Should you trust an agency that provides SEO-guaranteed results?
The promise of guaranteed SEO results may sound like an enticing incentive. As a company trying to stand out, wouldn’t it be great to be on page one of the search engine results pages? While some websites and online content pieces do make it there, it’s not something that happens overnight. Nor are these types of results a sure thing.
When agencies promise SEO-guaranteed results, they’re usually using a tactic known as bait and switch. If you’re unfamiliar with the meaning of the term, just remember this. A bait-and-switch tactic is advertising one thing and delivering something else, which is usually of lower quality.
In the case of SEO-guaranteed results, an agency is selling the promise that your content will absolutely rank high on the search engine results pages. Instead, that agency may deliver high rankings for inferior or basic keywords or use frowned-upon tactics that search engines will penalize. In the end, you won’t get the results you want.
Let’s look at all the reasons you shouldn’t trust an agency that says it provides SEO-guaranteed results.
Search Engines Warn Against It
When major search engines explicitly warn against using agencies that promise guaranteed results, you know that’s a bad sign. In other words, the problem is pervasive enough that Google’s come out and said not to trust promises of guarantees. Google provides helpful online documentation about SEO and what guidelines digital marketers and companies can follow.
In those guidelines, Google states that seeing results from SEO practices takes a while. Most companies can expect to see improvements within four months to a year. In addition, Google says that reputable SEO agencies should provide you with realistic timelines for improved rankings and results.
However, these agencies should not give you promises that state your content will rank in a specific position. While search engines like Google will release general guidelines and tips, they won’t disclose full details about their algorithms. That means no one but those who work for Google knows how these algorithms work. Plus, they’re constantly changing.
Therefore, reputable agencies can’t provide guaranteed SEO results. Nonetheless, they can do the following:
Provide estimates of campaign costs
Give you a list of which keywords you should try to rank for; often based on your competition and target audience
Estimates of what type of improvements you’re likely to see and when
Recommend specific actions, such as gaining more high-quality backlinks, to help boost your rankings
Historical and current performance trends and outliers
SEO Is Not the Algorithm
SEO practices can help your content rank higher for specific keywords, including long-tail and short-tail. However, SEO practices do not make up a search engine’s entire algorithm. Generally speaking, specific tactics will help increase your content’s rankings.
These include:
High-authority backlinks (e.g., a major and respected publication links back to your site or content as a source)
Organically including targeted keywords and keyword phrases in your content
Writing authoritative, informative, and credible content
Using keywords in headings, alt text, and the body of the text
Including keywords and keyword phrases in metadata and meta descriptions
Updating content so it stays relevant
That said, you can implement all the best practices for SEO and still not see the results you want. Maybe someone else comes out with more authoritative content on the subject and bumps your site or page from the first page of search engine results. Perhaps your publication or company suffers from poor reputation or domain authority.
A blow to your publication’s or company’s rep may lead to a dip in your content’s search engine rankings. Search engines could also include other things that they don’t release to the public in their algorithms. In short, many factors play a role in content visibility and those variables are always evolving.
Guaranteed SEO Practices Are Not Legit
When an agency promises SEO-guaranteed results, they’re probably engaging in questionable practices. One of those is known as keyword stuffing or the overuse of keywords. With keyword stuffing, content, metadata, and alt text have the same keywords written over and over. These phrases and words don’t appear organically or naturally.
Search engines are aware of these practices and penalize them. The algorithms account for them and will lower your content’s ranking as a result. So, while you may see some short-term results from sketchy practices like spammy backlinks, you’ll see a drastic drop soon thereafter. Search engines may even remove your content from the results pages.
This is part of the bait and switch mentioned earlier. An agency says they’ll deliver guaranteed SEO results but those results don’t last. In the end, the practices the agency employs end up delivering worse results than desired or expected. Having your content disappear from the search engine results pages is probably not what you’re aiming for.
That means you won’t reach your intended audience at all. It’s better to start at a lower ranking and slowly build your way up. Remember that content marketing and ranking for targeted keywords is something you and your agency must work on every day and over time. There’s not a single tactic that’s going to be a quick and permanent solution or fix.
SEO Strategy Is Unique
SEO agencies that say they can guarantee results also tend to use basic universal tactics. They don’t customize strategies or methods according to the company or its content. This is often a recipe for less than stellar results. Why? Because each organization has a unique audience, mission, and objective.
Yes, companies competing in the same industry or market may want to target similar keywords. Say there are four major national wireless carriers that operate nationwide. Nonetheless, each of these competitors will have a unique selling proposition. One might tout its 5G network reach while another emphasizes white-glove customer service.
Unique selling propositions are what will help shape content marketing and SEO strategies. Therefore, blanket approaches won’t work and won’t produce the long-term results that deliver success. Any agency that says it can guarantee results in a few weeks or a month using a universal approach is usually too good to be true.
Paid vs. Organic Results
SEO isn’t just one-sided. Most companies need a combination of organic and paid traffic to drive results. While organic results typically come from people finding your content through searches, paid traffic comes from items like pay-per-click or PPC ads. Some companies also pay to boost content via social media sites.
SEO agencies can use target keywords in organic and paid strategies. However, they can’t control what search engines do with it. You may pay to target PPC ads to specific audiences based on age, geolocation, or interests. Yet, there’s no guarantee everyone who fits your target demographic will see your ad and content.
In other words, you may see an increase in paid traffic when you boost ads or increase your paid search budget. You might also see a lift when you target new keywords and phrases. But sustained traffic is something that takes a while to build and will typically increase with your credibility and authority.
Final Thoughts
Any agency that says it can deliver SEO-guaranteed results is one you should avoid. In the world of search engines and SEO strategies, nothing is a sure thing.
Yes, you can follow the search engine’s guidelines and best practices. However, you will need to be patient. Content marketing and SEO are something that ultimately takes persistence, time, and effort from a reputable agency.
But with our 90-day performance promise, you don’t need to worry about not getting the desired results. If you’re not seeing any changes after 90 days, we carry on working for you for free.
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