Avoiding SEO Scams

It’s a slow burn process, and this has enabled plenty of scam artists to see pound signs floating before their eyes. Here’s how it works: (there are a few terms in here that are esoteric to SEO – if you don’t understand something… Google it!).

One

Scam artist has finished selling his dodgy microwaves he bought off a mate in a pub car park in Hounslow and he reads an article about people making fortunes in SEO. By the next day he is an SEO expert.

Two

He looks around the USA (via the web) and copies a nice looking website about SEO. HIS website now looks really slick and professional. For an added touch he might even scam his way into getting a pagerank 6 (yes, you can get pagerank 6 or 7 for a few hundred dollars per month but it WON’T help your search engine rankings). He gets some business cards printed. He now has a great website with a pagerank of 6 – now he needs some customers…

Three

He certainly isn’t going to be getting any customers from the internet because he knows very little about SEO but he DOES know how to pick up the phone and dial people from the Yellow Pages. He can be quite convincing.

Four

“Hi, this is Frank from the Wonderful SEO Company, I’ve noticed you are having trouble being found on the internet – I can fix that for you, who should I speak to there?…oh, Dave, the Director…. Yes, it is quite urgent…thanks, yes… I’ll hold. DAVE! I have some GREAT news for you… I can GUARANTEE you top ten placements in Google. Yep. Cast Iron Guarantee….” Etc. etc.

Five 

Once the sale is made and the contracts signed he will fiddle about with ONPAGE optimisation (this is worth about 5% to Google… the important stuff is OFFPAGE optimisation, which he will never mention, or dismiss). Your site will not appear anywhere better in Google and your visitors do not go up. “Don’t PANIC” says Frank, reassuringly, “It takes TIME, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Get that next payment over to me, by next month you’ll see the results”.

Six

Months pass, more re-assurance and a dawning realisation that you are not going to get any more visitors and you’ve just spent a large chunk of your children’s inheritance.

Seven

If Frank is really canny, he’ll spend SOME of your money performing a PPC (pay per click) campaign on your behalf… that way you get traffic but at the end of the contract it all stops and your money is gone! SEO should boost your site up the NATURAL listings not PPC listings and should last a LONG TIME – many years probably before needing a boost (depending on keyword competition)

Eight

Frank baths in French Champagne (is there any other?), eats truffles and wonders why everybody doesn’t run an SEO company.

The scam works because his contract TOP TEN GOOGLE PLACEMENT GUARANTEE does not define the PHRASES that you’ll be on Google’s first page FOR or (even better) it puts them in QUOTE MARKS. This looks fine on paper – but makes a huge difference in Google. Sometimes they put your company name in brackets by the phrase, which in a contract looks fine – but they argue that part of the search term is your company name… in brackets. Etc. etc. Often the company is GONE by the time you get round to filing the Small Claims Court paperwork.

How do you avoid being scammed? Simple. Ask for DEMONSTRABLE results. Get them to show you sites they have boosted up the search engines (at least three). Check to ensure they are REAL businesses – and telephone them to confirm. It’s easy for Frank to pick the top results in Google and say he got them there! Get confirmation IN WRITING what phrases are being targeted for Google Page One results. It DOES take time unfortunately, but you should see a dramatic improvement in traffic and some phrases on Google’s Page One within THREE MONTHS.