If you search for “SEO services” on any search engine, you will undoubtedly find thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of results that have people and agencies advertising their SEO services. If you look even deeper, you will realize that some of these prices are quite low. Everything from technical SEO to on-page SEO can be done if you pay a few dollars. Although businesses would benefit from cutting costs by hiring the SEO agency or professional with the lowest rates, it is not as simple as it seems. Cheap SEO is not worth the headache and below, we will explore why.
You Will Not Get What You Think You Paid For
When you pay for SEO services, you expect the SEO to get your website or business some valuable backlinks, tweak your website so spiders and bots can crawl it easily, add a new optimized sales page, or even add new, engaging content to your website. Unfortunately, a cheap SEO agency will not have the resources to do all this and more, and the elements that suffer will be the most critical – backlinks and content.
Without content and backlinks, your SEO efforts will be for naught. This is because, without these two crucial elements, people will have a hard time finding your website. When that happens, your exposure, links, and rankings will be severely impacted.
You Will Get a Generic Strategy
Although there are some crucial elements that all SEOs must take care of, every SEO project is unique. There are no two websites that are alike, and no two businesses have the same exact needs, goals, and objectives. This means that every website or business requires a unique approach that is tailor-made for it and its unique requirements.
The problem with cheap SEO agencies is that they need to improve efficiency and complete a lot of tasks to make even. This means they are likely to apply a generic strategy to your project, something they can automate, so they can save time and serve more clients. They are unlikely to take the time needed to formulate a strategy that is unique to your website, business, or needs.
SEO agencies that charge reasonable fees take the time to understand your business and develop a strategy that is tailor-made for your business. If you are patient, you will start seeing the results you expect after they make the necessary changes and put their strategy to work.
Cheap SEO Firms Are Rarely, If Ever, Accountable
Many cheap SEO agencies have a huge number of clients on their list. Such a huge number of businesses to care for does not give them the time to have a deeper interest in the businesses they serve other than to get paid. So, by the time you realize you are not getting what you are paying for, they will be happy to terminate the contract and move on because they already have other clients to serve.
This is very frustrating for business owners end up wasting money on this one thing and have to start over to undo all the harm done by the cheap SEO agency.
For SEO agencies that actually do the work, there is a mutual understanding that your business success is their success. So, they take a deeper interest in your business and are accountable for everything they do. They are very careful about burning business relationships so they not only do a good job, but they also give you avenues through which you can hold them accountable for the services they render.
Frustrating Customer Experience
There is nothing more frustrating than terrible customer service, especially for something you are paying for. Cheap SEO agencies are known to have terrible customer services if they have any at all. You will likely hit roadblocks anytime you need a question answered, need to know how the strategy is working, or need a performance review.
A related problem is the language barrier and different time zones. To cut costs, many cheap SEO agencies outsource work to countries where English is not the first language. This makes communication difficult, which can be very frustrating.
Cheap SEO Providers Do Not Have a Long-Term Strategy
SEO is all about patience and waiting for things to happen so you can make tweaks to get better results. Although not many SEOs admit this, it takes about 4-6 weeks to see any changes in your ranking or results from the strategy put in place.
For the best results, there must be a long-term strategy that takes this into account, especially in highly competitive industries and disciplines where they may be many other businesses fighting to rank for the same keywords.
Cheap SEO providers do not have a strategy to see this through and you will likely get a short-term strategy that will offer little to no value.
Your Risk Your Business’ Reputation
When your SEO cuts corners or has a lot of sketchy backlinks pointed at your website, you lower your brand’s reputation. Customers can tell when a business is well respected and when one takes shortcuts. Then, there is the Google problem.
Google has gotten a lot better at identifying websites that use dubious means to get ranked. If they see your website using such tricks instead of following the rules and trying to rank the right way, they will penalize the website. Your ranking will plummet, and you might even end up a lot worse off than where you were before you hired the cheap SEO.
Analytics Becomes a Problem
Cheap SEO agencies do not have the time or financial resources to analyze their results. They only need you to see a small bump in your ranking or a small increase in content, so you see they are making progress. Data analysis is a crucial part of SEO because you need to see if everything is working as it ought to be. Without proper data to analyze, you will be left without any clear direction of where things are headed.
There are so many problems that stem from hiring a cheap SEO agency. If you want to save yourself the headache and see sustainable growth and success, avoid cheap SEO agencies. It makes much more business sense to pay a lot more for sustainable growth and results that will keep you pushing forward for years to come.