5 great warning signs of bad SEO or digital marketing agencies

Six of my seventeen years digital marketing Spent in an institution.

There I learned the strategies that shaped my identity as an SEO today.

More importantly, here I learned the techniques and practices that make my clients successful.

The most important thing I learned? Your customers will always come first-this can only be done with complete transparency.

Of course, we all make mistakes. But I also emphasize not to participate in black hat SEO practices, and only use legal SEO techniques.

With so many agencies, it’s easy to be false promises and Bad SEO techniques Wrapped in a beautiful bow that is dishonest.

There are also dishonest people who want to defraud your money by forging their money Search Engine Optimization And marketing capabilities.

Here are some tips to help you identify and avoid them, while ensuring that you work with SEO professionals who practice reliable techniques and truly believe in honest practices.

1. They ask to have your data/login information

One of the signs that an agency/consultant is trying to trick you is to start participating by asking you to fully control your login name, data, and reports.

Many companies use the guise, “I just want them to deal with it, this is the price I pay, let them deal with everything”, but they don’t realize that if things don’t do this, it is really dangerous to work between the two companies.

Suppose you have reached the point where you no longer want to work with your agency/consultant. This is unfortunate, but it happened.

In this case, what many shady agencies/consultants will do is Keep your data and login information Keep the contract going.

This may lead to legal disputes that last for months or years, and in the worst case, it may cause you to create new login information and add new tracking codes to your website.

I have seen this happen time and time again, especially in small businesses.

The lesson here is: the beginning of any professional relationship should be based on trust, but this is a two-way road.

When you hire these people to “handle everything” from an SEO perspective, check their background and get a reference. If they can’t provide any reference, please look elsewhere.

And make sure you understand whether you are giving up access or ownership.

2. They guarantee number one/best result

It’s still unbelievable that there are some SEO professionals who have won business through publicity, “We guarantee to be number one.”

Not only are they there, but people are also hiring them.

Look at this ad that appeared when I searched [SEO companies] On Google:

Really? Home ranking guarantee? Tell me your secret, oh magic search wizard.

What they won’t tell you is what ranking they will get on page 1.

Any SEO worthy of their anxiety can get some rankings on page 1, regardless of whether this drives high-quality traffic, revenue, or leads to your website.

This is a common trick used by unethical agencies and consultants to get you to your door. Here is how it works:

They let you discuss your website over the phone.

This will be done through the use of the aforementioned deceptive advertisements, free audits they send you or Lengthy email Regarding what just happened on Google, they always position it as something you should worry about because we use their proprietary yadda-yadda-yadda to see your website count drop.

You are terrified, give them a chance.

You need to resolve any issues they explain to you, because you may not fully understand all the ins and outs of organic search, and you just want someone to handle it.

Work begins.

Within a few weeks, you will see some keywords jump to page 1, which meets their requirement to guarantee results on page 1. You are very excited. You can’t believe that you haven’t worked with these people before, and you can’t wait to wait for the business to start rolling in.

Fast forward a few months.

Page 1 The ranking continues to appear, but there is no new business. There are no new clues. Just ranking.

They explained that SEO is a slow process.

You will see new page 1 results every week, and they ask you to be patient. However, they never really explain what is happening with you. Everything from them is good news, everything is going well, but you don’t see anything in return.

you understood.

In the end, usually six months or more after paying for this “service”, you start looking at your “winning” keywords and realize that they have almost no monthly search volume and have nothing to do with your business. You realize that you are likely to have been cheated, reach out to get the non-answer of the can, and then begin the process of canceling the engagement.

And you don’t trust SEO.

hear, Google’s algorithm It is a huge mathematical equation floating in space, controlled by machine learning artificial intelligence, which learns our search habits and modifies its results based on these learnings.

The lesson here is that when it comes to Google’s algorithm, no one can guarantee anything, not even the algorithm itself.

If any of us can, we will become dirty, dirty and rich.

3. They tell their story, not yours

Speaking of indicator reports, another obvious sign of a not-so-good agency/consultant is whether their reports are always telling their stories and It’s not yours.

I mean, they always emphasize what is right, what they are doing great, and why you should pay more in the upcoming renewal.

They never talk about what went wrong, what was useless, or the lessons learned from making the current campaign so successful, sometimes more important than the victory itself.

Knowing only half of the story is harmful to your business and your own education.

Due to opacity, your agency or consultant will not allow you to learn from their mistakes, which has caused you a lot of harm.

Agencies/consultants in this state of mind are always afraid to tell you what they are doing because they don’t want to reveal the “secret formula” that makes everything normal.

The fact is that in most cases, the formula involves many tests and mistakes to enable the activity to reach its current state. Every participant knows that this is very valuable-not just them.

The lesson here is to make sure what you hear doesn’t work, and what works. Whether you are happy or not, you need to see the whole picture.

4. Partnerships are positioned as transactional

Always pay attention to how the agency/consultant sells to you, as it tells how the relationship will work.

People who want to help you will tell you how they will help you.

People who don’t know how to tell you What is their service fee And how to organize monthly meetings.

This is the difference between hiring partners and suppliers. A partner will dig with you, get through difficulties with you when things are not going well, and celebrate the victory with you as a team.

The supplier will send you a report and bill.

If an agency/consultant comes in and spends an hour or two of the time you give them, just talking about how great they are, without in-depth understanding of what they can do for you, the relationship may not be so fruitful.

Although there is nothing wrong with one or two bragging slides, you should always look for people who do research on your brand and provide actionable things they think you can do together with the support of data.

These people care about your business, and although they will still send you bills every month, you won’t mind paying so much.

The lesson here is Always looking for partners, Not just another supplier.

5. Their case studies are outdated

Speaking of bragging slides, you should always ask which year the project/result came from. One of the biggest inequities in organic search is the time people spend using case studies.

Search engine optimization changes every day, and while it’s great that you eliminated Pets.com in 2000, this story doesn’t really help me measure your talents today.

The lesson here is to always have a deep understanding of these victories and when they happened. With the change in SEO so great, even a project a few years ago may not be relevant today.

good luck!

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Featured image: Shutterstock/Sergey Nivens