Yes, buyer beware is the first thing that comes to mind, but we shouldn’t forget that when these "shady" operators fail to deliver the promised rankings, it makes all SEOs look bad.

By Gord Collins of Bay Street SEO

The business of search engine optimization is reaching a feverish pitch as the market is conservatively estimated at $400 million. That kind of money has spawned a lot of me-too optimizers. These “Johnny come latelies” make plenty of promises including top ranks on any keyword phrase. Rarely do they deliver top quality sales prospects, even if they should be lucky enough to actually rank well for any length of time. The key to preventing the aftermath is for SEO clients to be sensible and to understand the sales pitches of fraudulent SEO companies. Discover their sales tricks below.

Thousands of optimization service providers of all skill levels are making their pitches customers via phone and e-mail. Their offers are too often generated from their conversations with SEO prospects. They know what people want to hear and they present their pitch in a way that can confuse prospects or get them comparing prices instead of the end-value. The telephone conversation is their way of more aggressively controlling the website owner and getting past their common sense. As in any high pressure tactic, they get the “target” consumed with dreams and rankings. In a real consultative relationship, the rankings and dreams are background thoughts, with discussion over the things that have to be done to get there take precedence.

As a business person, you don’t want unqualified visitors to your site. These are people that look at one page and quickly leave. Those visits may look good on Webmaster stat sheets, but it won’t do anything for your business. Developing, utilizing and offering the visitor something is the key to quality visits and quality SEO.

The Keyword Candy Store

Yes, buyer beware is the first thing that comes to mind, but we shouldn’t forget that when these operators fail to deliver the promised rankings, it makes us all look bad. We’re all judged under the assumption that SEO companies can’t be trusted.

There’s another situation that occurs frequently too that results in bad feelings and failed expectations. That’s when the buyer wants to exploit the SEO firm – the old something for nothing scheme. They demand guarantees, or they offer up “profit sharing” schemes to the SEO as their way of spreading the huge profits they’re going to make. In an ideal world, we would have these exploiters calling each other and leave the rest of us alone. This is what’s going on in the SEO world.

When suspect optimization providers approach business people, it sets an ugly tone for the industry. They make unrealistic promises, cast doubt on all SEO practices and their unsolicited mass e-mails leave the business owner with a sour impression of even professional SEO companies. It’s a mess legitimate providers have to clean up.

I receive e-mails from SEO spammers frequently telling me I can have top rankings for a fistful of dollars. Phone calls from India are common too and companies such as Traffic-Power are noted for their telemarketing tactics. Spammers don’t sit around and wait for their own site’s rankings to rise either, if it every will. They get on the phone and market directly.

As a potential SEO services buyer, you should watch for these sales tactics: