1. “We Guarantee Number 1 Position on Google”.

I am sure you have come across this quote.

 

Like hell yea, they own the Google (Sarcasm at its best!). If you come across an company/expert who make these kinds of promises, turn around and run the other way as fast and as far away you can from them. None of the professional good SEO company will promise this mainly for the following reasons:

1. Nobody knows the Exact Google Algorithm
2. Google doesn’t publish all the changes made to their algorithm
3. Google can roll out the penalties anytime

I did not mean to say that an SEO agency cannot rank you number 1 or can not increase the traffic to your website. All I meant to say was, they cannot guarantee it simply because they don’t have a control on Google’s Algorithm.

2. Are they going to do a comprehensive website audit before getting you on the board as a client?

Every website and every business require different strategies when it comes to SEO. There is no such a thing as “One-size fits all”. Many agencies are only aiming to get more clients. They are not willing to spend time understanding the business. Hence, they apply the same strategy as they would apply for 100 of their previous client. While this can work if the applied strategy is industry related. But, what if it isn’t your industry related? Ask them this question: How is your agency going to tailor an SEO strategy for my business.

3. “We will submit your site to 10000s of directories in a month”

 

This is nothing but a Black-Hat technique which worked 5-7 years ago. Besides, earning an unnatural link from other sites can only harm the website as Google will see this as spam. The term Google use for these kinds of link building technique is “Link Schemes”. Link schemes are strictly against Google’s webmasters guidelines. According to Google’s guideline any of the following technique used to gain a link is violating their guideline (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en):

•” Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
• Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
• Using automated programs or services to create links to your site”

Ther is it. Google has said it perfectly. There is nothing more needs to be said. So, don’t even think twice before turning your back on a company who practices these spammy strategies. Simply save your website from being penalised from the master (Google).

4. “We will require an access to the website’s back-end ”

A good SEO agency will always ask for an admin access to your site, unless, you don’t want them to make amendments to your site. But, if they didn’t even bothered asking for the access then you should be getting worried. Why I said so? Simply because how else they are going to make any On-Site changes?

Please remember that if SEO is not done in a correct manner, it can do more harm to your website than good. There has been instances where Google has completely de-index (removed from Google) company’s website. This happened mainly because the wrong, spammy or black-hat techniques were implemented by their SEO agency.

Be Aware of these “Moving” online SEO firms.