Every trade knows about cowboy builders. The ones who talk a good game, take the deposit and leave a mess for someone else to sort out.
SEO has its cowboys too. And this is my pet hate. I've looked at accounts where a business had been paying for SEO for months, and when I checked, nothing had actually been done. Not a thing.
The trouble is, SEO is hard to check if you don't know what you're looking at. So here are the warning signs I'd watch for, and the questions I'd ask before paying anyone.
Seven warning signs
They guarantee you'll be number one
Nobody can promise that, and Google itself warns you to be wary of anyone who does. What a good SEO can tell you is exactly what they'll do, and why it should move things in the right direction. That's a very different promise.
They can't tell you what they actually did
Ask what they did last month. If the answer is "optimising" or "working on your rankings" and nothing more specific, be suspicious. Real work leaves a trail: pages written, profiles fixed, links earned, problems found and sorted.
They sell links in bulk
"500 backlinks for £99" sounds like a bargain. It's a trap. Cheap links from junk websites can give you a short bump, then get your site pushed down, or taken out of Google altogether, once it catches on. Then you're paying someone else to clean up the mess.
They want a long contract before proving anything
A 12-month contract on day one is there to protect them. Someone who's confident in their work doesn't need to lock you in.
They don't care what your website's like
If your website can't turn visitors into calls, more visitors won't help much. A good SEO will tell you that, even if it means you spend your money on the website first.
It's always "give it another few months"
SEO does take time. But you should see signs it's working along the way: your pages showing up in more searches, more people viewing your Google profile, some movement in where you rank. If you're six months in with nothing at all, and the answer is always "nearly there", it's time for harder questions.
They keep hold of your accounts
Your Google Business Profile, your Search Console, your analytics and your website should all be in your name, with the SEO given access. If they set everything up under their own accounts, leaving them gets messy. That's often the point.
Questions to ask before you pay
- What exactly will you do in the first month?
- How will I know it's working, and what will you show me?
- Can I see results you've got on websites you've worked on?
- Who owns the website, the Google profile and the accounts?
- How do you get links, and where from?
- What happens if it isn't working after six months?
A good SEO will answer every one of these straight away, in plain English. If you get waffle, you've got your answer.