This week I got a call from an “SEO Expert” in Toronto. The man said that he was calling from Royal Tech and was checking out my site and guaranteed a first page placement. I asked which search engine he was referring to (that would be important don’t you think?) Google was the answer.
I told him that I would expect first contact by an Internet business (especially those selling Internet marketing servies) would be via email, not the phone. I asked him if he knew that I was already on page 2, first entry on google for my most import keyword and was already on page 1 for some others. He said no. I asked if he knew how old the site was, he replied no. I told him that my site was about a month old and I feel that I will be on the first page in Google without his help. He said “I can get you there sooner” Me says: How soon and how would you do it? He says: I can do it in less than a week and will use PPC!
Ha! But PPC is not SEO! At this point the poor fellow hung up! I thought it was pretty funny at the moment, but later on, when I checked their site, I felt that it was nothing other than deceptive marketing.
I took a quick look at their site, and for “SEO Experts” they only have 44 links pointing to their site, most them from yourhome(dot)com who apparently let FSBOs and agents promote their listings (appears to be related to Royal Tech). I also did a google search for the keywords in their meta tags and they are nowhere to be found, except in paid inclusions.
A company that can’t even market themselves and get themselves on the first page in Google for their most important keyword, was promising to get me on the first page. No wonder they were going to use PPC. There is nothing wrong with a PPC campaign, but I wouldn’t run one for any of my sites. My issue is with telling a customer that they are on the first page in Google “search” results but failing to point out that the “search” is in fact “paid search” and not “organic search” results. And that once the PPC campaign winds down, they would have nothing to show for it.
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