Want
a #1 Google Listing Guarantee?
I was reminded
today to take another look at Google’s
guidelines for picking an SEO company and was glad to see that
I don’t fall foul of them in any way.
One of the main
things that I am often asked for by prospective clients is to provide
a Guarantee that we can achieve #1 or top 10 listings within 3 or
6 months. Google clearly state on their SEO guidelines page that
“No one can guarantee a No. 1 ranking on Google“.
I have always reiterated that no-one can guarantee a listing in
Google, let alone where it might occur in the rankings. (Combine
this with the Google Aging Delay and we can probably guarantee that
new sites will NOT have a top 10 listing with 6 months).Some SEO
firms might provide a guarantee but are likely to only fulfill their
obligation for extremely obscure search terms.
For the most
part the client is not trying to catch you out when they ask you
this. They have a budget and they want real results so they can
justify ordering your service. Guaranteeing top 10 results for particular
search terms is not the way I approach guarantees though. The process
of SEO acts to improve the content and general accessibility of
the entire site and while we might focus on a particular search
term or two, our improvements could force another completely different
term to cause your listing to appear in the number 1 position and
drive insane amounts of traffic to your website.
I think if a
guarantee were to be applicable, it would be along the lines of
“All other promotional factors remaining constant, and
taking seasonal variation into account, we guarantee that your website
traffic will increase rather than decrease as a result of our optimisation
and submission procedures.”
Anyway, nice
to see that Google are giving this advice to help clients out. The
more transparency there is in this business, the better it will
be for everyone.
14-Sep-2005
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