8 SEO Scams To Look Out For

     First page results on Google is a goal any business would want to achieve. It is very important to rank high on Google’s search engine, but going from page 100 to 1 is a pipe dream- one that will never happen for any business. The only way you might be able to do this, however not organically, is to pay Google to advertise your existing website for you.

     Anything that does not require payment is considered organic. No one except Google can rank you for organic traffic. All businesses want to rank high on the search engine, but instant front page results is too far fetched. Lets say that an SEO company is able to do this: What keywords are they ranking you for? What practices are they using? Google watches for all of this. If you don’t use keywords to rank your site, you might have a black hat SEO company representing your website. Google definitely will lower your rank score or even worse, black list your site.

     Please beware of SEO companies claiming that they have a special relationship with Google. Or they have a “Guy” that used to work for Google… It’s the biggest scam of the century! There is not one algorithm suitable to sustain all website traffic flow. SEO is much bigger than Google.

     In short, SEO companies can offer you the moon but when it comes to delivering the results there isn’t enough red flags in the world to warn a small business owner. Just beware of offers that seem too good to be true.

     There are only three search engines that really matter, but really there are only two. No matter how many search engines exist, only one can rank your website and get you quality traffic to your website. Google. It is the most used search engine when someone is searching for products, services and blogs. Don’t waste your money on submitting your website to search engines that no one uses.

     Direct links are very important to building traffic to your website. However, when an SEO company claims that they will link your page to hundreds of other pages… What are the other details? What pages? Are they relevant to your website and content? Again, what are their practices? You definitely need more information than riding on a promise or guarantee. It literally takes years to build quality links. This just doesn’t make sense. So don’t waste your time and money on this.

     This next one is easy to fall for. SEO companies asking to gain access to your website. This is something that needs to be done however… Because of keywords and internal links… But if they offer you free stuff in return… BEWARE! Your site that you worked so hard on or spent a lot of money on-  could be potentially wrecked by these companies and with recourse.

     Unsolicited services for SEO is the most common form of SEO scam. How did they even know you own a website? They troll the internet looking for URLs and email addresses. Even I get these emails and phone calls. In fact in the middle of writing this article, I received an email from a woman claiming to boost my SEO ranking.. Hello, I do SEO for a living! Just ignore these forms of communication- if you really need help with your SEO please research a legit company with references.

     Secret SEO tactics and tools DO NOT exist. If you ask the SEO company about their practices and they will not reveal… You’ve got a bad SEO company- most likely utilizing black hat SEO tactics. If they do anything at all for you. Most of these nightmare stories my clients tell me end with a big fat debt and no results. I’ve had a client pay an SEO company that solicited him, $150 a month for 13 months- before he started feeling like he was being taken advantage of.

     In conclusion, beware of SEO companies promising and guaranteeing to offer you more than you understand. It is often far too easy for someone with an online business to be scammed out of hard earned money. However, SEO is not dying. It is the strongest marketing tool out there, but it is the slowest. So if you don’t have the cash to splurge on a good SEO company, just keep in mind that writing good, long and consistent content is still a strong point in Google’s SEO Handbook.