Everyone lies. But sometimes it’s a part of marketing strategy. A good example of false promises – guarantees in SEO. Let’s take a closer look at what guarantees agencies offer and what the catch is. Here are the most popular of them.
1. Push percent of your keywords to Top 10 in a short time frame
What’s the catch? The percentage and the time frame. It’s quite realistic to reach the top with 10% of keyword phrases in six months. But to get 70% or 100% of queries in 2 months you can only three ways, which will not benefit your business:
- SEO only for rare and unpopular keywords;
- Behavioral factors manipulations.
- Link explosion (very harmful).
You can ask what’s wrong if it works? Google and other search engines are too smart today and they will see cheating in several months or even weeks. After that your website will be pessimized because of spam filter, related to your violation (for example Penguin or Panda).
2. Push your keywords to the Top 1 or Top 3
What’s the catch? The contractor will use low-frequency queries. Even if the agency promises free keyword phrase replacement, most of the new ones will also be uncompetitive.
But the biggest problem, of course, is that it is an inherently false guarantee. You can’t guarantee what you don’t control. Nobody can guarantee any particular position in Google. A company that makes such a promise is desperately trying to get a client, and then act on the situation and hope for the best.
3. Getting a certain amount of traffic from search
What’s the catch? The agency will underestimate traffic projections so as not to take a risk. For example, it guarantees a growth of 10%, although it is possible to increase the number of conversions to the site by 2 times. The missing traffic will be “supplemented” by the most available and cheapest ways: buying at the exchange, from teaser networks, increasing the number of visits by non-target and informational requests.
4. Growing leads and sales
What’s the catch?
- If leads are not targeted, conversion to sales can be low or zero.
- The contractor will offer a combined payment model: a fix, which is independent of results, and a flex (variable part) – payment for leads. If the former is enough for the agency to stay in the black, it will not attract leads, and then give up the bonus.
5. Pay for results
Sometimes company says: If there is a result – you pay the agreed rate, if there is no result – you do not pay.
What’s the catch?
- The KPIs are “tweaked” at the start. For example, the frequency of queries is inflated, non-targeted phrases are passed off as target phrases.
- The results do not help to solve your business problems. For example, the site reaches the top for unnecessary requests. There are no applications and no sales, but under the terms of the contract you have to pay.
6. Partial money refund if fail
What’s the catch?
- The cost of the work is inflated, the contractor’s risks are built into it. If there is no result, you get some of the money back, and the agency is still left with a profit.
- The contract is written in such a way that you cannot meet all the conditions for a refund. For example, you are offered a radical redesign of the website. This is long and expensive, but as long as the changes are not made, the warranty period is extended.
7. Free SEO to result
What’s the catch?
- The chances are high that the contractor has little experience and low qualifications. Serious players won’t work for free.
- The contractors will do less work. And then lucky or not.
- The payment for the first months will then be included in the estimate in a hidden form.
Conclusions
Of course, not all the SEO agencies offers you fake services. I wrote this text to give you helpful information, which will help you to avoid losing money and time with a wrong partner.
