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Is it worth selling SEO services after panda 3.3?

by WillST
6 replies
Hi guys

I've been doing relatively well selling SEO services to offline clients over the previous 6 months... My business is pretty much just starting to gain traction with several national campaigns underway and a national hotel brand looking to work with us...

And then panda 3.3 hit.

Now, I've not seen my clients rankings drastically drop, but there certainly has been a 'shuffle' and it makes me nervous.

I offer my clients a guarantee of rankings within a certain timeframe or monies are refunded after x number of months - now, with the panda update I'm not as confident of being able to offer new clients a guarantee of this nature...

So, my question is - is it worth prospecting for new seo clients without having a guarantee of rankings in place??

Bit of an open question really, but I'm sure that a handful of other SEO companies are feeling the same level of uncertainty around about now...

Any thoughts or words or wisdom would be much appreciated :-)

Cheers

JSTEF
#panda #selling #seo #services #worth
  • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
    Originally Posted by JSTEF View Post

    So, my question is - is it worth prospecting for new seo clients without having a guarantee of rankings in place??
    Short answer is YES.

    Stop offering guaranteed ranking by X amount of time.

    You don't need to. Nobody does, and the ones that do fall prey to
    google updates.

    Before you argue that, ask yourself this, when you put an add in the newspaper, phone book, buy spots on the radio...

    Does anybody guarantee you anything other then the "work" will be completed?

    No matter how you break it down SEO, is a form of advertising,

    get it?
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  • Profile picture of the author WillST
    Kenmichaels - that's exactly what I needed!

    Yep, I've realised that since the panda update, I've left myself very vulnerable with having these guarantees in place... Thankfully though, most of the rankings have already been achieved, so it's at least served a purpose of creating a robust portfolio!

    On the note of prospecting, how do you generate clients yourself? I've found that local networking and joint venture partners have provided all the work I need... But always curious to hear of other peoples experiences :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
      Originally Posted by JSTEF View Post


      On the note of prospecting, how do you generate clients yourself?
      I mainly cold call for new business.
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  • Profile picture of the author WillST
    Great stuff... Im Still contending with the whole cold calling issue but thankfully exchanging services with a telemarketing company in a few weeks time so will be able take advantage of there services too...

    Just going back to the issue of providing a guarantee (or not, moving forward), do you also advise on rough timescales on how long it will take to rank a clients site for the chosen keywords? Or not bother with this either?
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    • Profile picture of the author kenmichaels
      Originally Posted by JSTEF View Post

      Great stuff... Im Still contending with the whole cold calling issue but thankfully exchanging services with a telemarketing company in a few weeks time so will be able take advantage of there services too...

      Just going back to the issue of providing a guarantee (or not, moving forward), do you also advise on rough timescales on how long it will take to rank a clients site for the chosen keywords? Or not bother with this either?
      personally i just explain WHY its a good idea to be as close to number one as possible, then i explain how google is always changing. I don't guarantee them any specific spots or timeline.

      I also explain the google dance, make a small joke about it, then hammer home the fact some times what work i do today WILL NOT show real results for upto 3 months. Then use a tie down for commitment.
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  • Profile picture of the author clivewhites
    Google is changing every second to make better search experience and google panda is a effort like others. So there is no need to worry about it. We have to do changes in the SEO works so that we will get benefited after this.
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