SEO Guarantees Should Not Exist

Writing by Nick Stamoulis ShareThis

For many years I have been hearing lots of SEO companies that offer guarantees on search engine placement. I have argued this approach until I have been blue in the face and I think it is important to revisit this issue. Too many customers look for this guarantee and many are usually quite disappointed with the outcome when things fail to come through as promised.

Google recently held a clinic with certain members of the Google search quality team to go over and discuss hot button issues that seem to be on the minds of many website owners and webmasters. When Google comes out and says something about how an effort operates in their search engine people should listen. The clinic was held in Dublin and Google had sent invitations to many webmasters to come in and participate. I am personally pleased to see some of the topics that where covered as they are important to shed some light on.

Here is probably the most important question asked in my opinion:
“Should I believe SEO agencies that promise to make my site rank first in Google in a few months and with a precise number of links?”
Official Google Answer: No one can make that promise; therefore the short answer is no, you should not.”

People need to understand that no search engine marketing company on the planet should be promising or guaranteeing number #1 rankings in the search engines. (Rankings in general as a measurement for SEO is an old flawed metric, but that is another topic). Anybody that promises this is flat out lying and you should run for the hills. If they do get you rankings like that fairly quickly chances are they are using very strong black hat techniques which is not the answer to grow a business. There are many SEO businesses out there that prey on young websites and website owners that might not truly understand how search engine optimization really works. They think that rankings are the answer to success and they see false claims like these mentioned above and they assume they will be successful. To be successful online you need to grow a brand online. Give the people something to follow and be interested in. A website just sitting in search results is beneficial but certainly not the end all be all when it comes to the world of commerce. How many successful businesses do you know that simply thrive from a single search ranking?

Here is exactly what I say to people who ask for an SEO guarantee:
“Would you ask your attorney for a guarantee to win a case?”
“Would you ask your accountant for a guarantee for a tax return?”
“Would you ask your doctor for a guarantee on a surgery?”
“Would you as your plumber for a non-leak guarantee?”
I can keep going here…the answer is “NO”

So why should an SEO professional give a guarantee?
They should NOT! Please share your thoughts on this topic.

April 23, 2010
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58 Comments
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SEO

58 Responses to “SEO Guarantees Should Not Exist”

Lahle Wolfe says:

June 16, 2010 at 2:06 am

I guess I am in your camp, John. I agree SEO is not just an exercise in meta data.

If you are not going to tie performance into pay, at the very least an SEO company should provide complete transparency about what they are doing each day/week on the site in detail. This would allow clients to verify work was being done and to decide if they should continue paying for a particular service.

We get more clients than is acceptable coming from companies that charge a monthly retainer fee without providing report of the work done (this is not the same is analytical reports.)

I do not feel the need to educate clients about how hard SEO is. They already know how hard it is and probably failed to rank their sites on their own or they would not be hiring an SEO company in the first place!

But we educate them why a particular type of work or service is necessary and how/why it will help. We tell them what we are doing and do not pretend to have trade secrets or special affiliations with Google (or anyone else.)

Some clients are just interested in learning about SEO so they can take over their own sites. So I am curious how you feel about SEO companies teaching their tricks of the trade to clients so that they (clients) are responsible for the outcome if a company will not offer a guarantee?

Thank you for allowing everyone to share such differing opinions. This has been a great and informative thread. It would be easy for you to hit “delete comment” with those whom you disagree with. I commend you for not doing so.
Wilhelm says:

June 16, 2010 at 7:59 pm

Hello Nick,

To me the key lies in the following statement you made:
“Rankings in general as a measurement for SEO is an old flawed metric.” This proves especially true in local service markets such as dentistry where top rankings for common phrases do nothing more than offer false assurances as there is little to no traffic in these standard phrases. If you offer a performance guarantee based on this you are misleading your customers in making them believe that they now have an optimized site. Good for you, not for the client. Your guarantee should be based on an increase in site visitors and page views while keeping the bounce rate low.

The Visible Dentist suggests an increase of 300 visitors per month per 200,000 city population after SEO work. So in a city like Los Angeles a dentist should see a guaranteed figure of 6,000 visitors per month after SEO. Now that’s worth a lot more than page 1 bragging rights.
Nick Stamoulis says:

June 16, 2010 at 9:22 pm

Hi Lahle,
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and viewpoint. I would never delete a real (non spam) comment as that is the point of having a blog…to communicate and share thoughts and viewpoints, not have a subject be all 1 way (my way/way of thinking)

Hi Wilhelm,
Good quality SEO results is not about bragging rights (although as nice is that is), it is about generating and building business, which 6,000 visitor growth certainly is…thanks for the comment!
The overworked SEO says:

June 21, 2010 at 7:21 pm

Nick,

I see both sides on this. I agree with the Visible Dentist – at least with regards to the fact that the SEO SHOULD know what the hell they’re doing before they start doing the work.

If you’re a prospect, always ask for client references and proof of previous successes. If it sounds too good to be true (awesome results – very little cost),it is — netphrases [dot] com for example…..

If the prospect still wants to ‘chase’ rankings at that point – even after they’ve been ‘educated’ about relevant traffic and conversions, etc… then I say go ahead and offer the ‘performance based’ campaign – a small retainer each month to cover at least some costs, and a % based performance fee for each week/month that their selected keyword phrase appears in the X position.

A sliding scale can work to your advantage in these situations – for each week their selected keyword phrase(s) that appears on the 1st page – $ xx.00 additional
Appearing in position 4-6: $ xx.00
Appearing in position 1-3 $ xxx.00

If they go after 3 competitive terms, and you told them $300 mo/retainer + $100/week for each #1-3 spot, you’d be making $1500/mo on avg. (assuming you could get all 3 to those positions)

In many cases, this is much more than you’d be able to get out of the client with just a straight flat fee – but in these cases, a contract is a must (one that spells out the client’s responsibilities as well) – as is a card on file.

Of course, you also run into all kinds of discrepancies with this billing method, like: my cousin said the site ISN’T showing up in the #x position, or you said I’m #1 but I’m not on maps, etc…

I would never flat out guarantee a top #1-3 position these days. If it happens it happens.
Nick Stamoulis says:

June 22, 2010 at 12:15 am

Hi The overworked SEO,

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts…I see that you are with an internet marketing company, have you ever taken on any clients using this pricing model? If so, where you able to sustain their positioning using white hat techniques? And if so for how long? I would also love to hear from a client that purchased one of these types of performance based SEO services and had long lasting results (done well for longer than 12 months)…

Thanks again for the comment,
Nick
Fresco Creative SEO says:

July 22, 2010 at 9:06 pm

Agreed just with the title of this blog! It really annoys me when I meet someone who so arrogantly says they will get you to ‘the top of google’!

Don’t talk about doing it, don’t say you’ll do it, just do it!
John says:

August 8, 2010 at 6:17 pm

My pet hate is that clients are not educated about how the net/ranking works, but to some extent they won’t listen anyway.

I agree you cannot say you will get a definate page ranking and anyway the SEO company should be explaining to the client that the work we do is based on one or more keywords. To me its going to be very difficult to guarantee to have 10 keywords all ranking on the first page of Google, quickly anyway.

Clients sometimes are there own worst enemy though, they themselves should be trying to at least understand what they are purchasing.

If the client is after any sort of service level they should take the time to get involved in the definition of the service, its not about ranking or placement its about traffic. But it has to be noted that if the site is on page 22 of Google for all of the keywords then the liklehood of being found from a search engine is remote.

The client is buying into a Marketing strategy and they should take the time to put the web design company under the spotlight and define correct terms. For me you could have a tiered system of costs but it should be based on increased traffic that can be proven to have arrived based on the strategy that is being used.

We build SEO into all of our sites, this allows us to work with a small number of keywords but ensure the important elements of that site are synchronised with these keywords. Before we start development we find keywords that we know are not too competative but that will drive traffic, we then optimise the site for these.

Thanks,
John.
Nick Stamoulis says:

August 9, 2010 at 1:50 pm

Hi John,

Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!

You bring up some excellent points, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most from what you said is an SEO client is buying into a marketing strategy. I think too often clients think that every part of their web marketing works in a silo, when in actuality every part of an internet marketing plan fits into and feeds each other, especially a white hat approach to SEO…