Twice in the last week I’ve been approached by prospective clients about guaranteeing my SEO techniques. One business owner asked me to take a look at his site because he needed SEO for his business which would be selling franchises and he had the belief that I should guarantee a first page result and that I shouldn’t get paid till he is on the first page of Google.
Google Webmaster tools and forums are adamant that NO FIRM CAN GUARANTEE 1ST PAGE GOOGLE RESULTS and if they do they are a scam.
Hmmmm…so where does this audacity come from? Upon doing a search for the keyword phrase “guaranteed first page google” you will see a plethora of folks claiming to achieve first page results. If there were some magic formula to guarantee this result, why isn’t everyone doing it? Simply because it doesn’t exist. A Google Places listing is NOT an organic rank…you may be showing up on the first page of Google (hurray) but as a ‘place’ central to where the person has searched. If a firm guarantees they can get you on the 1st page of Google and a Places listing is your only result, they have failed you miserably. An organic rank is not achieved by spending a 1/2 hour-45 minutes creating a Google Places page. Rather it is doing extensive keyword research, competitive research, content management, ‘alt’ text tweaking, amongst a myriad of other duties that are required to get you the best possible results.
Another client implied that he wouldn’t mind if I did ‘whatever it took’ for his site to get ranked. For any future potential clients let me say…I am an ethical SEO. I will not do anything against Search Engine policy to get you ranked besides exceptional hard work.
Take a look at my SEO rankings to see what results I have achieved and let them speak for themselves.