Right now in today’s economy businesses will do and say just about anything to bring in new business. The horror stories in the SEO industry really never slow down and people seem to still fall into the trap of the “guaranteed rankings” promises. I know I might get some flack over this from certain SEO people out there but I think it is important to realize that nobody can guarantee any sort of search engine rankings. In fact a few weeks ago I wrote another article about how SEO guarantees should not exist and there was some interesting comments.
Why you ask? Nobody controls the search engines except the search engines themselves. Over time, we have slowly understood what the search engines want from websites which is good quality marketing material. Rankings are usually guaranteed when some type of black hat technique is being applied which we all know is not a very smart approach. A black hat technique could potentially harm your websites rankings and trust over time in the eyes of the search engine. SEO requires you to look at it as a long term goal and vision. Each month’s efforts compound building power for your website over time. People seem to be under the impression that the efforts that lead to SEO don’t really matter and this couldn’t be further from the truth. Look at it like building a portfolio online for your business. Your portfolio of marketing efforts continues to grow in power eventually leading to increased inbound traffic and increased search rankings. At the end of the day nobody can take that away from you. Each month acts as a new layer driving power and trust to your website. You have to earn trust in the search engines before you can really start generating good solid rankings in the search engines. Guarantees in the search engine industry should swarm around the ability to complete the tasks at hand. I realize that customers feel warm and fuzzy when they hear the word “guarantee” but it is important as a consumer to realize that if it sounds too good to be true in the SEO industry it probably is.
When done right search engine optimization requires time for efforts to really take effect. Remember that rankings are not the only thing that a business website should be striving for. It is a collaborative effort that also builds your brand along with rankings.