Don’t Let Your SEO Agency Trick You
Recently, Romela de Leon made an excellent post explaining how to spot fraudulent SEO services. The post contains warning signs businesses should look for before hiring an SEO company. However, sometimes these warning signs aren’t there. Sometimes, your SEO agency seems to be on the level. They don’t make absurd promises, and they give you excellent customer service. To the SEO noob, it probably seems like the company is doing an excellent job increasing your online presence, but are you sure your SEO company isn’t pulling the wool over your eyes?
The Dark Side of Keywords
If you have even a rudimentary grasp of SEO, you understand the importance of keyword optimization. Optimizing your website for certain keywords is what helps you climb the search engine rankings for those chosen terms. The basic idea being: someone types in the key phrase and your website turns up toward the top of the search results. It’s SEO 101. Unfortunately, a bad SEO agency plays tricks on unsuspecting customers with their keyword selection.
It’s not enough to simply rank well for a given phrase. You need to make sure people are actually searching for the terms you select. Some SEOs wow their customers by showing them reports of how well they are ranking for their keywords, but the client rarely stops to think “is this really helping me?” It goes back to the point in Romela’s post when she says to be wary of SEO services who promise #1 rankings. The companies making these promises usually deliver by choosing terms no one searches, which they can easily acquire top rankings for.
How to Protect Yourself
If you suspect your SEO agency is tricking you by getting great rankings for irrelevant keywords, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself.
- Ask for Detailed Reports- Instead of having the SEO company show you a simple report detailing your ranking for each selected term, you should request an account of the traffic your website is receiving from these terms. Simple analytics will determine how customers are arriving at your website. If these terms are producing rankings but no foot traffic, then your SEO provider might be pulling a fast one.
- Use Keyword Tools- Many of the keyword research tools not only suggest relevant key phrases but they also tell you the search volume of each term. One way you can check up on the level of service you’re receiving is to type the keywords your SEO chose into a keyword research tool. If you notice all of the terms you’re typing in have no search volume, you should contact your provider immediately. After all, what’s the point of paying them thousands of dollars to optimize your site for terms no one will ever enter into a search engine?
- Study the Competition- Another way you can determine if your keywords are relevant is to check what your competition is doing. Not all of your competitors will have optimized sites, but chances are some of them will. Look at their pages to see what terms they’re optimizing for. If you notice the competitors are using terms far different from yours, it’s probably a warning sign saying your SEO agency is targeting the wrong phrases.
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Nice tips to evaluate an SEO agency. However, I believe all webmasters must have some basic knowledge of SEO themselves and not rely blindly on any third party.
Mayank- You are completely right. It’s all about educating yourself so you can protect yourself. Since SEO is still relatively new, some less than honest SEO companies know they can take advantage of customers because not a lot of people know much about SEO.
Eric Brantners last blog post..Don’t Let Your SEO Agency Trick You
[...] are producing rankings but no foot traffic, then your SEO provider might be pulling a fast one. Don’t Let Your SEO Agency Trick You I guarantee you that with the right SEO you will be able to get the results you want after a year, [...]
As with anything else, education is important, and so is keeping a “closed” mind. Be a tough critic, when trying to hire somebody, or when judging their job after it is done.
My dad hired somebody to do seo for his website, but when I stepped into the project, I had found so many useless keywords, that the company was trying to rank my dad high for. The funny thing was, is that those junk keywords, didn’t even make it to the top. And the seo guys that my dad hired, tried to preach that the top 30, etc rankings were great.
I recently wrote an article on what to look for in a SEO agency. I think the most important thing is to make agreements on what you expect and how quality will be measured beforehand.
The article follows up perfectly on what you’re writing about.. You can check it out @
http://www.lifecaptureinc.com/blog/media/2008/07/search-engine-optimization-tips-and-advice/
I think keywords should always be picked together and not just have the agency doing it. Always put in your own suggestions!
Geoff Soumokils last blog post..Search Engine Optimization; Tips and Advice
I agree with you Geoff. Being an employee in an outsourcing company that offers SEO and link building we really encourage our clients to suggest on what keywords to optimize. It is actually them who really knows what there product is all about. On the other hand, we also conduct our own keyword research for them.
We never make promises but we always do our best to provide quality service.
Having basic SEO knowledge is the key to prevent yourself from rogue SEO firm. I have met clients whom had bad experiences with local SEO firm and after looking through the keywords that they had optimized for, it is interesting to notice most keywords do not serve more than 10 search volume per month.
We employed an SEO firm years ago who promised the earth. I thought ‘never again’ - and set about educating myself. The funny thing was, they promised top rankings on Google but didn’t even get us listed!
Having said that, there are good SEO people out there, but I agree that you need basic SEO knowledge in the first place to prevent fraudsters taking advantage.
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