Solicitations from Marketing Companies: Beware of SEO Scare Tactics

In the world of legal Internet marketing solicitations, remember to take everything with a grain of salt. Offers that sound too good to be true often are, and companies that make incredible claims typically aren’t the most trustworthy firms to work with. There are some obvious red flags to keep an eye out for…

If an SEO company guarantees page one placement for your website – page one placement that would definitely require a significant investment of time and overhauling your site – ask yourself how THIS particular company is able to guarantee it for such a low cost. If a reputation management company claims to be able to remove negative reviews for you – reviews that can only be removed by the person who actually wrote the review and the review site itself – take a second to ask how THAT particular company is able to do what other marketing companies cannot.

Basically, if ANY online advertising company makes a claim that sounds too good to be true, don’t immediately buy into the sales pitch. Granted, there are plenty of reputable companies out there with your best interests in mind, but there are considerably more questionable companies that are more than happy to take advantage of you as soon as possible…. Most of the companies in question you’ve probably never heard of, so deleting their spammy emails is more or less second nature. However, what happens when you receive a solicitation from a well-known marketing company in your industry, and the solicitation is making bold claims regarding your existing marketing strategy? Just like you would with some of those other unsavory emails from parts unknown, you should first question their claims and really take some time to consider what they are saying and what they seem to be after. Additionally, if the company-you’ve-heard-of uses any sort of fear tactic, throw up a red flag and carefully consider EVERYTHING that’s being said.

One of our clients recently received an email from another well-known attorney marketing firm. We don’t want to copy and paste exactly what this other company said, but we’ll happily paraphrase their rather aggressive claims…

I was searching some terms for one of our clients and I noticed that your website isn’t ranking as well as it used to. I did some digging, and it turns out:

– You aren’t ranking on Google Maps for [INSERT PRACTICE AREA] terms
– You aren’t ranking on the first FIVE pages of Google for [INSERT PRACTICE AREA] terms
– Your interlinking is all wrong (and hurting your rankings)
– Your site isn’t focused enough and is competing against itself

Fortunately, our clients know when they’re being sold to. In this particular case, ALL of the problems mentioned above are wrong. So, why would another marketing company make stuff up in order to poach one of our clients? First off – some well-known marketing firms will make use of blanket spam mail tactics from time to time. Call it lazy. Call it saving money. For whatever reason, some of these larger, more established companies will employ the worst mass email tactics. So it is quite possible they are simply shooting in the dark and not really targeting anyone in particular – just whoever responds. Secondly, SLS clients generally already rank very well for the terms that are most important to the firm. If another company picks up where we left off, they’re essentially in cruise control and they won’t necessarily need to do much, if anything. That’s because a digital foundation developed using white-hat SEO strategy is built for the long haul, and once a website is ranking well, you don’t have much to worry about in terms of Google updates and other shifts in the SERPs.

So remember…don’t let other marketing companies scare you into hiring them! Halloween may be right around the corner, but let’s leave the scares to trick-or-treaters and haunted attractions.