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Why Can't Search Engine Companies Guarantee Results?

Who doesn't like a guarantee?

Many Web site owners are intrigued by offers that guarantee page one placement at the search engines. After all, no one wants to spend a lot of money and find that they aren't ranking any higher than they did before.

But think about if you owned a bed and breakfast. You can guarantee your visitors clean sheets, a view of the ocean, and a fine dining experience. What you can't guarantee them is that they'll have a good time. Or that it will be in their top 10 weekends of all time.

It may be that they have a lot of great weekends. It may be that it rains. It may be that they get sick, or hungover, or they have a terrible fight with their significant other. There are just too many variables out there.

Likewise, psychologists can't guarantee you complete happiness, plastic surgeons can't guarantee that the object of your affection will fall in love with you, and a career counselor can't guarantee you'll have your next job for life.

The same is true with any legitimate search engine optimization company. They can guarantee that they'll be professional, that they'll do the appropriate research, that they'll make recommendations based on previous experience and success, but they can't guarantee you'll be on page one.

Maybe you have too much competition. Maybe the keyword phrases you're targeting are too broad or off-target. Maybe you're unwilling to add the necessary content to your image-heavy home page. Maybe Google or Yahoo changes their algorithm next week. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

So how do companies that guarantee you page one placement get away with it?

1. They use pay-per-click ads that appear on page one. Nothing wrong with this approach, except it could be expensive. Also, if they're leading you to believe this is natural search results at work, that's misleading.
2. They're using underhanded, black hat SEO tricks that probably will rocket you into the top 10 results...and then get you banned just as quick. Many fly-by-night search engine firms use this slash-and-burn technique, and then you'll spend a LOT more money with a legitimate SEO company trying to get back into Google's good graces.
3. They're lying.

I know you want to rank on page one at Google. But so does all of your competition. The best long-term, sustainable approach to search engine success is to continually add quality content that your customers are interested in and organize and present it in a way that the search engines can also understand.

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