If I could highlight just 1 mistake that I see on a reoccurring basis when it comes to small and medium sized businesses with their SEO, is that they use SEO agencies that offer some extremely unrealistic sweeteners to entice you to sign up to them. The worst thing that you could ever do for your business is called a ‘pay on performance SEO plan’. This is a very common mistake many business owners make and I know this because they call us up in a state of panic due to their website being penalised by Google.
That’s right a Google penalty and their website rankings have either completely dropped off or disappeared due to the phoney, scam ridden ‘pay on performance SEO deals’ that are going around.
So how does this work and why is this such a scam? These SEO companies are essentially unable to rank their own website so what they do is that they put all these wonderful attractive adverts on Adwords where they try to entice and lure you in with a …we will work as hard as we can to rank your keywords (they never tell you which keywords they will rank – because they do not want you to know) within 30 days and you don’t have to pay us a cent.
For most business owners out there, this sounds really too good to be true – why not go for it…after all it won’t cost you a cent and you will see great results. This must be true if they are telling you this. Basically, you have nothing to loose and all to gain. It’s a big WIN for you.
WRONG! – it’s a huge loss and what would appear like a good deal from the outset is in fact something very sinister, dangerous and will have long lasting negative affects on your website now and into the future.
WHY? Because due to the time limit put on getting you a page 1 ranking these SEO companies will completely and utterly over optimise your keywords on extremely ‘spammy’ websites to attain this position. I want to make 1 point absolutely clear here. These guys are NOT GOING TO RANK you main keywords. They are essentially going to rank your what is termed ‘long tail’ keywords, that have probably little or no website traffic, and therefore no value to your business, but they will claim this as a victory. What a joke!
For most unsuspecting naïve business owners, this looks on the surface as though they have done a great job. What they have done is spammed an easy to rank keyword and got it to page 1 in a totally non compliant manner. What will happen is that Google will pick this up once they roll out an algorithm change and your website will get pegged for non-compliance. The next step for you unfortunately is a Google penalty.
The sad part about this is that this penalty will come around without any notice and without your knowledge. It is very quick, but by this stage you are locked into a contract with the guys that put you in this position in the first place.
Because they did in some respect full fill their end of the bargain by getting your ‘low value’ keywords to page 1, you were then obligated to sign up with them for 12 months. You probably didn’t see this in the small print and it’s now come back to bite you BIG TIME. If you try and get out of this they will simply get a debt collector to go after you. We see this happen all the time and it’s really frustrating because it happens to really well intentioned business owners that were preyed upon by these scam artists. So what seemed like a great plan to begin with has turned into a complete nightmare.
On top of this once they do get some of your keywords ranking they will not do anything further on your SEO campaign as soon as they have you signed up. They are going to use the money you pay them every month to further boost their Adwords marketing. And the process continues.
Being on the top of the Adwords or Pay Per Click for keywords like; SEO or SEO Sydney are going to be around $50 a click. This is why the companies up there need to turn every inquiry into a sale. This is why they offer these bogus scam deals – to basically sucker you in, fool you into thinking they are doing work on your website, sign you up, lock you in and use your money to scam other businesses.
The SEO industry is totally unregulated. Anyone can get into it and anyone can pretend to be something they are not. It’s extremely dangerous and this is why I recommend anyone who is reading this article and thinking about commencing an SEO campaign, that they do their homework.
5 signs that an SEO company is trying to scam you.
1) they are not ranking organically and have paid to be on Google. A clear sign that they are unable to boost their own website – how are they going to get yours ranking?
2) if they offer any of these insane deals or bogus claims – like ‘page 1 in 90 days’ or ‘ no rank no pay’. I have gone on about this in many blogs here on this site, but I really want the message to sink in here.
3) they have contracts and want you to sign up to a term of 12 months – just remember once they lock you into a contract they can always shift the blame of poor web rankings over to Google and say its just normal fluctuations. This can go on for many months whilst they bleed you dry.
4) they don’t have an office and work out of home – in most industries this is fine, but SEO freelancers working out of a second bedroom, garage or another country is a recipe for a disaster. Make sure and I will repeat this MAKE SURE you go to their office to their place of work to see them in action. They must be accountable and you should be able to meet with them to discuss your campaign.
5) If they offer any sort of GUARANTEES walk away. Guarantees are complete BS and no one who has any morales can offer this type of promise. Dealing with a third party like Google makes guarantees impossible. WATCH OUT FOR THIS BIG SCAM!!
For real down to earth and honest advice on how to rank your business on Google, please get in touch with us today here at SEO SYDNEY EXPERTS on 02 9360 8514
