How to look out for and avoid search engine marketing scams?
Search engine marketing can be a valuable asset for your business if it is done correctly by qualified online marketers. However, there are many SEO marketers that are scamming people and their business.
If you are a business owner in the US, I am sure you will receive soliciting callers who are claiming that they can help you to position your website in a short period of time on Google.
When you receive calls from an SEO firm, ask them for their phone number and let them know that you want to call them back. This action separates a real SEO firm vs callers from the overseas or calls centers.
Other things to ask SEO firms:
- Ask them to show their case studies related to your industry, and ask them what they have done in the past.
- Ask them to release the name of previous or current clients and contact those clients directly.
- Ask the SEO firms about their website position on Google. If they are claiming that they can help your website, you have to know what position their own website is on Google.
- Ask them to provide sample reports. A good SEO firm always provides a monthly report to their clients. Make sure you can make business sense of the reports.
- Make sure they are local and they have a physical office. You do not want to receive SEO from overseas companies since the majority of them do not follow Google’s standard guidelines.
- Make sure your contract is clearly defining what you are getting each month.
- Avoid the ones that promise that they can get you on the first page of Google in less than a month since SEO is a process that will take more than one month.
Keeping these points in mind, it will be a simple process to find a suitable and efficient SEO firm.