With people living their lives online and the global pandemic fuelling that habit even further, there’s one truth that businesses can no longer ignore: The need to compete for online visibility and build a solid web presence is stronger than ever.
As the face of your business on the internet, having a website is critical. But it’s not enough. Your website must feature on top of the search engine results page (SERP) as more than 90% of web users don’t bother to scroll past the first page. This is why it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that every business needs SEO today.
SEO, however, takes time, effort, and patience to show results. And, while you can do it on your own, it involves a significant amount of learning curve to practice and implement the right techniques. Plus, the world of SEO changes fast and furiously. So, you need to be constantly up on your toes to check for the latest trends and algorithms. This is where an ethical digital marketing agency can help.
It can be tempting to cut corners by hiring a cheap SEO company or get lured by the false claims they make. But this one mistake can sink your online marketing ship and hurt your business’ reputation online.
Here’s how.
1. The risky shortcuts
Cheap SEO services promise great results within a short period of time. All they are doing here is, telling you what you wish to hear, claiming to achieve the impossible duo of quality SEO and super-fast results.
What actually happens is, they pull ‘black-hat’ SEO tricks or techniques that give a temporary boost to your website’s ranking on SERP. These techniques include keyword stuffing, content spinning, clickbaiting and over 40 practices that violate Google’s policies. These ‘shortcuts’ may seem effective, but they are actually pushing your towards a permanent ban from Google’s SERPs.
3. Poor performance
Cheap SEO agencies don’t hire qualified SEO experts. Nor do they have the resources to develop effective SEO campaigns.
Unlike professional SEO agencies such as Local Digital that are constantly perfecting their craft and bringing the latest tactics to the table to benefit their clients, cheap SEO companies are solely driven by the aim to take on as many clients as possible, often at the cost of quality. So, they don’t bother staying updated with the newest trends and best practices.
This approach ultimately hurts the businesses that work with them. Ineffective SEO efforts flush their dollars down the drain and they stand to lose their reputation and credibility.
3. Low to nil lead generation
Lead generation is one of the prime benefits of SEO. If your SEO activities don’t translate to real customers and sales, then you’re putting all that effort for nothing. Cheap SEO services fail miserably when it comes to setting up SEO strategies that will attract quality leads.
On the contrary, reputable SEO agencies have what it takes to build excellent SEO lead generation campaigns. Plus, they round it off with conversion strategies that get you the real deal: Customers who actually buy from you.
4. Links from bad neighborhoods
Cheap SEO services are bound to secure links from bad neighborhoods such as spammy profile links, comment links, unrelated directories, social sites and links from low quality sites which might in the long run hurt your site's SEO negatively. More often than not, you will need to hire a professional to remove these links to help your site back up. In other words, you will actually need to undo the work they did which is extremely counterproductive.
5. Spammy outreach
Cheap SEO services might even engage in aggressive outreach using spammy software which would further negatively impact the overall reputation of your business.
Considering these aspects, it’s always best to steer clear of SEO companies that sell their services for dirt-cheap prices. These services generally don't know much about SEO and do not keep up with the latest industry developments. They hire cheap labor who might end up doing work that you will need to hire a professional company to undo. So these services are definitely not worth it and are best avoided.
When it comes to SEO, always ensure that you go for a company with great reputation who use white hat techniques to rank your site. So do not rush in and make sure to do your research before you decide on the company to settle for.
Considering these aspects, it’s always best to steer clear of SEO companies that sell their services for dirt-cheap prices. These services generally don't know much about SEO and do not keep up with the latest industry developments. They hire cheap labor who might end up doing work that you will need to hire a professional company to undo. So these services are definitely not worth it and are best avoided.