Is seo ever guaranteed

[nick]

I have been asked times and again that I want this particular position in the search engines. I always say it that I will try and will try my best and still I cannot guarantee the search engine position after a specified period of time.

Sometimes they want to see the links made right on the date the project ends. I also explain them that it is not possible as I cannot control the approvals that the directory owners will make or not and when they would make if any. Also the search engines would take some time in crawling the links and then taking them into account. And I cannot control if competitors are also working harder then expected. So the time can also fluctuate.

The question still remains that is seo ever guaranteed on the terms that I have mentioned above.

 

[nielsencl]

You can only guarantee what you can deliver, or what you can you can "make up" for.

The guarantee says that if you cannot provide what you say, that you will return their money, keep trying at no extra cost, or something else for the client.

Since you have no real control over all the things that affect ranking, you really cannot promise much since it is risky.

What I promise is that traffic will increase by 2 to 4 times what it was before. I can make this promise because I know that even if I do a bad job of optimization this is what will happen. This promise generally gets me the business. Later, the results are usually better than that, so the client is very happy with what I do.

I do not use rankings, only increased traffic as a measure of success. This keeps the uncertainty of rankings out of the conversation all together. Some clients are not sure about this, but in the end, what they really want is NOT rankings, but more traffic and customers.

Now, some companies DO guarantee rankings, but they generally say they will get so many top 3 or top 5 rankings for some phrases. They generally choose the phrases and the phrases are so specific that rankings are not hard to get. They point to the rankings for things like "medical billing software ottawa canada" and they client is satisfied. But if there is little or no traffic for that phrase, what is the real value for the client?

So tell the client what you will and will not do, and what you can and cannot to and do not feel intimidated by what they "want". You either educate them and "set their expectations" to what is realistic, or you will later have to try and satisfy what they expect, even if it is not what you said or if it is not realstic.

 

[nick]

Got it. I just followed a check list with 2 of my recent clients and mentioned what I will do for them. Just a check list of the work done. Nothing assumed about the ranking or SERP's I think this will be the smoothest deals of my life.

 

[nielsencl]

I don't know how you optimize, but if you have been doing this for a while you should have a good idea of how well what you do works? If so you can tell people what they can expect, but you don't have to be exact in what you say, because you really don't know for sure.

I know that if I work on an un-optimized site, that I can always increase the traffic 2-4 times what it was. But most of the time that is an underestimate. People are satisfied with what I tell them, and then if things work out even better then consider me a minor deity.