In an industry that has no standards, documented guidelines or a governing body, it is very difficult for businesses to qualify or verify some of the questionable statements and promises made by certain companies offering SEO services. Apart from the SEO companies offering these difficult to deliver guarantees, there also exists a raft of SEO providers that don’t provide any SEO guarantees when in fact they could (should) as they are specialists (so they tell you) at the art of SEO. Combined, these situations provide a platform for crooked businesses touting themselves as SEO experts, to exploit prospective client perception and trust, by offering bogus guarantees, in order to seal the deal.
What can, and should prospective businesses expect when seeking the services of a Search Engine Optimisation firm:
A Significant increase in targeted traffic
By targeting appropriate, and relevant keywords and key phrases, experienced and competent SEO providers can send the ‘right’ kind of traffic to a website.
Search engine rankings are not always the best method of measuring the success of an SEO campaign. However, an increase in targeted traffic is. Targeted traffic is traffic/visitors that relates specifically to the product or service (or purpose) you are selling/promoting on your website. Due to the nature of targeted traffic, it is proven (and reasonable to assume) to have a positive impact on sales, and revenue.
An SEO firm that will stick to ethical practices
Ethical SEO practices are based on explicit search engine guidelines and skills and understanding learnt over time. By implementing tried and tested (ethical) methods, SEO professionals can and should deliver on predetermined SEO campaign goals.
Unethical techniques can promote a website to the top of search engine rankings but it wont take too long for search engines to catch up, and the website will be heavily penalised. Given its the end client that in this instance is the only party that stands to genuinely lose out in this event, clients are well within their right (and we strongly recommend) to request assurance that ethical practices will be adhered too. The SEO specialists should confirm and be obligated by such assurances.
Site traffic improvement guarantee
“If your website does not achieve marked improvement, we will continue to optimise the website until such time as campaign objectives are met.”
Businesses hire SEO professionals to ensure they receive a useful, results oriented service that translates into measurable results. A well executed SEO campaign will certainly improve a website’s performance. The increase can be in the form of page views, unique visitors, conversions, decreased bounce rate, increased sales, etc.
There is no reason why a client should wear all risks involved, when SEO experts can ensure performance improvement and produce the ‘right kind of results’.
Feasible time schedules
Search Engine Optimisation is a gradual and iterative process, however must not go on endlessly without producing tangible results within an agreed period of time.
Businesses should not be expected to pay for SEO services that are not producing results.
Satisfaction Guarantee
Clients hire SEO professionals to help them accomplish business objectives; if these objectives are met, satisfaction is all but natural. If clients get what they want, there is little reason not to be satisfied. If we do what we claim to be best at, having a satisfied client base is easy. Satisfaction will be a result of our efforts.
Do the right thing
In summary, companies offering Search Engine Optimisation solutions should offer SEO guarantees – but only the right type of guarantees. Without them, prospective clients are subject to abuse and the SEO industry will be dubbed having a less than impressive reputation.
On the other hand, businesses should seek guarantees (you now know what can and what cannot be guaranteed) to safeguard their interest and investment.
