The Dreaded SEO Guarantee

I once heard a story of an Indian tribe who would perform a "rain dance" and succeed at bringing the rain 100% of the time. No other Indian tribe in the area could make it rain with their dance. They were heroes.

The Chief of this tribe finally revealed that their dance wasn't making it rain, but simply they would dance UNTIL it rained. Diligence allowed them to succeed over their less than productive counterparts.

SEO is much the same. There is no guarantee in this industry, but the effort put forth in optimizing a website will pay off by putting in the effort over time. Guaranteeing success is not only misleading, but simply unethical. Everyone is better off understanding the fundamentals of search engines, and applying that knowledge into diligent effort. Only effort based on what search engines like will give you an opportunity to rank highly.

A defense attorney cannot guarantee her client of a not guilty verdict. Why? Well, the defense attorney does not control the jury. All the defense attorney can do is apply her knowledge on how to pursuade a jury based on facts.

The facts for SEO suggest that applying keywords, meta descriptions, good HTML, and link building to your website helps in ranking highly. You cannot control the algorithms of the search engines, but you can apply your knowledge of what they like in order to give you the best shot to be found highly.

Be aware of any SEO company that uses the word "guarantee". If they do, have your running shoes on and hit the bricks.