Hi, My question is directed to expert professional SEO companies/people associate with these companies and not budding SEO professionals. How do you guys judge competition for a prospective customer and do you then guarantee them page 1 ranks in google? How do you decide the time frame? How do you take forward things to prove that another SEO firm or freelancer offering page 1 guarantees for 30% of your budget is most probably hiding something,planning black hat or just not sure of the stiff competition? Thanks!
In my experience, we make claims based on our overall past experience with current clients. As a general rule, we have found that we can get sites with competition less than 10 million ranked in the top ten within 6 months, and sites higher than 10 million we can typically get into the top ten within a year. On the other hand, there are other factors that need to be considered such as domain age, amount of inbound links, quality of links, etc. SEO is a very fickle science, and just when you think that you have a formula for success, Google, Yahoo, etc. tweak their algorithm and keep you guessing.
NO. I think anyone that does guarantee a number one slot on google is someone to be wary of. Is top spot obtainable - yes if you have an obscure keyword with next to no competition but for most mainstream searches I don't think anyone can gurantee number one. When I am approached about SEO I research what the client wants, what they have to work with and how much they are willing to follow my recommendations. I also need to know before starting how much freedom I have to alter the site as needed. This can be a problem when working with a site built by an ad-agency (in my experience). The final question I ask them is what their patience level is. The client needs to know this is not an overnight process. If we are on the same page with these topics then we talk about what to expect. I will at times guarantee a google top ten if I honestly believe I can obtain it. When I make a guarantee claim like that I do offer a 50% money back guarantee. I show the client their competition for their primary search terms and what they should realistically expect. I also show them my past work and where the sites I have worked on currently rank. I sometimes use the Wayback Machine site to show the changes that have occured so they get an idea of what to expect. I guess what I am saying is NO I do not guarantee number one on google. If I have a client that calls me and says I have a website and I want you to guarantee me number one, I usually turn it down after our first consultation unless they can be educated about the process. Kind of a long answer but I think it explains how some of us go about this process.............. hope this answer helps..... good luck
Anyone can guarantee page one rankings, it's basic. I wrote a post here showing how i got 63,338 page one rankings in 5 weeks. Rankings are only a small part of SEO, driving targeted traffic that turns a positive ROI is what it's all about. I'm pretty sure i can rank someone for any term they specify, but there's always a small chance it won't happen due to a million factors not in your control. I'd just tell this client to go with the "guaranteed" ranking firm, and you guarantee it will do nothing for their traffic, sales and conversions.
Some good advice on this thread - the key thing is to remember SEO and SERPS is not like flicking a switch and then your there - its controlled by an external force (google algorythm) which you cannot personally control.