If you have a low priced SEO (search engine optimization) service, or are considering signing onto one, you may want to reconsider. At the least, it’s important to do some research and be aware of what exactly you’re getting, and whether you will be wasting your money or even hurting your website.
There are many companies that can be found online that advertise extremely low priced or cost effective SEO services. Of course you want your SEO to be affordable, but the extremely discounted services may not be all they appear. Here are a few warning signs to look out for:
Their Approach is Not Holistic
If your SEO service considers SEO as a standalone item, this is a bad approach from the start. SEO is integrally related to other parts of marketing such as social media marketing, content marketing, and blogging. What this means is that you need to have all of the parts working together to really create a good user experience that draws people to your site, which is what search engines are looking for in the first place. So if your cost effective SEO service is promising results based on some method that doesn’t include good content and social media, they probably can’t deliver.
They Try to Work the System
This is related to the previous point. When the focus isn’t on a great, holistic user experience, some SEO services will try and focus on “working the system” so to speak. A lot of the times this has to do with focusing on parts of SEO like Meta Descriptions, which play a role in click through rates but are not by any means the whole picture.
Another thing to watch out for is a promise of having some inside knowledge that will boost your site to the top of search results. Search engine algorithms are kept secret, and a good SEO service will continually learn to find out what is working and utilize best practices, but can never honestly say that they know all of Google’s secret ranking factors. Historically, those who try to outsmart the search engines end up getting penalized.
A great example of this is a client that we took on several years back. Due to SEO services they had in place before coming to our agency, their website domain had been so penalized by Google that we decided to start fresh with a new one. We’ve had great SEO success with this client, but that’s because we have focused on best practices, content and a great user experience – not working the system.
They Have Too Many Clients
Some cost effective SEO services charge such a small amount of money that you can only be a small part of their focus. If you are only paying a couple hundred dollars a month, how could they afford to spend much time working on your site? Of course you don’t want to over pay for your SEO services either, but under paying can have its own dangers, and one of them is very little attention paid to a very important aspect of your business. A good SEO fit for your company would be someone who you can afford, and they can afford to spend the right amount of time on your business to help you be successful.
These are just a few of the things you should watch out for with so called cost effective SEO services. When you are hiring an SEO service, be sure to do your homework and find a company with a good track record that you can afford to do business with.
To learn more about how we view SEO as part of an inbound marketing approach, download the free offer below:
Since 2002, Half a Bubble Out has been dedicated to providing marketing, advertising and small business consulting that meet the needs of our clients. We specialize in powerfully telling stories through Inbound Marketing to grow your business filled with more passion and provision. Based in Chico California, we serve clients throughout Northern California and across the country to New York.
