Spotting a Phony Search Marketing Company

Raise your hand if you've ever received an email promising top 10 placement on the search engines. I get them all the time.

The companies sending them prey on web site owners who know they should be doing search engine marketing (SEM). These companies make promises about increased ranking, but they often leader the web site owner to troubles with the search engines. You might be surprised how quickly a site can get blacklisted by the Google. A gentleman contacted me the other day because he was looking for a local person who was experienced in SEM because he had been burned by one of the phonies and was blacklisted until he corrected the problem.

The things we talk about in the following are done by some genuine search engine companies so these aren't hard and fast rules. But you should keep your eyes wide open if you're talking to someone and several of these things come true in their interaction with you.

They Contact You

If they are so good at search engine optimization, why are they contacting you? You should be contacting them. They will have high rankings on the terms people are searching for, especially when the terms you are looking for include local terms, like the name of your city.

Their Site isn't Highly Ranked or is Blacklisted

One of my clients signed a contract with a company that made promises concerning getting highly ranked on some keywords he was going after. The search engine marketing company had at least two web sites they were marketing under and Google blacklisted both of them. They were blacklisted for using deceptive practices so you can only guess they would try to use the same tactics that got them banned.

Vague About What They Do

When I do a proposal for search engine marketing I spell out the things that I will do for them. I try to be as specific as possible without giving away my trade secrets. A phony SEM firm will give you vague ideas on what they will do, as well as not tell you the nefarious things they will do. Be wary when a company talks too little in specifics and too many vagaries.

They Make Promises of Front Page Placement in a Short Period

I know of a phony SEO company that told their potential client they would put them on the front page on three key phrases in at least three of the top 10 search engines. They'll let you pick the top 10 key phrases and then work to get you on some of the lower ranked search engines that have a miniscule percentage of the searches, which means they fulfilled the obligation of their contact. But the big three search engines--Google, Yahoo! and MSN--account for approximately 90 percent of the searches done on the Internet. So the bottom seven search engines divvy up the last 10 percent. So the phony SEO company can deliver on their promises but it doesn't result in a great amount of traffic, especially for the amount of money you’re paying them.

They Bully You When You Question Them or Say "No"

One of my clients talked to a search marketing company and wanted me to check them out, so I gave them a call. They were doing pay per click advertising rather than organic search engine optimization. They wanted $10,000 upfront to deliver traffic to my client's site. Even in best case scenarios, my client would have had thousands of dollars tied up for more than a year in a marketing strategy that was suspect to begin with. So I said I my client wasn't interested and he started in with rhetorical questions that presumed I would be an idiot if I didn’t use their services. I calmly said "no" again, and he started up again, so I just hung up on him. I wasn't going to waste my time on a schemer and bully.

If you're going to do SEM, I would recommend talking with colleagues or friends that are seeing success with other SEM companies. They should be able to give you an idea of specific results they are seeing and how well they are being treated by their SEM company.

Another idea is to use the search engines to find local companies that are doing well on the search engines. If you live in Dallas, type in "Dallas search engine optimization firms". Assuming that the people on the front page are local, you can meet with them to find out more about how they work, what they charge, and what results you might expect.

A genuine SEM company will talk about finding the best phrases to market, getting more content on your site, and getting incoming links to your site when talking about search engine optimization. When they talk about Pay Per Click advertising, they will talk about starting slowly and tracking results to make sure your Pay Per Click budget is giving you high Return on Investment. If SEM company doesn't talk in these terms, then I'd keep searching if I were you.

So, don't be quick to sign contracts with SEO firms. If red flags keep popping up, move on. Start talking with others and do your research. Ask about what specifics things they'll be doing and what results you might expect. Then you will be able to weed out the phonies.