SEO Consultants - Melbourne SEO company using hard sell tactics

The point of this article is don't get sucked in by SEO consultants who cold call you and promise a whole lot of nothing, and charge a contract based premium for the privilege.

One of my clients was approached by telephone today by a Melbourne SEO company seeking to secure her business. I have no problem with that - business is business, competition is competition.

However, what I DO have a problem with is the use of high pressure, "used car salesman" type tactics (apologies to any used car salesman reading) by ANYONE, let alone a so-called SEO consultant.

The company representative explained that they achieve many good results for their clients, and how they can push 5 keyphrases onto page one in Google. He also mentioned that they only target the top EIGHT results! That said, Google will tell you that if ANYONE offers a solid SEO guarantee for a particular result, run the other way because not even they (Google) can do that.

Anyway, my client is in the top three Google results for a lot of important keyword phrases, but she still runs Google AdWords to not only take up the "slack", but so she is at the VERY top of the results page - even for phrases where she appears at #1 in the organic results.

The SEO consultant quite proudly stated that my client could gradually drop her AdWords campaign because his company would get her onto page one within the first eight results. My client has been around long enough to know that is complete rubbish.

But wait, there's more. Not only do they only "aim" for the top eight, but you don't have a choice of keyword phrases. They would likely choose something which is relevant to your company, but as easy as a walk in the park to achieve because the phrase has little competition and is not searched for very much. I'd suggest that if they think a result down around #6, #7 or #8 is worth $1000 per month (under a minimum contract of six months), they should look at some Eye-Tracking Analysis reports.

He also said very few people click on AdWords or sponsored links these days. HUH? Where do they get this garbage from? I'm working with a new client on his search engine optimisation and he currently spends over $100,000.00 per year on AdWords (yes - 100k +). He (rightly) wants to reduce his ad spend by improving his website optimisation, but I've also given him a few suggestions regarding improving his quality score. He has no intentions of getting rid of his AdWords, as this Melbourne SEO company was suggesting my client can do after their "magic wand" treatment.

Finally, and here is where the high pressure car salesman stepped in: the sales consultant told my client that she would have two hours only to read through and absorb the email and attachments he was sending, and if she didn't take up their offer, he would make the same offer available to her competition. She was half expecting a vacuum cleaner to pop out of the phone! That is disgusting conduct. My client told me "If they have a good product, why do they need to use high pressure, bullying tactics to sell it?" - and of course, that's true.

OK, so shortly after the conversation, the promised email arrived with two attachments. The attachments included quite a long Terms and Conditions (which basically gave them an out from anything short of high treason!), and a very attractive, colourful flyer, with some rather dubious assertions.

Their "fact sheet" asserts that less than 11% of all traffic goes through Google sponsored links (AdWords). It is true that the majority of traffic is through organic search results, but it is not more than 89%! You could argue the point for sure, but my opinion from looking at many studies is that the figure quoted is incorrect.

Their email also provided a proud link to their client results. Even my customer had a chuckle:

What's the moral to the story?

So, the moral to the story is, if you are approached by someone trying to sell you a search engine optimisation strategy, ask them to show you some REAL results which are COMPETITIVE. And by competitive, I mean do an actual search in Google, and look at the number of results (eg, "best publicity" is on page one with "About 9,150,000 results (0.23 seconds)".

Try these searches in www.Google.com.au, and check out the number of competing results:
best publicity; law articles; radio advertising; public relations company; PR services; wedding designer; social media specialist; free Google advertising; accounting and financial services; wheel repairs; legal conference; custom Harley painter; motorcycle show; putting greens; Playstation repairs; wedding planner Sydney; website design Sydney; business name trademark; document destruction; paper shredding; Black Label; promotional pens; cocktail machine hire; alloy wheel repairs; organic beef Sydney; organic beef Canberra; metal sunglasses; 3D TV show, spam law Australia.

These are just a few of the REAL results we've achieved for our clients and the website you are now visiting.

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