Web Design Blog

Time To Put A Stop To SEO Scams

SEO Scam Alert SignThere has been a huge rise in the number of clients receiving emails from SEO companies telling them that their website is not ranking well and they need to take action. Costs to fix their website can often run into thousands of dollars.

These companies prey upon small business. Some of the most common scams include:

1) Top Ten Ranking for 10 of your most important key phrases

2) Your website has errors which prevent search engine ranking

3) We’ll ensure your website is found on thousands of search engines

4) 500 links for $50

 and my all time favourite…

5) First page of Google within 24 hours

Where there is a disparity between the knowledge of the provider and the client there is always the chance of deception. Unfortunately this is very evident in the many SEO scams currently running. Let’s take a look at these scams and discover why they are a scam…

1) Top Ten Ranking for 10 of your most important key phrases

Guaranteed top ten rankings are worthless. Your website already has literally hundreds of Google Page One rankings. For example if you search “Design Cat Brisbane”, my website will be one of the first results.

If you were to search on similar obscure terms found in your website you would probably find plenty of page one rankings for your site also.

Rankings for key phrases are not the goal. Your goal is providing information to your clients and sales or leads. In fact whatever your business goal may be.

2) Your website has errors which prevent search engine ranking

This can be a very concerning message for website owners as this SEO scam focuses on a technical aspect of a website which most website owners don’t really know about. The claim sounds plausible often stating W3C standards.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) maintains consistency in coding languages used throughout the web. As the web is developing at such a fast pace there may be instances where innovation has occured and the W3C has not yet validated this innovation. The good news is that search engines are aware of this and Google has publicly stated that W3C errors and warnings don’t impact rankings.

3) We’ll ensure your website is found on thousands of search engines

How many search engines do you use? How many different search engines have you heard of?

The fact is that 70% of online searchers are using Google and another 20% are using Yahoo, a further 8% use Microsoft Live, there are a handful of other search engines which make up the final 2% of traffic.

Thre aren’t thousands of search engines to worry about, there are three!

4) 500 links for $50

Sounds like a great idea, only ten cents per link..

If only it were that easy for websites to achieve top ranking. Just spend $50 and ta da, you’re no. 1 on Google.

Of course this doesn’t work. Google gives these links little to no value, the cheaper the link the less powerful the link.

If you are clever and create great content which others link to, then you will find these links are very powerful and your rankings will increase.

5) First page of Google within 24 hours

Yes, yes, yes, this is entirely possible. The steps are as follows:

1) Sign up for a Google Adwords Account

2) Pick a keyword, anything at all

3) Pay

That’s all you need to do! If you would like to get more bang for your buck feel free to give me a call or drop me an email. I can definitely ensure that the amount you pay is much less than you would spend by doing it yourself.

Sadly there are a great deal more SEO scams operating which I haven’t covered in this post. Stay vigilant and remember that as in all other areas, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s most likely a scam!

 

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