Jun 3
Guaranteed Rankings, Eh?
What sort of gurantees do you give about your SEO campaigns?
It’s a fairly safe bet that, with a little SEO experience and work, you can improve a client’s traffic. With a lot of SEO experience and work you should be able to improve client’s traffic dramatically. Depending on the site you should also be able to improve their conversions.
But do you stop there? Do you ever guarantee rankings to your clients? Apparently leading UK SEO agency Greenlight do (see reason 3), and I’ve heard it included in plenty of other pitches.
Personally, I will not guarantee specific positions, ever. To do so suggests that your Google position is somehow static, that once it’s gained it’s there to stay. As the recent Google update “Dewey” has taught many of us, this just isn’t true! I’ve seen a competitive ranking go from 1st to 30th and back in the space of a day, repeatedly over the past few weeks. If I’d guranteed that client a 1st place position, I’d be in breach of trust, at best, and contract, at worst. Not to mention if I’d guaranteed them a number 2, 3, 4, 5 or any other number that they aren’t currently at.
It looks like not everyone agrees with me though, and if a company as successful as Greenlight feel that they can offer guarantees, perhaps there’s something to it.
I would love to know how a “guarantee” of ranking can be justified. Maybe I’m missing something. I’d be very interested to hear from anyone at Greenlight or other agencies that offer guarantees.
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Hi Matt,
On the SEO contracts I do I normally work to a set of targets - generally traffic or sales volume oriented. I don’t promise positions for keywords as all you’re going to do is get yourself in trouble. Every SEO campaign needs targets so you can work out the success/failure of the campaign. Means also that you dont get mown down by clients who complain that their campaign isn’t sucessful when blatantly it is - as its there in black and white.
Do know a couple of companies who say they’ll strive to get you top position for a keyword and get ‘bonus’ payments for getting keywords into specific positions in the search engines.
Hi IMJ, thanks for stopping by,
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that targets should be set early on, as the client will rarely have a good understanding of how to assess your progress without it. You set targets based on what *should* happen, depending on the site and the work you plan to do it. However, as none of us have any direct control over Google, I wouldn’t guarantee a given position, especially not within a set time frame.
From their ad (which I originally spotted covering a whole page in NMA), Greenlight are suggesting that they’d be prepared to do just that.
“Many search ‘experts’ perpetuate the myth that an agency cannot guarantee natural search rankings or paid search ROI. Greenlight can. Our SEO consultants will tell you what positions you can expect, when you can expect them and what it will take to get there.”
Funny, the second point on the Google What is an SEO page specifically states “Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings” http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
I can’t remember who wrote it but I remember reading a blog post that discussed that it was possible to guarantee a number one ranking but the cost would be too high to ever make it worthwhile. The way it was presented I agreed but nobody is going to pay the millions it would cost to reach that guaranteed goal.
Nearly always get asked this question on first contact and always answer the same way - in the business there are no guarantees because the search engines can change the rules at any moment.
Most enquirers are happy with this in conjunction with the rest of what I tell them. The ones that aren’t are usually not desirable clients. I wouldn’t work for a company that told me to make promises that we couldn’t keep.
You can give me 50p for “best debt consolidation for morris dancers”. I think any SEO worth their salt would be able to quickly obtain a useless long-tail ranking for a search term of their choosing.
There is nothing wrong with explaining what you think will happen, but it is important to maintain the fact that the search engines can and do move the goalposts at any time. It’d be interesting to see if any ranking timescales make it onto any contracts!
If a company approached me saying they’d get me onto the first page of Google for real competitive terms such as ’secured loans’ and ‘debt help’ within a year, then I’d know they were buying their way in… but wait, the Top 20’s all at it…
Hi Matt. Interesting post, and I hope you don’t mind me chipping in considering we [Greenlight] were the subject.
I think the word ‘guarantee’ carries with it many connotations and perceptions. Whilst some of those range from that sense of ‘too good to be true’ disbelief, to pictures in your mind of dodgy infomercial, there is a noble connotation, and the spirit in which many honest professionals chose and prefer to use the term is in offering ‘warranty’.
Assuming that any guarantee outlines what it guarantees, and offers warranties in the event of non meeting of specification, then a guarantee is a perfectly legitimate thing to offer, and a very easy thing for parties to understand and do business around.
As a provider the onus is very much on you though, firstly, to provide explicit contractual warranties, and details of sufficient and satisfactory remedies in the event of non achievement, and secondly, to make sure the person understands that you are not god, you are merely providing a level of service which may fluctuate but for which some financial remedy is provided, and thirdly, that you are doing enough of the right type of things to ensure you can meet what you’ve warranted.
If the provider can’t deliver it, then that makes it their concern more than their client’s, as the client is protected by the warranty.
Hi Warren, thanks a lot for dropping by, it’s great to get the input of Greenlight’s MD!
I’d taken “Our SEO consultants will tell you what positions you can expect, when you can expect them and what it will take to get there” from your site to mean you’d guarantee specific positions within given timeframes. You’ve helped clarify what it is you’re guaranteeing, and I understand your intenions better when you explain it as a service warranty.
I agree it’s definitely a noble idea and one we could do with seeing more of in our industry. I’ve seen terms and conditions from other SEO companies that completely absolve them of any responsibility for any losses made by using their services, so it’s good to see others making the opposite conditions.
Although it is not predictable but we always do this. I think this is endless process. We can say that this site will be on first page but how long it will stay there? it is not confirmed. I have seen many people who are offering such services and charging per month to keep the site on first page but it is not as easy as considered.