Things Your SEO Consultant Should Never Say

Below are some of the more outlandish things we’ve heard fellow SEO services providers tell their clients and prospective customers. We thought we’d take the opportunity to debunk these SEO myths and help you choose an SEO consultant that doesn’t make crazy claims like these.

Photo via Bluenote Creative

“We guarantee your site will be on Page 1 within X weeks”

If you hear a digital marketing agency or SEO consultant make a promise like this, RUN, because they are straight-up lying to you. None of us has any control over which sites get ranked on Google or how, and with Google’s algorithm constantly changing, what achieves results one day could falter the next. Google’s own advice on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number 1 ranking.

We can’t possibly control every variable that goes into ranking sites for a given keyword phrase, but we can optimise our websites as best as we can, given the established SEO best practices.

“I just finished this site’s SEO”

There’s no such thing as being done optimising a website. There is always something more you can do to enhance your site’s performance and increase the odds of it climbing the search rankings.

A healthy SEO maintenance program should entail continuous monitoring of the site’s performance and tweaking of the optimised elements. That is: its ranking for each keyword will go up and down over time, and in order to maintain or increase search visibility, you must keep optimising.

Instead of being a “set it and forget it” thing, consider SEO an ongoing investment: a marathon, not a sprint.

“Paid ads help improve SEO”

Paid search (i.e. Google Ads) and organic search (i.e. SEO) are two entirely separate beasts. Paid rankings are directly affected by how much money you’re willing to invest in your paid advertising program, while organic rankings reflect the investment you’ve made in optimising your site. If an SEO consultant tries to sell you on paid rankings with this argument, I’d be very sceptical of their motive.

The bottom line? Both paid and organic search can be effective ways of driving traffic to your site, but they’re independent from each other.

“We have a special relationship with Google”

Google does run a Google Partners program for agencies that manage Google Ads, but it has nothing to do with organic search rankings. Google’s advice on hiring an SEO specifically warns against SEOs who allege a “special relationship” with Google. In other words, if someone says their connection to Google will get you ranked, it’s almost definitely not true.

“You don’t need to worry about social media because it doesn’t affect SEO”

First, we recently published an article that is the exact antithesis to this statement: 7 Ways To Use Social Media To Improve SEO

And second: FALSE.

It’s true that the Google algorithm does not factor in social media metrics like likes, shares, and followers. But that doesn’t mean that social media has no effect on SEO success. In fact, it has some indirect effect on SEO: for example, sharing posts across social media helps more people find a page, and sharing links often leads to more sharing of links, both on websites and other social media accounts.

Need help with your SEO? Contact us to learn more about the SEO services we offer at Rock Solid Marketing.