We’ve all seen these sort of ads around.
It’s where a company guarantees your web site either # 1 in Google or to be on the first page of Google.
Sadly, it’s just all smoke and mirrors.
You see, generally what they’re really offering – and they’ll happily confuse you with lots of technical terms and jargon – is to simply buy Google AdWords (these are the ads on the top and side of Google’s results).
Google AdWords
So, yes.
Whilst they can get you to the top of Google’s 1st page, you can also do it yourself in about 15 minutes.
Set Up A Google AdWords Account
- Go here and set up a Google AdWords account,
- Bid on the terms you want to get found for, and
- Bid higher until your ad appears at the top.
You’ve just saved yourself the management fee of someone else doing this for you.
Then there’s the companies that guarantee to get you # 1 in the search results in Google.
This is a trickier one.
We do a ton of search engine optimisation work but can’t really guarantee the # 1 position for search terms due to to the fact that where you appear in the Google depends, to an extent, on:
- how much search engine optimisation work your competitors do, and
- how Google changes how it ranks sites.
So whilst a good operator will get you a high ranking, there can never really be any guarantees.
Cheers
Brendon
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Wish i read this a couple of weeks ago….prepaid $1000 with the promise of front page with every keyword only to recieve an email 3 hours later stating that it will appear 30% of the time.
Yep, all they do is bid on the phrases and you appear. They take their % of the spend for (usually) not a lot of work and not much of a result for you.
Easy money for them.
They also will not reveal how much they are setting the keyword amounts for… and also have told me any unused money left over from my daily spend limit doesnt carry over…is this normal?
Howdy Paul
Not really normal.
Basically all that’s happened is you’ve given them $1,000 and they’ve said “Trust us.”
If you get no info on how it’s being spent, etc you can’t assess the value you’re receiving for the $1,000.
This bit – “….any unused money left over from my daily spend limit doesnt carry over” particularly sounds like bullshit.
Try and get some reports from them at least, how much they spend, what the click through rates are, etc (you really should have Google Analytics on your site too – integrates in with your AdWords acct so you decent statistics).
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Brendon