If you’re looking for a reputable SEO company in Nigeria, then avoiding these 7 common scams will take you on your first steps to making educated decisions for your business.
1. ”WE SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO THE SEARCH ENGINES!”
This is, without a doubt, one of the BIGGEST SEO scams you will surely notice out there in the world wide web. The funny thing is, you don’t actually need to submit your website to Google, Bing, Yahoo or other search engines to be listed on their results. Each respective search engine has their own ‘spiders’, which are programs that crawl through the internet looking for new websites. Once a new website has been ‘crawled’, it will be automatically indexed in Google and all other engines that crawl it. So where exactly does the website submission come in? Yeah, you should definitely NEVER pay someone to do this.
2. “WE GUARANTEE #1 RESULTS IN GOOGLE!”
The first thing that you simply must know is that it is an absolute IMPOSSIBILITY for anyone to guarantee this. No one can guarantee you a number 1 ranking in Google, or any other search engine for that matter. Not one so called SEO ‘expert’ (I don’t care how good they are) can control where a website ranks in the search engine results page (SERPS). While it is true that great SEO agencies use certain strategies to boost website rankings, with the goal of reaching #1 every single time, to guarantee it is not just unethical, it’s unfair! An example of a completely ethical offer is for a Nigerian SEO company to state:
“We estimate that your website will reach Top 5 on Google within X amount of months, based on our data and experience working in your industry, the lack of competition we currently see, and the fact that your website is clean, not having any SEO performed in the past.”
You see, this is not a GUARANTEE! It is an estimate based on previous data and research. SEO isn’t something you can just point your finger at and hope it will happen. It it is a calculated effort drawing from years of experience, experimenting, and keeping up with the latest information. It requires high levels of knowledge regarding what works best in Google, and what doesn’t.
3. ”WE’LL INCREASE YOUR PAGERANK!”
Whatever you do please do not fall for this. This has been an irrelevant metric for over two years because Google does not update PageRank (PR) anymore. You should probably smell something fishy when any SEO Company starts talking about increasing your page rank or building links from a site with a high page rank. Besides, even if it was still updated, PageRank has ZERO effect on your website ranking.
4. ”YES! ONLY $99 PER MONTH FOR SEO SERVICES!”
Before we get into this one, let me ask you a question. If you didn’t like the way your nose looked and opted to undergo plastic surgery to change it, who would you pick? The private practice of the best plastic surgeon in town? Or the guy down the street offering discounts in a shady backroom? The answer is simple. You would obviously go with the trusted and reputable surgeon since it’s something important to you and would have a huge impact on the way people look at you. Not only that, but paying top dollar gives you the added security of knowing that a true professional is working on you. I’m going to let you take that all in for a few seconds, and hopefully you can see where this is going. I’ll wait…
Now let me ask you another question. Why would you EVER use the cheapest SEO option to work on your prized baby in the first place? If you are anything like me, then you have definitely poured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into creating a successful business, wanting it to be the very best. Why would you let an amateur (let’s face it, that’s the only reason they are offering low prices) handle such complex online marketing tasks? In conclusion, you wouldn’t. You not only risk losing YOUR money because they are inexperienced, but because of the low-quality work your website will be penalised yet again by Google.
We are nearly done on this topic so bear with me. One of the most important equations you’ll need to know before deciding on a Search Engine Optimisation agency is:
Price= Value (Mostly of the time)
Low Price= Low Value
High (Realistic) Price = Higher Value
A great SEO company will never work for pennies as they are all aware of their credentials and what cost their services are worth. To have a better understanding of what GREAT SEO agency’s services cost, check out this infographic.
5. “I KNOW SOMEONE WHO WORKS AT GOOGLE!”
Yeah sure they do! The old
“I know a guy, who knows a guy, who dated his friend’s sister, who knows a guy, that knows of a guy. I can hook you up.”
Ever fallen for this one before? I have many times, until you realise that name dropping and ‘knowing a guy’ does not mean anything. This is a classic snake oil salesman approach. Firstly, they are (most probably) lying straight off the bat. Secondly, as stated before, it doesn’t mean anything. Even if a company claimed to know someone at Google, there’s no magical power that will give them some way to rank your site.
6. ”I CAN’T SHOW YOU THE RESULTS, BUT TRUST ME… I’M AMAZING!”
Alright so it isn’t exactly advertised this way, but that’s basically what they are saying. There are too many self proclaimed ‘gurus’ lying in wait to take your hard earned cash by confusing you with a whole heap of technical jargon. The reason they do this is to make it seem like they know it all and their services are essential to your traffic growth. What they don’t show you is any examples or proof because they just don’t have any. If this self professed ‘guru’ isn’t mentioning conversions and return on investments (ROI), then leave immediately. Tell them you are not interested and start running for the hills!
Using Search Engine Optimisation as a marketing strategy is a daunting option that should not be decided upon lightly. I’m sure that after reading these solid tips and advice, you can avoid some of the traps and scams people try to get away with and be one step closer to making and educated decision for your business.
