Hiring an SEO firm can be stressful. With prices ranging anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars per month, depending on your specific needs, it is difficult to hear an SEO firm tell you it will take a few months before you can expect to see results. How do you know if they’re doing real work, or ripping you off? If you’ve hired an SEO firm before and had a bad experience, you have anxiety added upon anxiety as you go through the hiring process again. In these circumstances, it is perfectly understandable that you would be attracted to the idea of a guarantee. Other service businesses, from auto mechanics to shipping companies, offer guarantees, so why wouldn’t SEO firms?
As the owner of an SEO firm, I’ve been tempted to offer guarantees myself. Don’t my clients deserve a guarantee? And wouldn’t it be great for marketing? It would help those clients who are hesitant about the risk involved with SEO to decide to use us rather than a competitor who didn’t offer a guarantee, right? But several years ago when I started researching SEO guarantees, I found reasons to be hesitant about offering one myself. The first reason can be found in my spam filter, and probably in yours, too. Here’s a view of what I see in mine:
Wait, Sophia Loren is into SEO and sent me an email? I’ll have to look into this… But seriously, would I want to associate my firm with companies that send out this spam? This, by itself, was reason enough to think twice about offering a guarantee.
Why These Guarantees Can’t Be Trusted
I also studied this post on SEO guarantees by Moz Founder, Rand Fishkin. As to why guarantees regarding SEO should not be trusted, Fishkin gives five reasons:
1. “SEO Guarantees Have an Abominable History†– Scams offer guarantees, which by itself means you should be on your guard about any firm offering a guarantee.
2. “The Search Engines Expressly Warn Against It†– Google’s official statement reads:
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/12/16/why-the-best-seo-firms-dont-offer-guaranteed-results/