Yes, it's true. There are a lot of freelance SEO specialists and SEO firms taking innocent webmasters for a ride. This page is about how to avoid being a victim of a scam.
To the outsider or the novice, SEO (search engine optimization) seems a bit like voodoo magic...sort of like picking a Governor General. Not surprisingly, website owners want some kind of guarantee. This makes them easy prey for the most common scam: a false promise.
How can you tell if a guarantee is false? Any guarantee is. A reputable freelance SEO specialist or SEO firm will not provide a guarantee, because too much is out of his control. Consider the following professions:
Because the SEO field is unregulated and operates in the virtual world, some SEO specialists have been known to take the money and run. This is where SEO ethics hits most directly -- in the pocketbook. We are often approached by website owners who say, "The previous SEO took my money and did nothing."
Our SEO clients speak out.
Vadim Mazo - webmaster
We were impressed with the David's innovative approach, and the results speak for themselves.
Stewart Granville - website owner
We are having more enquiries (around 30% up). The difference you have made is very noticeable, and there appears to be some consistency in the results. So well done.
Esther Barzel - website owner
This really works. Before Google's aging penalty even wore off, we were ruling MSN for many of our key search terms.
Wayne Akey - website owner
David, just a note to let you know I have seen some excellent results from the Google updates you suggested. Nice Job!"
Another typical scam is to use dirty tricks, called "black hat SEO", to get your website ranking highly. You are pleased as punch, hand over the money, then five months later you wonder what happened to your rankings when the search engines get wise and ban your site. It is important to ask an SEO specialist about his methods before hiring him.
Another common trick, often in conjunction with a false guarantee, is to choose poor keywords.I could get your automotive site to rank #1 very quickly at every major search engine for the term "Thunder Bay hockey souvenirs with peanut butter". Unfortunately, not too many of your customers are searching for that term.
Be careful, however, not to demand the most competitive terms, either. For instance, if your automotive site is for a chain of repair shops in Winnipeg, you probably do not have the financial means to compete for the term "automobiles", nor is that the most effective term to target your local customers.
Ask an SEO specialist how he plans to select the keywords for you. If your bottom line is not his top priority, find another SEO specialist.
Another search engine optimization scam is to guarantee placement within a short period of time; they buy pay-per-click ad space to accomplish this. Pay-per-click ads appear as "sponsored" listings in the search engines. While they will attract some targeted traffic, only 40% of Internet searchers click on the sponsored listings. Worse, they are temporary listings that end when the account is depleted.
A similar scam of some SEO specialists is to place temporary links on their own sites or buy paid advertising links on other sites. Once the money is paid, they remove the links on their own sites, and once the ads expire on other sites, your site loses those links and rankings also fall.
These are just some of the SEO scams around. There are surely many more.
Want to hire an effective SEO consultant?
If you are looking for successful search engine optimization consultants to increase traffic, leads and sales on your website, contact The Happy Guy Marketing for a free quote. The more details you provide, the better we can serve you:
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