You have two companies pitching to you about their SEO services.
How do you decide which one is better? Cheaper obviously? Read on to learn how some “affordable SEO companies trap customers to think they are getting better value.
1. Cheaper is more cost-effective, or is it?
Of course, it is human instinct to go with the cheaper option. You may have the mentality that you can try the “cheaper SEO services” and see if it works first. If it does, then you saved a lot on your marketing budget. If it doesn’t, then maybe you can go back to the other one, right?
The trap here is that affordable SEO services have a very low chance of being effective. Someone who tells you they can provide full-service SEO for your site for less than $250 per month is either inexperienced, giving you a super deal, or misinforming you about what they can achieve. Or they are simply lying. Unless the person offering the super deal is a family member or a close buddy, can you really count on a super deal? How many of us have had bad experiences with Internet’s famous super coupons?
2. Numbers don’t lie, or do they?
Many of such cheaper SEO companies do not provide any service at all. You will pay the contract price and chances are, never hear from them again. Read more here.
Many “affordable SEO companies” in Singapore provide a detailed breakdown of what their packages cover. So naturally, you will scrutinise these packages and decide based on which one apparently gives you better value.
Let us give you several examples of how these figures look like.
a) 10,000 backlinks guaranteed
b) 500 business listings or bookmark site links guaranteed
c) 50 to 100 keywords optimised
From the first look, anyone would think that they are getting a lot of value. But really, this is SEO suicide waiting to happen. Worst still, a paid attempt to kill your website.
Now, let us explain how they are able to promise you such high numbers.
a) 10,000 backlinks from China, Pakistan, India and Russia that have nothing to do with your website.
b) 500 business listings or bookmark site links again from business directories spanning to remote corners of the world which are useless to your local business. Google calls these practices Link Schemes and penalises any website that is guilty.
c) 50 to 100 keywords your customers probably never search for on Google, Bing or any search engine. Basically, have zero search volume. How do you generate a lead when no one is searching for you?
3. Not all numbers lie, or don’t they?
Apart from getting you ranked for keywords that don’t actually bring you any additional business, some SEO companies will give you reports that show that you’re forever #1 or the rankings remain the same from start to finish of a campaign. Does this mean you have to ask for daily reports? No.
Daily fluctuations, sometimes volatile, are a fact of SEO, and looking up daily statistics will likely drive you crazy. There is no guarantee in SEO that a keyword will forever retain a #1 position. Millions of other businesses engage in SEO and anything that they do can and will affect your ranking position.
Any competent SEO company will, however, provide monthly reports that show ranking performance, and will be transparent about drops in ranking. They will advise you on their next steps to fix the problem. If an SEO firm doesn’t provide this then they’re probably avoiding showing you the lack of results they’re getting for you and really don’t know what they are doing.
The point here is to avoid getting ripped-off. Besides your upfront cost, you are also losing out on the opportunity to use the 6 months or 12 months you could have used to build an effective SEO campaign that could have actually made a difference to your bottom-line. Read more about it here.
