Why Best SEO Agencies Don't Offer Guarantees

Most SEO companies are known to offer ” Number 1 Position” on search engines, especially on Google for their clients. This is a false guarantee.

Hiring an SEO agency can be extremely stressful with new ones popping up everywhere nowadays. In Malaysia, during the Covid-19 lockdown period, I’ve witnessed a huge increase in the number of agencies. And the most interesting part, they offer the cheapest digital marketing services that you can’t find elsewhere.

Offering guaranteed results from SEO services is not something new. It has been there for more than a decade. SEO can cost you somewhere from thousands to tens of thousands per month, depending on your niche.

I agree that SEO takes time to work. It will take a few months to even a year to see results. But, how do you know whether the person or agency you hired is actually doing the work or just ripping you off?

I’ve come across business owners having the anxiety of hiring new SEO agencies or freelancers due to bad experiences in the past. So, it’s normal for business owners to get attracted to guaranteed results and money-back guarantee offers.

As a digital marketer, I’ve been tempted to offer guarantees for my potential clients.

My clients deserve guarantees right, don’t they?

And wouldn’t it be an added advantage to attract more clients?

It might work for clients that are concerned about the risk involved with SEO services. Over the years, I’ve been doing extensive research on SEO guarantees, and I’ve found some important reasons not to offer one.

The first reason can be found in your email spam or junk folder. If you have a website, I’m sure that you’ve received hundreds of unsolicited emails offering SEO services that guarantee Google 1st Page ranking.

Would you ever want your business to associate with SEO agencies that send you unsolicited emails?

Why SEO Guarantees Is Not Something You Can Trust?

During my research, I came across a post written by Rand Fishkin, founder of Sparktoro on SEO guarantees. Rank has pointed out five reasons on why SEO guarantees should not be trusted at all:

SEO & Guarantees Have A Long History: SEO scammers have been using guaranteed SEO rankings and search traffic since 1996 to attract businesses. The whole industry has been affected by this issue and never considered offering guarantees for SEO services even in 2020.
Google Warns Against Guarantees: An official statement by Google has mentioned that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google and cautioned businesses to be careful with SEO’s that claim to offer guaranteed rankings.
Rankings are not stable: Google makes thousands of algorithm changes in a year and the rankings for a particular query can vary from one moment to another. Offering a guarantee is a tricky proposition.
Ranking is a poor metric to measure: Ranking is just a part of SEO. Many might argue that rankings matter the most. Rankings do not influence the overall performance of a website. Even if your website is ranking high on search result pages, there’s no point if there is no solution for the user’s query.
Offering a guarantee about something you don’t have control of is unethical: Some service-based businesses like logistics can offer guarantees as they have predictable processes and complete control over the service offered. But, when we look at SEO, only search engines have control over the rankings ( not SEO agencies or freelancers). So offering guaranteed results is something not we can accept from the start.

I understand your concern as a business owner as you need to fork out huge investments to stay competitive in your industry. So, is there something SEOs can guarantee?

Yes. There are things that SEOs can guarantee:

Increase in organic search traffic: With the right SEO strategies, a reliable SEO agency or freelancer can increase the number of visitors from search engines.
Improvement in keywords rankings in the long run: A steady increase is what you should expect in terms of rankings on search engines. It’s impossible to achieve a first-page ranking within the first few months if you’re in a competitive niche. So, you can expect a consistent improvement in the rankings with the right SEO
Comprehensive monthly reports: The business owner investing in SEO should know what the agency or freelancer they hired is doing. A comprehensive monthly report on the tasks and results is something you can expect from the best SEOs.

If you want to avoid hiring the wrong SEO agencies of freelancers, you can check out the guides I’ve written:

The Takeaway

It’s sad to see SEO companies offering guarantees for their services just to secure the clients. SEOs that can help you get results will be transparent with their services. There is nothing to hide unless you’re unable to deliver what you promise.

Hiring the right SEO agency is quite challenging nowadays. A successful SEO campaign requires the right planning and process which delivers results. If an SEO company or freelancer can offer you that, stay assured of the results you’ll be getting in the long run.

SEO is for the long-term. Emphasize quality SEO tasks, the results will follow.