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Top 4 Lies Your SEO Consultant Might Try to Sell You

A Guest Blog Post by Melissa Burns of Socialnomics.

Every entrepreneur who decides to launch his business online has to deal with website promotion and SEO sooner or later. If you are one of those entrepreneurs who aren’t only keen on product creation, but also know how to promote their services, you might consider yourself lucky. However, if you don’t know much about SEO services and don’t have someone on your team who can help you cope with this issue, you will have to hire a SEO consultant - and this is where your troubles might begin if you aren’t careful enough. There are four most common lies SEO consultants tell their clients – and you should know how to confront them.

Lie #1: You’ll Get First Rank On Google

Google is the only company who can guarantee you certain rank on their search engine. Everyone else’s promises are a fraud. On the other hand, top positioning is possible, though questionable, and you should bear in mind that reaching a certain rank doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax. Rules change and SEO is more about constant process than about one-time result.

Proper response: “No, I won’t, but I would like to know the real state of things. What are the minimal and maximal goals we can reach within next 3 months?”

Lie #2: Repeating Content Will Do Just Fine

While the lie #1 is quite common and harmless, this one might make you think about searching for a new SEO consultant or another agency. Duplicated content will harm your SEO strategy implementation and hearing such assumption from someone who claims to be a professional in field of SEO is a bad sign. You’ll need lots of fresh and original content for your SEO – so find an agency that will be able to provide you with it. It does not matter whether it will be a New York, Beijing or Sydney SEO company as long as it gives you what you require.

Proper response: “I do not accept the usage of duplicated content. I need fresh pieces of content for each separate entry”

Lie #3: Social Media Doesn’t Matter That Much

Not every SEO agency is able to provide you with a decent SMM consultant, though these two aspects come together quite often. It is okay if your SEO consultant lets you know that he won’t be able to handle your SMM strategy – however, if he claims that it doesn’t require much effort and slacks off, you’ll have to confront him.

Proper response: “I consider social media marketing an important part of my general marketing strategy. If you are unable to handle promotion via social media channels, I will find another professional for this task”

Lie #4: The Quantity of Links Is the Key towards Success

It used to be the truth once, but nowadays spammy tactics lead to lousy results. You don’t want your links to be seen on low-quality websites and you don’t want them to be located in unprofessionally written texts. What you really need is natural links on prime quality sites, placed among the appropriate pieces of content.

Proper response: “I would rather have you concentrate on the creation of natural links. The quantity is important, but my priority is quality”

Not all SEO consultants are deliberately trying to trick you – most of them just want to keep up with the competitors who make use of these lies and attract more clients. However, whenever you realize that you hear one of the lies, mentioned above, point it out politely to the consultant. Don’t let anyone take you for a fool – now that you are aware of the common tricks, you can make SEO agencies work for you in the most efficient way.