Traffic Building

SEO Myth : Search engine rankings for your site can be guaranteed

You’ve probably seen the offers - “Rank first in Google or your money back! Guaranteed!”

Ever wonder what the catch is?

First, no rank in any search engine’s organic results can be guaranteed. Especially when it comes to competitive industries, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars, several months of work, and possibly some risky tactics to even make the front page for competitive searches.

If you’ll look at the fine print of these “guaranteed rankings” offers, you’ll typically find that they will:

1. Get you the top AdWords ad for a search term.
Quick and easy, just pay enough money to Google and they’ll rank your ad first tomorrow. This might do you some good, but you certainly don’t need any search engine marketing expertise to log into an AdWords account and give Google some money.

2. Rank your site first for an obscure search term.
Assuming Google is already indexing your site, getting a page ranked for a non-competitive search term should be fairly easy. The fact that ranking first for this term will do your site absolutely no good is rarely mentioned.

3. Any of a number of other word games that will result in a page on your site technically ranking “first” for some search term that will do your site or your business little good.

There are no short-cuts and no guaranteed rankings. Be wary of anyone who tries to tell you that there are.