Reputable SEO’s Offer Guaranteed SEO

To most people it only makes sense that you don’t charge someone if you can’t do anything for them, unless you happen to be a horse racing venue or a stock broker. In those cases we all know “past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.”  Even if that’s not obvious to everybody there are laws that make stock brokers tell you as much so you won’t get fooled by them into thinking their past successes are necessarily repeatable.

Rand Fishkin And Google Don’t Think Reputable SEO’s Should Offer Guaranteed SEO

They seem to think they have taken the moral high ground in saying reputable SEO’s don’t guarantee rankings.  If you read their statements, Rand Fishkin’s here and Google’s here, it seems apparent they have some legitimate beefs about illegitimate SEO practices but the end result is everybody in the SEO industry is either afraid to do the right thing or they use their statements as an excuse to keep client’s money if they can’t do their job.  This tells me Rand and Google failed to anticipate what reputable SEO companies SHOULD be doing and have lumped them (us) in with all the disreputable shysters in the industry.

SEO’s Are Hired To Perform A Service

SEO’s are hired to at least get a website to Google page 1.  If they can’t get you there there’s not much point in giving them your money because it doesn’t do much good to be ranked any lower than page 1.  Only 10% of searchers ever get past page 1 of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP’s).  If they take your money and you don’t get any better than page 10 or even page 2 then what exactly did you hire them for and why are they keeping your money?

Reputable SEO’s DO Offer Guaranteed SEO

You pay an SEO to perform a service and that service is supposed to get you more business, right? In what other industry that does not involve gambling are companies encouraged to keep your money if they can’t meet minimal performance standards? Most of us believe if we hire a company to perform a service and they can’t do their job we shouldn’t have to pay them, or at least only pay half of their fee like we do for someone we hire to paint our house or install a sprinkler system.

A reputable SEO company isn’t going to hide behind the we-don’t-have-control-of-the-Google-algorithm excuse.  Sure, we know no one can control Google, has preferred submission status with Google, or even knows exactly how they will rank a site either today or a year from now.  But

that’s not what it means to offer a guarantee.  A guarantee simply says we are confident enough in our services that we can predict with a certain degree of certainty that we can do what we say and if we can’t we won’t charge you.

Doesn’t that sound reasonable?  Doesn’t that sound like what a reputable SEO company would do?

I’m not talking about guaranteeing number one placement on Google SERP’s.  I’m just talking about guaranteeing, at the very least, what an SEO company is being hired to do, at the very least, which is get you to page 1.  I don’t think a reputable SEO company is going to keep 100% of their fee if they can’t do at least that much.  They may charge you something, both for doing the work and to keep from getting stiffed the entire fee if they end up with a disreputable client, but not keep it all no matter what.  In my mind that just isn’t what a reputable SEO company does any more than what a reputable company in any other industry outside of gambling does.

What SEO Company Is Smart Enough To See Through This Baloney?

SEO companies are like a bunch of lemmings following each other off the cliff.  If Rand Fishkin at Moz, probably the biggest name in search other than Google’s own Matt Cutts, says reputable SEO’s don’t offer guaranteed SEO then everybody just goes along with it, right or wrong.

SEO’s, we have statistics.  We have history.  We know if what we do works, right?  If we didn’t know that it works what business do we have in selling our services?  We even know enough to know if we can be more competitive than another company selling SEO.  With all of that we should be able to figure out how much it’s going to cost us if we for some reason can’t perform at least a minimal service, such as getting someone’s website to Google page 1, and then adjust our prices accordingly, just like an insurance company does that knows how much more risk is involved in insuring a teenage boy verses a teenage girl.

We are smart enough to figure this stuff out, right?

What SEO Company Is Brave Enough To Offer Guaranteed SEO?

You may by this time realize that even though their is a risk involved in guaranteeing SEO services it’s a calculated risk and it’s the right thing to do.  If you’re with me this far my hat is off to you.  You are one of the few who are smart enough to see through this you-can’t-guarantee-seo baloney.  But are you brave enough to be considered by many in the industry to be taking the moral low ground rather than be though of as taking the high ground which they think they occupy?  Are you brave enough to do the right thing regardless of what others say, even if they are the biggest names in the industry?

Your customers, who demand better of you, will thank you. In the end, the SEO industry will thank you for moving SEO out of the back alleys and into the main stream of business services by offering guaranteed SEO.