How to recognise fake SEO companies
SEO is a million-dollar business and if done right can develop good things for your company. But there are thousands of companies out there who offer FAKE SEO services. Here are some tips to spot them.
EMPTY PROMISES
Fake SEO Companies will give you a lot of big promises, like being first in Google searches. If someone says this to you, run away. SEO is based on algorithms ran, tested, and updated by hundreds of engineers.
This is the biggest sign of fake SEO companies since no single company can promise how to bring one website to the top of Google searches. This isn’t to say that good SEO company can’t promise you good results, but it does require a lot of research, planning, and spending time with your brand to deliver the best results.
AUTOMATIC SEO
This is the greatest con job that exploits the human desire to turn everything simple and quick. Fake SEO companies use automatic programs to create articles for clients. Quick-develop websites are guilty of this as well, only polluting SEO and turning it toxic.
The results will be great at the beginning of the campaign. Managers create beautiful reports that put your website on top. They highlight the good stuff in green but put any negative reports in small writing. The results will then stop growing, and these companies continue to charge you a fortune. Your website will then be filled with ineffective backlinks and spammy referrals which will take years and enormous amounts of man-hours to fix, causing long-term problems.
Prices are extremely low starting at $99 a month, but at that rate, their main goal is to put you on board without doing market and industry research, and will only give you fake reports with data you will not be able to check.
SPAM emails
No matter how amazing it tastes, SPAM is not good for your health or your business. Fake SEO companies will promote themselves by spamming you with cheap packages and deals until you give in. If they fail they’ll just move on to the next client. These companies focus on selling their service and not SEO activity, so your website will the least of their worries. Best case scenario is you do get someone to work on your website, but it’ll always be a gamble and not cost-effective.
CONTRACT
The need for a contract is understandable, but most fake SEO companies who require you to lock into an agreed period is only interested in your money. Most of the time they only do link-building and on-site optimization, cover it under the assumption that results will happen after 2-3 months, then keep the chunk of the money you invest for profit and for the team’s payroll. Yes, your website will go to the top, but you will have to spend more than you needed.
SEO-Building Tools by Shopify and Squarespace
This, of course, is not just limited to Shopify and Squarespace, as other template-based websites are also guilty. They’re great website builders, but they’re not actual SEO. At an additional charge, these websites allow the customers to do on-site SEO, giving them the illusion of working on optimization and getting to the top quickly, but will only clash with their competitors who do the right kind of SEO. In the end, websites that do this will fall quickly in the rankings, making them pay more to get back on top, with no lasting effect for their website.
CONCLUSION:
Fake SEO can make enormous noise online, but not the noise you want for your website. It is easy to become a victim of scammy offers, and will only cause problems and slow your business down. Don’t fall for cheap SEO that will seem okay in the beginning but will sour out halfway through your contract. There are decent SEO services that won’t cost you an arm and a leg and will look out for you and your website’s well-being. Just don’t fall for any of the tricks above, and you’ll be set.
