Rip-off #3: Hide behind intellectual property rights
We all know that the techniques required for SEO can be found in many books and on many websites. Luckily, the customer does not. If they ask for proof that you have done something that you have not, try to hide behind claims of intellectual property. I recently saw this done with regard to link building. A company had been paying for link-building services but could see no benefit from them. Its SEO company claimed to be gathering 10 to 20 links per month. This is a carefully chosen number -- not too many to seem extravagant and not too few to seem lazy. When asked to provide a list of the links it had obtained, the company refused. The service provider explained that the sites in which it had placed links had been carefully identified through research using its SEO expertise. The company said that it could not provide this list because it would threaten its carefully created intellectual property. Believe it or not, the client accepted this lovely piece of legal waffle -- and continued to pay for the services.
Rip-off #4: Offer meaningless guarantees
Nothing works to allay a prospect's fears or doubts better than a guarantee of success. The skill lies in offering something that will cost you nothing. My particular favorite is the "we'll do it again if we achieve nothing" guarantee. All you have to do is tell customers you will give them 12 months of free service if you do not achieve their goals by the end of the first year. Then, you do nothing for them all year except send them invoices and collect their money. At the end of the year, when they say they are unhappy, you say, "no problem, we'll give you another year for free." Then you do nothing for the client for second year. Sounds too easy to be true? I didn't make this idea up myself; I saw it being used by a very successful medium-sized SEO company.
Another guarantee that works well is to guarantee No. 1 placement in 75 percent or so of the world's major search engines. The trick to this one -- and this is a very popular trick -- is to provide a list of target engines that includes very minor search engines. These are ones that no SEO company bothers with because they have insignificant market share. Of course, you include Yahoo, MSN and Google in your list. However, you don't waste any effort on them; they are too hard because there is too much competition for placement on them. You have to know your business to succeed with these three. However, if you include them in a list of 10 or 20 other search engines, all you have to do is get decent places in the others to meet your stated goal. Of course, the client will see no benefit, but he can hardly sue you; who wants to get into a legal debate about the definition of a "major" search engine?
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