SEO Company FirstFound.co.uk

Ask them for a portfolio of clients and the clients websites and keywords that they have gotten into googles top 10 (first page). If they cant even supply this then they arent even worth a second look. If you wanna see a good portfolio, I know someone that is very good at getting tough keywords . Just pm me and i will supply you with his portfolio, websites,keywords and contact numbers of his clients that he has gotten into the top 10.
You see, this is concrete proof. Without a portfolio, kiss them goodbye and dont look back.

 

Hi,

Since starting this thread I have been contacted by an ex-employee of this company and warned off using them.

Jimbob

 

I say the following, "Thanks for getting back to me so many times, however, this has made me wonder how good you really are if you have so much time spare to chase on fish. Consequently, I have posted a question about you on a forum to canvas people for their experience of you and I have to say, you sound a really sh** company to use. Therefore, I won't be using you, now F*** off."

This did the trick for me.

 

Haha.. yeah that's one way..

Well, another grilling! Same persistent sales person who uses her "you must be really slow so I'm going to speak to you like a 5 year old" tone of voice if you say anything other than "yes, sign me up right now". I don't know if it's just this specific person or if they're all trained to be like that, but it sure is annoying.

I decided to hear her out, again, and asked about their techniques and whether they comply with best practices / white hat etc. And was treated to her trademark 5-year-old tone for suggesting that a company as wonderful as theirs with 10 years experience could possibly have survived if that weren't the case

When challenged about the very specific search phrases they use for their examples, you can see the weak spots. I asked if she had an example of a more common search phrase than 'search engine consultants' or 'tax accountants' (yes both 'tax' and 'accountants' are popular together, but not as a phrase) and was given just one example with the link at the bottom of page 1 and the answer of "um, that's a work in progress, it takes a lot of time".

She refused to give a more comprehensive list of successful clients or references and used the Data Protection Act as an excuse. Now, I'm not an expert on the DPA but I've studied it here and there, and as far as I'm aware there are no data protection issues relating to sharing a list of search engine phrases or website links. Very poor effort I thought, you'd at least get permission from 5 to 10 happy clients if that was a concern.

This was followed by "well isn't that good enough, what does it take to convince you" etc. I'd used up my break and gotten rather sick of it at this point, and hung up. I'm sure they won't call again; if they do I may be forced to be less polite.

Apart from everyone saying "avoid", I'd avoid anyone this pushy in the first place - if it's this difficult to tell them to clear off before they have our money, I dread to think what it's like afterwards!

 

This company had the cheek of phoning one of my clients - telling him I haven't done a very good job.

Of course, I laughed - my client's website is and has been on #1 in Google for a number of years under a combination of very relevant search terms.

And once you place a client up there - naturally (and unfortunatelly) they attract the attention of cold-calling sharks.

I do not need to promote myself here,
I believe I am reasonably good at what I do.
And good SEO takes a lot of research and very hard work.

I believe there are many good honest hard-working SEO guys out there.

But it is companies like FirstFound that tarnish the name of SEO consultancy. Ethical SEO.

Hence I will repeat what has been said already:

Always but always demand credible proof

Ask for a portfolio, ask for it's keywords and try and see if you can spot the website yourself when searching on Google.

Do not buy into "it takes a long time to reach high position".
That is not strictly true.

A site can reach high positions in Google and remain there even after 3 months - but a safer time-scale is 6 months.

Also beware - you contract the wrong SEO firm, with blackhat techniques and you risk having your website completely banned from Google!

The blackhat technique will work as follows: you will gain your top 10 position fast, they'll get their money, and then after than your results will slide back into 1000th place.

That would be one good way for you to lose your money while having your site blacklisted by Google.

Demand to see proof

A site which has been properly SEO'ed could be placed in the top 10 in Google with just 3 relevant keywords.

But that is not all - demand a list of different relevant search phrases (containing no more than 4 keywords) all leading to top 10 positions.

random example:

Bakery in North London (and 10 other similar phrases)
Linux Laptop Specialists (and 10 other similar phrases)

and so on.

When searching for Search Engine Consultants, get as many references from established ex-clients, also ask around forums - dont be satisfied with one example but a list of long-term achievements.

kind regards

Some aspiring SEO guy

 

I have worked for FirstFound and it is absolutely true that the sales technique they used is very aggresive and they tell you that they can guarantee a listing on DMOZ, they never take on more than company in the same profession within the same geographical area and they can optimise as many pages as possible and wait for it they can get you listed on page one on Google in less than 8 weeks. Well, just a word of warning this company only does basic SEO work on the website at the start and then no additional work is carried out for the remainder of your 4 - 12 month contract.

If you are asking yourself how do i know this - the simple answer is that "I use to work for them as a technician". The whole thing is a scam and gives the term SEO a bad name for the decent companies trying to make a living out of it.

 

Gees.. whats so important about this one company... its not like their arent a million other companies out there that do the exact same thing.

You just need someone good thats all, maybe ask a few people here for UK based recommendations!

 

I was talking to a friend who has a website who was ranking quite high for a few keywords, as part of the conversation I asked him if he used any SEO companies. I use firstfound in manchester he said - when suddenly our conversation was broken up. Yes I thought if he is doing well with firstfound maybe i should give them a try - BIG MISTAKE! - When i spoke to my friend a few months later he finished the conversation BUT i had already signed up - "but i wont use them again as i don't think they are doing anything, I am the one who is getting the results!

From the my first contact with firstfound they were very vague about what they would be doing for me, in fact they wouldnt tell me as if it was all a bit magical - this did ring alarm bells but i kept thinking of my friends site that was doing well. From this point i was hounded with sales calls from the firstfound sales dept and in a moment of madness i decided to sign up, then changed my mind, but they wouldnt let me cancel the contract although it had only been signed for an hour and no work had been done - their contract is watertight.

My experience of firstfound is they do a little amount of work to justify their fees, but the clever part is they give you a set of instructions of how to improve your own site and of course you start doing the work yourself to improve your site and they take the credit. The things that they tell you to do are freely available and nothing that alot of people dont know already about 10 pages of advice. All they seem to do after that is submit your site if it needs doing.

If you work it out you are actually paying close to 1k for this which is pretty expensive to say the least. they give you a keyword which they optimize for but it is always something that is not a competitive term.

On the whole i think they are just a very agressive sales company and when you look at the description of the people working for the company they describe themselves as ruthless and i would agree - ruthless in making money!

My advice stay well away and do it yourself - which you end up doing with firstfound of manchester anyway!

 

Wouldn't it be good if we could get this thread on to page one of google for First Found as I think that potential customers should at least have the right to peoples personal feedback before making a decision.

 

SEO is not so easy,
In my mind ,the best SEO company is USA company

 

lol. have you looked?

First found will be able to show us how good they are at reputation management shortly too

http://www.google.com/search?q=first+found+seo+company&pws=0&hl=en&num=10

 

I never head of them before!

 

So how did you know that they have a new site 'to be launched soon'? (If it hadn't already been launched and you claim not to work for them?) Are you psychic? Please do tell how it was you knew this.

I think the answer can be found by looking closer at the users:

Jimbob1208 (registered Feb 2008)
paulflaherty (registered November 2008 with 3 posts)
HenryG (registered April 2008, 1 post)
deryk.marl (registered April 2008, 3 posts)
markpark (registered August 2008, 3 posts)

All registered around the same period, and having previously never commented on any other thread (except Jumbob1208 which I'm guessing was the original account?)

I am guessing here that there is a reason that 'Paul' doesn't work for them anymore?

 

Hi jarf - this is a bit of an odd reply - doesnt really make any sense - are you connected to firstfound by any chance?

If you look over a wide spectrum of seo forums - pretty much everybody says the same as this about firstfound - my post is totally honest and i have no reason to lie - i think this is back up by everything else you read.

What is the point you are trying to make as I dont fully understand it?

 

price seems to be lot cheaper ...

 

they misspelled optimization "http://www.firstfound.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation.htm"

that right there is a turn off.

 

No they didn't, they are a UK company and thats how it should be spelled. I still think they are a crappy company though.

 

The thing is that if they get a bad rep - all they need to do is just change their names.
And noone will know

Also what they do is target people who are already DOING VERY WELL - on search engines.

This way they can steal their results - and then show it to other people as if it was their own work.

I really hate these companies trying to snatch my clients away.

Why not go for those that are doing very poorly in terms of search engine results? They are the ones that truly need help - not the page 1's or numbers 1 !!

 

Just a quickie as I’m off to bed. (Just finished a night shift)

I haven’t heard of the site in question but I’m far from impressed with their on page SEO...

You can visit the homepage by wwwdotfirstfound.co.uk/index.htm and firstfound.co.uk /index.htm and so on, from a SEO point of view, the site should use a 301 redirect.

Title Tag has too many characters.

Keywords...

“search engine optimisation, pay per click management, seo, search engine consultants, pay per click campaigns, firstfound, uk, free search engine report, search engine marketing, search engines, search engine results, website"

Why would anyone want to target “UK” and “Website”? firstfound should be removed.

Personally I feel “Search” is used to often.

Image Optimisation is none existent.

Just a few quick observations, this company doesn’t have a clue about on page optimisation.
One can only hope that their off page SEO is far better than their on page.

Thanks Brian

 

What a way to promote your site...
Excellent......