Why SEO companies shouldn’t guarantee search rankings
Posted on 26. Nov, 2009 by Franz in Marketing
Not only it creates more spam, but it heightens your stress level in many ways.
Back in 2007 when the hype just came in for us, we made the same mistake – Guaranteeing search rankings to clients who wants assurance on our services. Because search marketing is so new at that time and not many are doing it, it’s only plausible to give prospective clients a sense of ‘trust’ so that they will try something new.
I’m not saying that many decision makers in Malaysia aren’t adventurous. They just want to mitigate risks and well, squeeze us as much as possible. But at the end of the day, the job needs to be done and we need to show results – And it boils to the technicalities of search – That’s why I said in a previous post that “Internet marketing is technical“.
What search rankings guarantee means
For those of you who don’t know, search rankings is a chronological sorting of what website comes first on a search engine results page (SERP), for a particular search query based on importance & relevance in the view of a particular search engine. See the example.
Search rankings guarantee literally means “I will guarantee that your website will be ranked (#x) on page (#y)”, which also shows to say that, “We’re so confident in our SEO & search optimization services that we will guarantee to manipulate, stimulate, deceive and/or mislead major search engines, even though they’re not ultimately in our control.”
At least that’s one way of interpreting it.
Search engines are not in your control
What makes search engines generally very, very valuable is its technology behind it. Why do AltaVista, InfoSeek, AOL search and all of our forefather’s search engines fail to compete with Yahoo! search at that time, and Google now? Generally, here are 4 examples of what makes a search engine really, really valuable.
- Search filters
There are two general categories of search filters: Ones you see, and the ones you don’t see. The ones you don’t see is more confusing to a certain extent. E.G. Advanced search operators (site:*.example.com -search). - Search index (database)
The content you see from every search you make. Not only these content, but many other sub-content like the cache page, PR info, metadata information, etc. - Internal search services
Here’s an example: Don’t understand why they need a search dictionary? Maybe this search query can help you understand. - Search algorithms
Commonly referred to as the ‘mother’ of all values in a search engine. Search engine behaviors, actions and all other necessary implementations pertaining a search engine’s search results quality is here. (Includes spam filtering coding, etc.)
You may argue that a system is never perfect and there are always flaws of men and machine.
But what counts isn’t really the hack-impact you make on search engines, but the pool of resources’ timeframe: How long can you use them to your advantage, how do you make it work for you in the long run. So if you want a viral campaign, that could be your chance to do something stupid to Google.
SEO companies & guarantees on search rankings
“If you’re a search engine service provider, what would you do to control your search quality, keep your searchers happy and be competitively advantageous over competitors?”
SEO companies who go into the very technicalities of search will understand this: There’s no way rankings can be guaranteed. Let’s not include things like “hsyaisceuapcnau” and “this is something so long that you can check for plagiarism or lyrics on Google” keywords. However, there are certain things that SEO companies should keep in mind:
- Try to push as hard as possible for #1 all-time for brand name keywords. E.G.: ABC Sdn. Bhd., “ABC company” or “Service by ABC” or “ABC”.
- Do not sell keywords: That should be a no-no, unless you have A/B testing to prove conversion keywords on PPC and on organic search. Because selling keywords means you’re playing semi con-job. Do you have enough resources or keyword research to back your ’salable’ keyword yet? See below for more information.
- Popular keywords aren’t always better: Most of the time, it’s not good for conversion sales, not at least in Malaysia. “shoes” and “buy shoes” and “white shoelaces” isn’t the thing you’d want to recommend. Instead, compare products, integrate it with promotional content, run keyword research, expand linkage data and push on those ONLY.
- Forget pushing for #1 for keywords: Sometimes, CTR-to-conversion rates don’t make sense for their industry, target market cultures are incompatible, etc. Instead, focus more on understanding your target demographics: That way, promotional campaigns are simpler to idealize and it makes it easier to push for higher % of referrals from search engines.
- Structure your content well and you’ll realize that site usage will increase and bounce rates will drop. Site architecture affects a lot of tracking metrics: So if you want your customers to love the brand you’re looking for, give them proper presentation.
- Make sure all preliminary technicalities are optimal, checked, finalized and appropriate for search.
- Think on the sides of search engines: If you were to be a search engine, how would you control your search quality to make users happy?
Why you shouldn’t guarantee search rankings
Also because of heavy ranking fluctuation. There are many causes to why search ranking fluctuates. The list you see below is all that pertains search ranking fluctuations (common ones). I will not go into technical details. If you want, comment on the post.
- Geographical location: Search for something popular in Kota Damansara and in The Curve and in Mid Valley. You may see slight fluctuations on ranking for certain sites based on the engine’s calculations.
- Database refresh & updates: Whenever a data center does synchronization, data refresh or make any changes to the algorithms, rankings fluctuate. It could not even be your fault and you’re in trouble. This could be a business risk for you.
- Easy-to-Kill: Competitors can always perform something not-so-ethical on/to your site and kaboom! You’re on your way to a penalty from search engines. Even if you did nothing wrong: Or could prove that you’re innocent. Time is wasted there already.
- Randomized ranking promo: Content freshness is always the common cause. A site that’s well known to the public isn’t going to stay in Top 3 forever. It requires continued work. There’s a thing such as overnight fame in search but nothing such as forever famous.
- Of categories & levels: If you look closely into search engines, you can see that there’s a category pattern to how they serve search results. Usually they are classified into: News, biz profiles, product, blog, info, etc.
- Trends, news & content highlights change: If your client’s industry requires change all the time (e.g. Alternative reporting media & publications industry), are you going to resign a contract? How many times would that happen? Besides, trends change all the time and keywords you chose may not suit them after all (trend wave expired).
- Keyword breakdowns are too huge: Some people’s intent may be “Looking to purchase”, but can type in unrelated keywords. For example, “bata vs camel shoes prices”. Some are looking for information and not looking to purchase but also type: “buy bata shoes in mid valley”. Some could be totally unrelated to their intent: “bata promo campaign”, and could be looking to see the design ONLY.
These are among some of the reasons why we do not guarantee search rankings. On the business point of view, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense also.
Of course, I always welcome comments and suggestions to these things in particular, so please drop me a comment if you have something to say.
