SEO Approve – Review Top SEO Companies
SEO Approve is a brand new SEO company review and comparison site that I feel has a lot of potential specifically because it is brand new. I’ve made no attempts to hide my gripes with parts of the SEO industry, specifically at how cliquey it can be. Older and established SEO industry sites are fairly set in their ways and it’s not easy for those new to SEO to break in and gain any traction. While I understand there is a fair amount of competition between SEO consultants and SEO firms, I don’t think that means we have to give the cold shoulder to those just entering our profession.
Some SEO organizations are “pay to play,” meaning you pay their review site to feature your company and rate it well. This almost ensures that SEO companies with the biggest budget are going to dominate these review sites and get the bulk of the reviewers “love.” I don’t think that’s particularly fair to small to mid-size SEO agencies that are doing a great job, but don’t have an extra $5k lying around to purchase a favorable review. And that’s where SEO Approve steps in. SEO Approve levels the playing field for SEO companies, so the little guys who produce great work for their clients have just as much exposure as the big brands with the big budgets.
SEO Approve offers SEO companies 3 different profile tiers to choose from. The basic profile is free and looks something like a basic business card:
SEO companies can also opt to pay for the Member profile ($199.99 annually) or the Ambassador profile ($299.99 annually). The higher level profiles get premium profile placement and allow companies to post more information like links to their social profiles, their Google map location, and the opportunity to list their company in multiple categories on SEO Approve’s site. Possible company classification categories include: A/V Production, Contextual Advertising, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Pay-Per-Click Management, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Development and Website Design.
One of the nice things about SEO Approve is that it is very easy for your SEO clients to rate and review your services. The don’t have to create an account to post a review, they just need to fill out a short form and rate your company in four different categories. For companies that have a hard time getting client testimonials, this is a quick and easy way to get their endorsement without taking up too much of their time. You can just email them the link of your listing and ask them to take 2 minutes to fill out the review form.
SEO Approve also lets SEO companies post their events. This is a great way to help spread the word about an upcoming workshop or training event you might be holding, as well as any conferences you are sponsoring. The site breaks down events into 5 different categories, making it easy for users to find the right event to suit their needs.
I would recommend that SEO companies give SEO Approve a try. It’s still a relatively new site which means there is a lot of room for growth. Even if you just set up the basic profile for now, you can always decide to upgrade your listing down the road.
Click here to submit your site to SEO Approve today!
7 Responses to “SEO Approve – Review Top SEO Companies”
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I clicked through after seeing an ad for these guys on Facebook and sorry but some of the repertoire in general just made me think “TopSEO’s” and “Another Scam”. It doesn’t help that they seem to have links to SEOPositive, who I don’t actually know but to my mind, any company that proudly displays a TopSEO’s badge on their site as if it’s something that’s somehow earned rather than paid for, and not just something to deceive the naive and get leads, is not an ethical company. Then they further confirmed my thoughts with the advertising campaign of “As seen in the Telegraph” which is a paid advertorial written by them. I know advertising can be a bit iffy but that’s intentionally misleading… basically it’s a scam, a con, and other words to that effect.
So anyway, SEO Approve, Approve them when they do stuff like that, well then there approval really doesn’t mean a lot to me.
Apologies for ranting in your comments lol
Thanks for the write up Nick. It’ts always hard to be the new kid on the block. But we hope that people are as sick of the popularity contest SEO directories and give us a shot. We’ll be adding a lead generation portion to the site in the near future for paid members as a value added reward. Not like SEO Consultants where you have to jump through several hoops to sign up. We want this resource to be solid and are proud to see that you are a Featured Vendor and Sponsor.
BTW- There is a Cyber Monday sale that spans all week and ends on Sunday. Save 75% on paid Membership or Ambassadorship with promo code: CYBER75.
Nick,
Is there any safeguard against false negative reviews? Is there any particular moderation process for this site? Can anyone go on and leave a review, similar to Places?
Thanks
@Steve Sorry that you feel this way. Its actually the reverse of how we want to be viewed. Yes the word “scam” comes to mind when a company like TopSeo’s charges a company $1000 just to be considered for their rankings.
We simply took the “review angle” in which we hope that businesses and organizations will actually rate companies based on their performance.
Also, please note that there are several advantages of becomming a member which may I add is cheaper than any other professional SEO resource that’s out there.
Couple of notes regarding membership benefits: 1- you get a badge that links directly to your listing so that people can make a review 2- You can add a wealth of information and even add articles that will be republished in our article area 3- Ambassadors get a detailed profile view. Lastly, we scrutinize your ratings and will revoke membership for companies that consistently receive bad reviews. BTW- thats why you have to purchase membership to get a badge. Last time I checked, any membership from TopSEO’s started at the $600/month range, but its been a while. Please let us know how we can better be perceived as a “non-scam” SEO site. We would love to hear your thoughts.
@Scott In regards to “salted reviews”, we track people’s IP addresses (and people cannot submitt multiple reviews from the same IP) and manually review each and every review that comes through. There is always a slight chance of competitor slamming and such, but swearing, hateful words, etc will not be tollerated. BTW- We studied many of the shortcommings (especially the concern of reviews) of semcompare.com before we launched.
The next addition will be to add a lead generation component to the site for paid members in their respective territories which is currently a work in progress. Again, any feedback to improve the site’s experiece would be greatly appreciated:) Have a great week.
Well that’s certainly decent of you to get back and give this response, as well as addressing potential issues and asking for feedback. I’d still like to know though, how would you go about barrier to entry? i.e. will there be guidelines in place that require SEO’s not to use misleading sales tactics, etc… in order to be in your system.
Again, PositiveSEO obviously aren’t aware of how most of the SEO community views TopSEO’s but for them to be displaying a TopSEOs badge on their site puts them in the misleading category instantly, yet they’re also in SEO Approve… For me that’s not a good start for filtering agencies that should instantly be “unapproved” until they remove that badge and other fake advertising.
@Steve you bring up a very valid point. First of all, we really don’t care about what badges other companies display other than ours. Secondly, we encourage as many free members as possible….but they DO NOT have the right to display our badge unless they pay for membership. If SEOPositive appears to be using shady tactics out of the gate, that doesn’t mean “instant approval” from our point of view. But it must be obvious that they are not following ethical guidelines. However, I would still want them to have a basic listing so that the organizations that have a bad experience at that firm TO BE HEARD and should be publicly displayed as we see it. How else are the non educated businesses that make a poor choice in their SEO company have a place to turn? Lastly, if we see any guarantee of SERPS, you can bet that they ain’t getting a badge from us. Perhaps they can pay Sempo or TopSeos to look more legit….but we won’t tolerate it. Does that make sense?
Fair enough, yeah that makes good sense. To be honest I might have been a little harsh anyway… there’s going to be issues at first no matter what with this type of thing, and you’ll have the ability to evolve how it works as you go along, acquiring feedback as you go, etc… I’m just permanently bitter about the existence of TopSEO’s…. I shouldn’t really be taking that out on you guys though lol.