An earlier blog post asked my small business clients to “Beware of Free”. Today’s post implores them to “Beware of Guaranteed” specifically when related to placement in Google search engine results page (SERP).

Here’s a link to an Australian news site with a story about high pressure, scammy methods used by one such company who had guaranteed to make client’s websites appear in Google Local’s top seven search result spots for a chosen keyword. Unfortunately this story is replayed across the world and around the corner where small businesses consistently fall for promises from unscrupulous companies.

Here are some facts for you to consider before you pay any money for your “guaranteed” placements:

• Per Google itself NO ONE can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Methods used by these companies break Google’s rules and can result in being punished by Google instead of increasing traffic.
• There is NO “Google placement expert partnership” or similarly worded program. Google endorses NO ONE!
• 1st page placement can be achieved by legitimate Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, but these can typically be managed in-house and you wouldn’t normally have to pay someone to do it for you.
• You have no control over what people are searching for – selecting one or two keywords to have promoted in this way does not guarantee how long tail variations of that keyword will appear.
• The second you stop paying the additional traffic (if there was any) goes away. You are much better off putting that money into improving your website or starting your own PPC campaigns.

The bottom line – there is simply no legitimate, guaranteed way to buy your way into Google’s listing (other than with PPC). If you’ve already signed up with one of these guys let me know – I might be able to help you.

Posted by John Tully
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