Top search engine results – the promises and pitfalls of SEO
Recently I have heard about too many “too good to be true” deals or opportunities being promoted by unscrupulous companies. In this article I am going to specifically address websites and internet marketing. Let’s start with the promises. They range from “we can get you to the top of the page on Google” to “just pay us $2000 a month and we will guarantee you lots of new business.” As I have suggested before, if it sounds too good to be true, then stay away. Let face it, if it was really that easy everyone would be doing it. Please note, that although some of the following examples may seem ridiculous, they are all true stories.
Recently one of my clients asked me to speak with the sales rep who was telling him that they can guarantee getting him on the top of the page. When I spoke with this sales rep, she was very enthusiastic and again “guaranteed top position on Google. Let me caution you here – NOBODY can guarantee top position. Let’s face it, we would all like top position, so if they really had a way to do so, others would be doing the same thing. This should be logical, but I have so often either been asked to check this out, or worse yet, have clients come to me upset for having fallen for such a promise. When I spoke to this enthusiastic rep and asked a few questions, it turned out that she didn’t know anything about the internet; in fact she didn’t really even use a computer. I asked her to have someone from her company email me some more information. She couldn’t email me herself because she didn’t know how to use email. You guessed it – we never heard from that company again. Fortunately for my client he curbed his excitement and asked me to check it out. He is a smart person – he allows me to be the bad guy.
Two weeks ago another client asked me to check out an offer that he had just gotten to position him significantly higher on Google and Bing search pages. He had just met with the sales rep from a phone book company and they proposed to charge him less than he was paying for other advertising services. Because he had been burned before, he told the rep that he wanted him to explain the program to me. In spite of a few phone calls to this rep, he still has not been able to email or call me to describe his services. I’m just happy that my client didn’t sign his very enticing offer when they met 2 weeks ago.