Guarantees are Nice - But What is being Guaranteed?
Some search marketers guarantee top positions on Google. The only legitimate method to guarantee top search positions is through Pay Per Click advertising when you bid high enough for top ad positions. There is no way to guarantee top non-paid organic search positions. Search marketers cannot guarantee top search positions because truthfully, they don't have control over the search engines. Search engines decide which Web pages have top search positions. Search optimization improves the chances that your Website will be at the top. However, it is unethical of search marketers to "guarantee" top non-paid search positions.
If your search marketer is "guaranteeing" top non-paid search positions, then it is time to find another search marketer. You are working with someone who is not being honest with you.
Recently E-Power Marketing® received a request to "Be the first Website to pop up when someone inquires about surgery." As this is a tall order, unless you are the Mayo Clinic, E-Power submitted an appropriately budgeted proposal with the goal of gaining search visibility on Google for specific surgeries that the hospital performs.
The surgeon who asked his assistant to request the proposal looked at the quote and dismissed it out of hand. E-Power received no indication that he read any part of the proposal other than the total dollars.
The surgeon's assistant told E-Power that he wanted a proposal for less than $900 each month, as that was what he was currently paying for a Google AdWords program. Our team asked what he was getting for the money. It turns out he was guaranteed one of the first four Google ad positions for a handful of rarely searched phrases. He was massively overpaying!
The surgeon was excited about being guaranteed top placement. However he did not know the value of what was being guaranteed. He was too busy focusing on the total dollars that he didn't see those dollars were not delivering. You can't expect effective search marketing if you take a hands-off approach to your program.
Continue reading: Search Engine Optimization is Not a Commodity.
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