Why would a reputable SEO company outsource to a poor provider simply to increase their profits when their reputation suffers? It's madness.

We were approached by a website owner recently who was amazed at the cost of our services, even after being shown our results and our process explained.

It left me thinking about the morality in the business. Do I provide a good service that delivers results for a bit more money, keeping happy clients and building a solid reputation in the process, or do I merely offer SEO services for a pittance, knowing that I'm outsourcing for even less, fleecing my customers and giving them no assistance at all, just taking the cash and running?

By the way, that question was rhetorical! Rant over.

 

[Deleted member 27344]

This is not aimed at any person/ company in particular, just something that I am seeing over the last year or so and I'm hearing stories similar to the OP many times a week.

As I've been saying for the last few months, traditional SEO is dead in the water.
SEO companies need to change their game to last anything more than the next year/ 18 months.
Link building, article writing, directory postings are all old hat ways of achieving next to no results.
The forward thinking SEO companies are turning to reputation management, review placement, social footprinting.

On the flip side, there are still some SEO companies, that I know, achieving good results but they are combining traditional SEO practices with the features I mentioned above.
The many, many others that I've met over the years have moved on or shut shop.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I posted here around 2 months ago about lacklustre results from our SEO agency, the post was 3 months into a campaign, we're now 5 months in and have seen no change in ranking on our main search terms, and no increase in traffic since before we appointed them.

Back in July you posted

We had serious concerns about our SEO company in the first few months but it now seems unfounded, we're making good progress and although we did question their techniques and focus, they seem to be working. Perhaps making a judgement before the contract has really started is a little hasty? What concerned the OP so much to cancel before it really got running?

Seems a little inconsistent with what you say now...

 

[webgeek]

Getting from nowhere to page 1 is one thing. Going from middle of page 1 to top of page 1 is quite another.

It's a given that a company shouldn't promise what they can't deliver - that's obvious.

Also, if you are pursuing a lot of new terms, and they're starting from nowhere up the rankings, then you won't see any traffic until they hit page 1. There COULD BE a lot going on behind the scenes, with these terms creeping upward. The monthly rankings reports should confirm that this is happening.

Afraid @PointandStare is way off the mark with "Link building, article writing, directory postings are all old hat ways of achieving next to no results."
1) Links are still what separate the page 1 from the wannabe's on every competitive niche in the index.
2) Article writing, for your own site and for key external properties (aka content marketing) is the single most powerful white-hat approach available to boost website rankings
3) Directory listings, on high authority, paid, human edited, directories, can make solid boosts

While garbage links, article directories and free submit / automated directories might be worthless now, trying to characterize all link building, articles and directories as worthless is inaccurate and misleading.

Hopefully Scotty71 finds a better agency and/or one which does pay on results, until some faith in online marketing services is restored. There's a lot of peeps out there doing great things with client rankings, but sadly there are also those who promise and fail to deliver.

 

[nitro23456]

Sorry if this is a daft question, but why?

Because a one size fits all package like that doesn't work.

Proper SEO campaigns should be tailored to achieve the defined objectives, all of this 'bronze package gets you 50 directorys xx links' etc is lazy, shows no inclination to research your business, market or competitors and is doomed to fail before its even started.

 

[Chunkford]

It's easier to sell a bronze package en mass than it is to do an indepth review for each client. That's where the problems lies in that some companies want to bang it out of the door as fast as they can for maximum profits.

 

[UKSBD]

It's easier to sell a bronze package en mass than it is to do an indepth review for each client. That's where the problems lies in that some companies want to bang it out of the door as fast as they can for maximum profits.

Along with 12 month contracts so if it doesn't work they still earn 12 months of fees.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

It's easier to sell a bronze package en mass than it is to do an indepth review for each client. That's where the problems lies in that some companies want to bang it out of the door as fast as they can for maximum profits.

To be fair, clients want SEO done for 99p, so such packages are popular.

 

[RedEvo]

There's another way forward for people who slag off SEO companies. Build a website that deserves to rank. No? Too hard? Thought so.

If ever there was an internet whipping boy it's SEO companies. Grow up and start being realistic about your website, your budget, the effort you are prepared to put in and everything in between.

And for those who believe an SEO company will send your half assed website to the top of Google in a competitive niche for thirty bob and a fried fish, you deserve what you get.

Have a nice day

d

 

[bdw]

There's another way forward for people who slag off SEO companies.

So do you think this is a good SEO company?

Instead we've spent £3k and got around 400 very weak directory links, plus some articles written in Bangladeshi English on sites no one has ever heard of. Oh and blog comments on Japanese Anime sites and others that have no relevance whatsoever to our business.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

So do you think this is a good SEO company?

You are of course assume the OP is genuine...

 

[bdw]

I am very trusting.

 

[eventdomain]

Had this bad SEO thing sussed years ago - if you think about it, the only links that are guaranteed and easily obtained must more often than not, be worthless as a critical mass driver.

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No decent web property will allow anyone to take advantage of it for free.
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The decent advertising platforms are what they are for a reason - their that good guys! and that's why they can charge what they charge.

1. You got to pay for the decent ad space
2. Approach what looks like the good authority sites and start asking questions and get proof of stats (if possible)

3. check Google and see how many pages are listed. If its a few thousand, this is good! it means the platform has reach.

4. Check testimonials, if users are singing its praises, this is good. Users are after all the product for the advertiser!

5. Ask what the traffic levels are like. If the site reports eg: that it sends 200 visitors a year to each client, or some significant traffic to its entire database, then this will be good evidence. The good sites wont mind reporting these figures - the bad ones won't.


Its just basic research..

 

[Ali-v-8]

Why oh why oh why when anyone criticises SEO work, its always SEO as a subject that gets grilled.
As mentioned already, getting to page one is easy - Getting above the fold is glory.
Takes time but can be easily achieved if done correct and corners are not cut.

With this in mind I hope more people realise cheap SEO work is like putting water in to a sieve instead of a bucket.

 

[bdw]

Takes time but can be easily achieved if done correct and corners are not cut.

Easily achieved? Statements like this don't help the reputation.

.

 

[Ali-v-8]

out of context it would - Within context it means do it right and results will come too those who do.

Easily achieved? Statements like this don't help the reputation.

.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Taking a snippet out of a conversation can easily be misrepresented as BDW has shown here.

Easily achieved? Statements like this don't help the reputation.

.

Just incase you missed the whole thing.

As mentioned already, getting to page one is easy - Getting above the fold is glory.
Takes time but can be easily achieved if done correct and corners are not cut.

My comment referred to getting to page one and to rise to the top of page one. If done correct without cutting corners it "IS POSSIBLE". No need to take a difficult route - just choose the right people.

 

[fisicx]

In the same way a house can be easily built if you choose the right builder who knows what they are doing and they do the job properly.

Or in the same way you can easily fabricate a new chassis for a classic car if you have the right tools and skills.

Note that easy =/= fast.

Quick, Cheap, Effective.

You can only have two out of three.

 

[bdw]

Easy: (Adjective) not hard or difficult; requiring no great labor or effort.

 

[fisicx]

Easy: (Adjective) not hard or difficult; requiring no great labor or effort.

See my above post. What might be a great labor (sic) or effort for you isn't for the builder or car restorer.

Note that it's use in this thread is an adverb not adjective.

Ali said: easily achieved = adverb + verb

 

[bdw]

I know what he said, I just disagree.

 

[JElder]

The other big thing no-one has mentioned yet is that checking the results is getting harder too.

With personalised results, you cannot say conclusively what the ranking for one particular search is, especially if it happens to trigger a local search.

I've been working on some Google placement tracking, and it is surprising how much variability there is in links for a single keyphrase - everywhere from 1st to 247th (no idea how they found that one!). However, my bigger concern for the OP would be the overall natural traffic - as ling as there were no other changes to the marketplace, you would hope to have seen a traffic increase within this timescale.

 

[eventdomain]

You could use 50 SEO agents, and not find the one that brings the great results, its that easy to come away with little for your cash.

This is based on experience over the years that all websites simply will not rank highly for the top keywords. There are businesses with keyword domains that will decimate you, and site owners that exactly match an industry and they cannot be beaten as the subject matter/products they deal with are seen by Google as authorities or that perfect match.

I'm totally convinced of this having owned various authority websites for years.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Ed your hate of SEO's is getting tedious you know. Why not change the record?

have you thought that maybe your selection process for SEO's is flawed?

 

[Chunkford]

I would say his business model is flawed and is having to resort to propaganda in an attempt to 'big up' his business

 

[Ali-v-8]

@event domain - I would like to remind you of your entertaining Youtube video erm er hmm err em. Please dont make a tactile comment without shedding some light on your evidence.

Just to prove you have no idea what you are talking about here is the google ranking for INSURANCE

You stick to promoting your website - which I may add is not well done - To sell third party traffic you need to have traffic. your not even on page one for party planners - unless of course you are green ant?

This is based on experience over the years that all websites simply will not rank highly for the top keywords. There are businesses with keyword domains that will decimate you, and site owners that exactly match an industry and they cannot be beaten as the subject matter/products they deal with are seen by Google as authorities or that perfect match.

 

[fisicx]

There are businesses with keyword domains that will decimate you

Err, like amazon, play, tesco, johnlewis, admiral, 888, nationwide and so on.

Not many KW rich domain there...

 

[RedEvo]

The other big thing no-one has mentioned yet is that checking the results is getting harder too....

Try this.

d

 

[aidan1980]

owned various authority websites for years.

lol, lost for words

 

[eventdomain]

have you thought that maybe your selection process for SEO's is flawed?

Don't tell me, don't tell me - I should seek out forum SEO's right, bcos only the best can be found on UKBF

You know, judging by the way many conduct themselves on here, not a chance James. I don't care how good they claim to be, maybe some are good, but they just lost my interest when they flapped their lips.

 

[webgeek]

I'm thinking you might get more takers on some other forum

 

[SEO Lady]

You all puport to be great SEO's with magnificent results, then argue about who-sees-what results.

Well, let me tell you, I'm Google page 1 position 1 for the highly competitive search term "nina cooking bacon onion bread".





Do I win?

- Nina

 

[Scotty71]

Back in July you posted

Seems a little inconsistent with what you say now...

A couple of months in we had words with the agency. They showed us SEMRush reports, how we now had more backlinks than our competitors, how it was all growing, and it wouldn't be long before we started climbing the ranks, yadda yadda. Yep, we were convinced, the reports can't be wrong after all can they?

Yes they can. A few months later down the line we went through our google analytics in depth. The new keywords (which we'd never asked for by the way) were bringing in less than 2-3 hits each IN 5 MONTHS. That's total hits per new keyword. So around 200 new keywords with around 120 hits per month extra....while our traffic on better keywords had dropped. Yeah, fab results.

Our product is very niche with one term being very significant, the next 8 terms down the list together adding up to the one term. We're number 4 in google on this term, we wanted a push to get to number one. Not beyond the wit of man? We were certainly convinced not.

Directory links in indian directories amongst others, few with any PR
Blog posts on totally irrelevent topics (Japanese anime sites, in Japanese??)
Badly written articles, spinned out each to 25 poor ranking sites.
Everything the penguins, pandas and the rest of the Google zoo dislikes (allegedly).

The worst thing is the lies. What we were promised and what has materialised. They promised exclusivity for our terms, they were in fact also working for another company for the same terms (and later admitted so). They promised a level of activity that was never received. No one can promise rankings, but they claimed it shouldn't take too long to get to number one (moving up 3 places) because of our on site SEO....

Once we moved forward with the company, we were forgotten. Each time we spoke to someone it was someone else dealing with the account, to be asked 4 months in who are competitors are really did throw salt on the wounds. If they still haven't taken note of who are competitors are, how do they know how to beat them? They didn't - if they'd looked in more depth they'd have realised our competitors actually have very few links, but those they have are of very strong quality. The kind of links that indian directory submissions just ain't going to usurp.

At the end of the day if a campaign hasn't increased traffic (the right kind of traffic, although ours didn't increase all traffic) then it's failed. We stipulated our aims of moving 3 positions, of the keywords they were looking at there were very few moves and none on our main terms. One new term which we'd paid a premium for didn't even rank at all.

I have spoken to a number of SEO people in the interim, and it appears the 'real' SEO isn't about link farming or crap article spinning, but instead quality over quantity. Natural links, real articles. Relevant sites in term of audience, theme or nationality. No Bangladeshi written nonsense articles. The best (and indeed long lasting) links on our site are ones we built many years ago through press articles and some links with charities. And not a bit of Bollywood amongst them.

Some of the other terms our original agency were covering for others have dropped in the last couple of months and it makes me wonder if their technique has worked in previous months but been hit by the google changes.

This thread wasn't "SEO bashing", but rather crap SEO bashing. The agency we've spoken to today have a completely different approach and actually took time to understand our market rather than just advising something that was never going to work. I'm still undecided whether to go down this route just yet as there are a lot of links we can build ourselves, as well as use our own article writing more. Once bitten twice shy and all that.

This is a genuine thread (sorry but I have neither the time nor the inclination to play games on these things), if anyone doubts that I am more than happy to provide our web address by pm.

 

[Scotty71]

One other thing remembered from discussions with the agency which now makes me think we made a timely escape - they showed us the alleged rankings of one company they'd dealt with, and how these rankings plummeted as soon as the agency stopped working on them. Rented links or simply crap ones that didn't last the course of time, whatever the case their SEO had little longevity.

Fortunately we haven't risen as a result of their actions so hopefully won't fall either having taken them out of the mix...

 

[victorm]

I have to admit,reading this more for its entertaining value, but just out of curiosity - did your impressions change at all during this 3k effort, or did they follow the same trend with visits?

 

[RedEvo]

....they showed us the alleged rankings of one company they'd dealt with, and how these rankings plummeted as soon as the agency stopped working on them.

That speaks for itself

d