Guaranteed SEO Rankings

There is much debate online about guaranteed search engine rankings and there appears to be a war of words between firms that do, and firms that don't. We like to leave it up to the client to decide on who they would prefer to deal with, but here's my two cents worth on the subject.

Why is this such an issue?

There is a massive amount of confusion and misinformation out there about Guaranteed rankings, due in part to the three main players in the industry, those who do, those who don't, and those who pretend they can.

The biggest misunderstanding is that the firms who don't guarantee results believe that as no SEO firm owns a search engine, they can't possibly achieve the desired results, therefore the guarantee is worthless, unless a firm uses unethical techniques and the firms who DO guarantee results believe that the firms who don't are just greedy, lazy and have no confidence in their own abilities.

So who are the main players?

The SEO firms who WILL guarantee their work The SEO firms who WON'T guarantee their work, and The SEO firms who WILL guarantee their work but use unethical or deceptive methods, both in their approach to SEO and in their client acquisition strategy Let's touch on the last one first.

The firms who will guarantee their work but use unethical methods.

Unfortunately, there ARE many SEO companies who use a client acquisition strategy that is entirely deceptive. They will make sweeping claims about their abilities, offer wild guarantees on their work, and use unethical SEO techniques to 'trick' search engines into listing websites higher than they have a right to be. Make no mistake, any SEO firm who uses such unethical techniques WILL do more harm than good. They can effectively have your website banned from Google and other search engines altogether. Unfortunately, they may actually achieve the desired rankings for a little while, in which case they will want payment from the client at this stage. No matter to them if the website gets banned at a later stage; they got the (temporary) results, they got paid, and they are out the door to hit their next target. There is no doubt in ANY firms mind that 'Black Hat SEO' (unethical, cheating methods of SEO) are bad. So how do you spot the firms offering Black Hat SEO? Ask them what they intend on doing. If they cannot give you firm, definitive answers, move on. It also pays to contact their clients and ask them. My recommendation is to ask them for the details of a client that they have performed SEO for as far back as 2 years, who is still a client. That will be a dead giveaway.

What about SEO firms who don't guarantee results at all?

My opinion is that SEO work is largely considered as money-for-jam if SEO companies are allowed to take money from clients without having to demonstrate any level of success. It is another deceptive client acquisition strategy. They can sprout on about 'unethical SEO firms offering guarantees' but at the end of the day, it is because THEY don't have confidence in their own abilities. If an SEO firm is not prepared to put their money where their mouth is, then perhaps they should find an easier, less demanding line of work. There are many 'bodies' that exist to provide a place for SEO companies to gather and spruike their wares, but even these bodies have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of no guarantees. Let's be clear, ethical SEO firms who DO offer a guarantee are a clear and significant threat to non-guaranteeing SEO companies' way of life. They threaten the very foundation of easy money for SEO firms.

What about the ethical companies that DO offer Guaranteed SEO?

There are only a handful of these companies at this stage, but as customers become more demanding (ie.. when customers simply want to get what they pay for!), I believe this number will grow considerably. Provided a few criteria are met, then dealing with Guaranteed SEO firms should not be an issue:

Get references. Speak to their clients, especially long-term ones, and ask THEM how they feel. If an SEO firm won't give you access to their clients, run a mile; there will be a good reason why they won't give you references (especially from loyal, long-term customers) Ask them WHAT they will do to improve your rankings. Due to the time-intensive nature of SEO, they should have no fear that a client will simply take their ideas and do it themselves.
They should have no qualms telling you the specifics of what they are going to do. If a company mentions 'cloaking', run a mile. If they mention 'special tricks' or something that is 'secret', run a mile. 
Find out exactly what the guarantee is for. Most SEO firms will put conditions on their guarantees that are far too ambiguous or too extreme. Ensure that it is as simple as this 'IF you don't rank in the top X for such and such keywords in such and such search engines, you don't pay anything at all'. Also ensure there is a time guarantee (for instance, if the rankings drop out of the guaranteed limits within perhaps 6 months, they must refund the customer)
Make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the SEO firm has been in business for longer than the guarantee period. We suggest that clients should ensure the company has been in operation for at least 2-3 years. Any less than that and you KNOW that that company cannot produce any references from 'long-term' clients.
At the end of the day, you need to deal with a firm you can trust, so if you are in doubt about their abilities, don't hand over the money. Whatever you do, DO NOT hand over money to an SEO firm that won't even offer you ANY type of guarantee on their work or failing that, comprehensive reporting. And if you DO deal with a non-guarantee SEO firm, if they don't produce significant results after 3 months, dump them and deal with a company who will.

by Justin Hollow
Hollowpoint Pty Ltd
http://www.hollowpoint.com.au

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Seeking "Guaranteed SEO" - An Illusion

"Guarantee"- A word that grabs attention towards anything but should that be? Sounds like a silly question, right? There are people who think that "Guarantee" should be for all Services and Products. Let's see who they are.

From the last few months our prospects are demanding guaranteed SEO services. In fact many of them cite examples of companies that are offering guaranteed SEO. However, being an online professional it is hard to believe guarantee in SEO service as "Google's guidelines for selecting an SEO provider" affirmed clearly that-

No one can guarantee ranking on Google.

Now the big question is if those companies can't guarantee rankings, what can they guarantee?

Everyone who is in the online business field knows the fact that Google often changes their algorithm and never reveals it. Thus people use their common sense and some tried & tested ways to get rank high. So, How come! Can one take the guarantee in Google?

From there on I started my research on SEO Guarantee Service offered by many SEO service providers. It took a significant amount of sleuthing to understand the whole scenario.

Well, now the time is to dispel the myth of Guaranteed SEO, let people know the truth and enter into some discussion flowing on its real value.

Myth #1

Guaranteed Ranking but No Targeted Traffic : Many SEO companies out there are giving guarantee like:

"We guarantee to optimize your website for up to 100 different keyword phrases." (Your primary targeted phrase will appear on the first page of one or more of the major search engines.) This kind of guarantee ranking exists for certain number of keywords that they themselves choose. They select primarily non-competitive terms and have a fairly high rate of success.

For example: A company offers baseball card boxes and ranked on top of Google, Yahoo!, MSN with keywords like Baseball Cards Seller, Baseball Tops Cards and Baseball Card Hobby Boxes. Will it help the website to earn traffic? No, because these all are the keywords that sound extremely relevant to business but are never typed into search engines.

Such ranking might impress your surroundings but they won't send you quality traffic. This flavor of guaranteed SEO offers no real value. Good SEO companies will avoid such phrases and company name in key phrases. Choosing a keyword that can drive traffic is not as easy a job as it seems.

Myth #2

Search Engine Placement Guarantee: Companies that believe that they have high quality websites are prone to believe that the only thing holding them back from search engine success is that the search engines do not yet know that their sites exist. They get trapped by kind of scam that their site will get ranked in various search engines through Site Submission over numerous search engines. Is this type of guaranteed SEO worthwhile?

A properly optimized site does not need to be submitted to search engines at all ("spider-based" search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, and MSN). Search engines prefer finding sites on their own.

Do SEO companies that offer this service meet this guarantee? Certainly - they use automated programs to do the submissions.

Myth #3

Top Ranking with Competitive Key Phrases : A guarantee statement that gets high public attention is:

o First page ranking or money back!

("We will guarantee top 10 rankings across the 15 search engines or don't pay ") Unfortunately, this type of guaranteed SEO often involves search engines that have very small market share and are not sophisticated enough to quickly eliminate web pages that use spam tactics. They don't guarantee rankings on the three major search engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN, but instead they guarantee ranking on search engines you most likely never even have heard of. Do you think search engines you have never heard of will bring any visitors to your site?

Truth

Customized Assurance : In very rare cases, certain SEO companies will offer you guarantee derived from the analysis of your current traffic, the competitiveness of your business and revenues of your site. You will ideally be offered this type of specialized guarantee from the beginning of your contract because it ensures that you will be achieving targeted, meaningful results and maximum ROI.

Some SEO companies may tell you that a custom guarantee is not possible because they have no direct control over search engine results. However, SEO companies who have been in business for a while know weather the algorithm shifts and understand that there are more than one popular search engines. Such firms will be confident enough to provide you custom assurity.

Now did this post cover every possible question you could have asked? No, but hopefully this should at least get you to start questioning all these "so-called Guarantee SEO Providers". Think again, there are experienced legit people that can help your website perform to its potential. Educate yourself! Do you really need guaranteed SEO service or could you be better served with Good SEO? Just make sure that you ask questions and challenge anyone that promises "Guaranteed SEO" that seem too good to be true. Now, I leave the option with you as to what you choose.

Kneoteric is a leading SEO Company India providing SEM services including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) and online marketing consultancy services. To know more about our services, visit Internet Marketing Services India

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Guaranteed SEO For a Top 10 Ranking

How can SEO firms guarantee top 10 rankings while others bulk at even the notion that the SEO client should get anything in return other than a statement of work and at the end of the month some fancy reporting about hours spent on link building, article submission and other seemingly important search engine optimization tasks. The truth as always is between the two different camps of SEO firms who either guarantee top 10 ranking or don't. So, why some SEO companies offer performance guarantee, while other SEO companies don't?

Before start our investigation, we have to set some ground rules here of course to make sure we compare only reputable SEO companies with at least 3 plus years in business and a customer portfolio of at least 2-3 dozen clients a year. Oh, and of course the SEO companies we compare have all achieved decent rankings results for their clients and their clients would not hesitate in recommending them to their friend, business partners or family members.   Now that we got these important benchmark out of the way, let's examine what is at the heart of the SEO guarantee and the sometimes very heated discussions surrounding it.  

The issue is quite simply trust.   The trust by the clients placed into the hands of the SEO companies to do the best they can to achieve the first page ranking results they were hired to deliver. So, it comes down to which company can sound more convincing on their website touting their SEO services with fancy graphics, customer case studies, testimonials, badges of affiliations with SEO organizations and being member of better business bureau. But does this really make a difference in how competent a SEO company is?  

If the company can't convey enough trust to the potential SEO client on their website, they might as well close the shop, but sadly even when a potential clients feel in their gut there is something inherently wrong with forking money over for services that don't have a tangible outcome, they still sign on the dotted line. How sad, but it doesn't have to be this way. You have the right to demand to know what your hard earned dollars buy.   So, here is where the guaranteed SEO services can truly make or break a deal from a reputable SEO company, but there is more to a SEO guarantee, than simply writing a few over used slogans on a webpage and hope visitors will listen. These are the criterias you should use to hire an SEO firms who guarantees results in writing.  

Get references from as many previous SEO clients as you can. The SEO company should give you a list of previous clients' contact information cheerfully and with lots of pride. After all they are going to be only as good as the last client they have dealt with. The most important questions to ask previous clients is, how long it took the SEO company to achieve the results and were they able to hold onto those rankings long term.

No money up front. You should not pay a dime for any type of setup costs or other silly administration costs. It takes nothing more than 1 hour for seasoned SEO to come up with a thorough analysis of your site and to create a proposal for you. The cost of this should be not be coming out of your pocket, so never every pay for any type of site review or report up front.

Specific ranking results for Google. Google is still the king of the online searches with over 60% of the total worldwide search market and you should not accept a guarantee that includes any mention of Yahoo or Bing (MSN,Live) in the contract. You should simply say you are only interested in Google natural results.

Verify rankings independently. Always find out what type of ranking report generation tool the SEO company will use. The rankings have to be checked daily and a history of the rankings must be available to you at any time.

What constitutes a SEO guarantee being fulfilled? In other words how many days of the month do the rankings have to in the top 10 or top 5 for the ranking guarantee to be fulfilled. Ask for a minimum of 15 days of each calendar month for the site to be in the top 10 or top 5.

Don't pay for all the SEO fees when the rankings are achieved in the first month. Once you agree on the total SEO fees, you should demand that you pay over a minimum of 6 months as long as the site remains on the first page of Google during that period. If the site drops from Google's first page for more than 15 days in the previous calendar month you should not have to pay and roll the contract term forward another month.

Ask them how much their maintenance plan will cost you, once they achieved the top rankings and the contract expired. Be careful if the SEO company wants to charge you the same rates they charged to get you on the first page of Google in the first place. The link building and optimization effort needed will be substantially costly and you should get a decent break on the SEO fees, if you choose to extend it.

Transparency of what they plan to do to get you on the first page of Google. Ask very direct questions if it's not spelled out already in their statement of work or contract, what methods will be used to get you in the top 10 on Google. If all you see in the contract is optimizing page content and some directory submissions, it's most likely not going to get you what you want. You want to see in the contract specific references to one-way permanent link building, not rented, permanent links only. Ask them for a sample of links they have acquired for other SEO clients.


SEO can be extremely effective to increase leads, sales, whatever you objective may be, but too many times decision makers in businesses blindly accept SEO contract terms put in front of them simply because they don't know the questions they should ask. It's your duty to exercise due diligence and part of your research when choosing a SEO provider is to know what you get in return for your money, and what are your options if the promised results are not achieved.

Joel Katona is the founder of Trendmetrix Software a full service SEO Company and the architect behind SEO Studio a leading SEO Software. Don't forget to check out the Guaranteed SEO services his company offers.

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Leprechaun Repellent and Guaranteed SEO Companies - The Disturbing Link

When researching SEO companies, it is tempting to choose any company willing to offer guaranteed SEO services. It is human nature - people love a guarantee. This holds especially true for purchases where the buyer is purchasing something outside of his or her area of comfort. When companies first consider pursuing search engine optimization (SEO) as a potential marketing channel, particularly when there is an ongoing cost involved, they get a sense of comfort from purchasing "guaranteed SEO." Unfortunately, with many SEO companies, this confidence in the guarantee is ill-placed.

A lot of questionable SEO companies offer what I like to refer to as a "leprechaun repellent" guarantee. In other words, it's a guarantee that is easily attainable - if you purchase such services and are not subsequently harassed by a pesky leprechaun, the guarantee has been met. How can you complain?

The truth is that SEO companies do not control the major search engines, and any firm that claims to have a "special relationship" that gives it sway over the natural search engine results is simply counting on your ignorance. Fortunately, this does not mean that guaranteed SEO is impossible, especially when the guarantee has to do with aggregate results and the methods used to achieve them.

What follows is a partial list of some of the more popular types of guaranteed SEO out there - some of them roughly as useful as leprechaun repellent, and some of them actually meaningful.

Questionable Guarantees

The "Leprechaun Repellent" Keyphrases Guarantee

Many SEO companies boast that they will achieve a certain number of top rankings in the organic results of major search engines. This type of guaranteed SEO can be tempting, especially to those who are investigating SEO companies for the first time. After all, high rankings are what it's all about, right? Isn't that the goal?

The answer is an emphatic "No." Quality SEO companies will point out that the real goal is to bring high quality traffic to your site. It's quite simple to guarantee top positions if you choose non-competitive or obscure phrases - for example, "leprechaun repellent." Want proof? Enter "leprechaun repellent into your favorite search engine. You will almost certainly find this article dominating the results (caveat - if you are reading this article immediately after its release, the search engines may not have indexed it yet. Wait a week and try again.).

It is extremely easy for SEO companies to achieve high search engine positions for phrases that nobody uses. Such rankings might impress your friends and neighbors, but they won't send you quality traffic. They likely won't send you any traffic at all. It's important to note that the phrase "leprechaun repellent" is used only for demonstrative purposes. Many unpopular phrases may not sound absurd. There are surely countless phrases out there that sound extremely relevant to your business that are never typed into search engines. Good SEO companies will avoid such phrases. "Leprechaun repellent" practitioners will embrace them - it allows them to attain their worthless guarantees.

There is also another aspect of this type of guaranteed SEO in which SEO companies will guarantee you first place positions on unspecified search engines for more competitive phrases. Unfortunately, this type of guaranteed SEO often involves obscure engines that have very little market share and are not sophisticated enough to quickly eliminate web pages that use spam tactics. In a few documented cases, the guarantees involved search engines that the SEO companies actually owned and operated!

There are really only three major search engines at present - Google, Yahoo, and MSN. There are a handful of minor engines that are also worth mentioning, including Ask Jeeves and AOL Search. Any guaranteed SEO should involve prominent engines, not obscure ones.

The "Company Name" Guarantee

There is also a common guarantee that shady SEO companies will use that guarantees that a company will show up for a search on its company name. This, much like the "leprechaun repellent" flavor of guaranteed SEO, offers no real value. Sure, if your company name is "Acme," it may actually be competitive - but chances are that if your website does not already show up near the top of the search engine results for a search on your company name, there is an easily fixed technical glitch that will resolve the issue. Quality SEO companies will address this area immediately. Moreover, ranking highly for your company name, while obviously desirable, provides only a tiny fraction of the potential value of search engine marketing. The real benefit for most companies is that search engine marketing attracts potential buyers who are not already familiar with the company name. Unless your company is a household name, it is unlikely that having your company name figure prominently in the results is going to have a huge impact on your business.

The Pay-Per-Click Guarantee

Some SEO companies will offer guaranteed SEO services that promise top positions for certain keyphrases on popular engines, but they are counting on dealing with prospects who do not understand the difference between natural search engine results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. With PPC, it is very easy to guarantee a number one result, but this result will appear in the "paid" or "sponsored" results of the engine. Say, for example, that your company installs custom swimming pools. While a competitive phrase like "custom pools" might be difficult to achieve in organic results, the SEO company is not concerned with organic results. All it has to do is outbid the current highest bidder (using your money, of course), and your site will show up as number one in the "sponsored" results. Studies have indicated that sponsored results are held in a lower regard than natural results by savvy web searchers who recognize them as advertising. Also, as soon as you stop paying, your ranking disappears.

The "Submit Your Site to 50,000 Search Engines" Guarantee

There are many variations on this offer, primarily involving the number of engines promised. Regardless of the number, this is probably the most pervasive and persistent type of "guaranteed SEO," and it is basically a scam that preys on ignorance.

Companies that believe that they have high quality websites are predisposed to believe that the only thing holding them back from search engine success is that the search engines do not yet know that their sites exist. However, search engines measure quality in a much different way than a website owner does. A properly optimized site does not need to be submitted to search engines at all (I refer to actual "spider-based" search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and MSN, not human-edited directories such as Business.com, the Yahoo Directory, and the Open Directory Project). Engines prefer to find sites on their own.

This "solution" offers no real value, except of course to the SEO companies offering the service. Also, as previously mentioned, there are not 50,000 search engines - or at least 50,000 search engines worth worrying about. Do SEO companies that offer this service meet this guarantee? Certainly - they use automated programs to do the submissions. Is this type of guaranteed SEO worthwhile? Not for search engine positions, but it may keep leprechauns at bay.

Meaningful Guarantees

Given the preponderance of "guaranteed SEO" that is meaningless, the seemingly Wild West nature of the industry, and the reality that SEO companies do not control the results of any major engine, it may seem that guaranteed SEO can never be a worthwhile endeavor. However, this is not the case. If you note the examples above, they are primarily involved in specifics - top positions, a certain number of submissions, a certain number of engines. However, good SEO companies, understanding that they have no control over individual results, should be confident enough in the results of their work in aggregate and in the safety of the methodologies that they use to offer guaranteed SEO that lives up to its promise.

The Custom Guarantee

In very rare cases, certain skilled, experienced SEO companies will be able to develop for you a custom guarantee derived from the analysis of your current traffic data, the competitiveness of your industry, and the status of your site. You will ideally be offered this type of specialized guarantee from the beginning of your dealings with an SEO firm because it ensures that you will be achieving targeted, meaningful results based on your specific situation, rather than on generalities that could apply to any business in any industry. Some SEO companies may tell you that a custom guarantee is not possible because they have no direct control over search engine results. However, SEO companies who have been in business for a while know how to weather the algorithm shifts and understand that there is more than one popular search engine. Such a firm will be confident enough to create and back a custom guarantee for you.

The Targeted Traffic Guarantee

SEO companies dedicated to showing value to their clients will take a baseline reading of current search engine traffic at the outset of a campaign. While, as previously mentioned, SEO companies do not hold sway over search engine results, they should at least be confident enough in their overall skills to promise that their clients will see an increase in targeted search engine traffic based on popular phrases relevant to the business. If the firm offering this type of guaranteed SEO charges on a monthly basis, any month of the engagement where traffic for targeted phrases does not, at a minimum, exceed the baseline should not be charged. After all, you are paying on a monthly basis to protect and improve your positions. While major algorithm shifts that make results on individual results unstable can and do happen, they rarely happen on all engines at once. You should feel confident that the firm you are paying has a very vested interest in making sure it adapts to the changing nature of search engine algorithms, and few things inspire such confidence as knowing that it will not get paid otherwise. If your prospective firm is unwilling to at least guarantee that it will send increased traffic to your website from targeted phrases, every month, it may be time to look elsewhere.

The "White Hat" Guarantee

SEO companies are commonly broken up into two camps - "white hats" (practitioners who remain solidly within the search engine's stated terms of service) and "black hats" (practitioners who work to unravel the latest search engine algorithms and base their optimization techniques largely on technology, regardless of the engine's terms of service). Both approaches are legitimate - after all, there is nothing illegal about exploiting a technical loophole for results. However, black hat SEO companies put their clients at risk of penalization or even outright banishment from the major engines. Getting back in can be a long process, and sometimes it is not possible at all. If you are concerned about potential penalization, get a guarantee from your firm that they adhere to the stated terms of service of all major search engines. If you can (and this is rare), get a guarantee that your site will not be penalized through any action of the SEO firm. This is harder for a company to offer, since the major engines frequently update their terms of service, and techniques that are acceptable today can be deemed unacceptable tomorrow. However, a confident firm that always errs on the side of caution when optimizing client websites will offer this type of guaranteed SEO services, since it will not use techniques that have a potential for penalization in the future.

Abusing the Metaphor (Beating a Dead Leprechaun)

Guarantees have been around for at least as long as leprechauns have been hoarding breakfast cereal and starring in bad horror films. So have guarantees that are essentially meaningless but sound respectable. A good guarantee should not only appeal to the base emotion of a potential purchaser, but it should also afford some real protection that the purchase he or she is making will provide meaningful results. Many of the most popular types of guaranteed SEO do not, and that's a shame. The industry already has a questionable reputation due to "leprechaun repellent" practitioners - make sure you don't go chasing their rainbow. After all, it's your pot of gold they are after.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, Lockergnome, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld, serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, Cirronet, and DS Waters. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.

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