I’m no miracle man. I guarantee nothing but hard work!
Although this is a quote made by Bear Bryant, nothing expresses the feelings of the professional webmaster better. We’ve all heard of the supposed “Maker and Doer” companies. You know, these are those unscrupulous web companies that offer the guaranteed ranking or guaranteed improved online sales. It sounds so wonderful, so high-tech, so miraculous – but the web just does not work this way. There is no miracle or guaranteed solution. but in truth, anyone who is worth their salt in this industry knows that this is not the way it works, and a guaranteed number of sales or traffic numbers should be a red flag when shopping for reputable webmaster or SEO specialist.
Most top web developers never guarantee sales or new clients. There is just no way to guarantee clients, sales and a first-page search engine ranking for a given keyword because of all the web influencing factors. The best advice we can give is to stay far away from a web development business who mentions a guaranteed ranking or any guaranteed sales. Yes, a good web developer can improve a website, make it more visible and interesting, even perform SEO so it is more discoverable, but there is no FOR SURE guarantee, and there never should be.
Even so, there are those companies that promise #1 rankings to entice you to sign up, or they promise easy sales results. But this is more a sleaze sale than it is a real proposal. A good web developer will never guarantee improved sales because there are so many ways the web and the search engines can factor in. He can only give you an educated guess on how well your website will do based on your niche, your keywords and the type of website you have.
The sales pitch developer is always trying to tell you what you want to hear, but that does not mean he can guarantee improved web sales. Most Gurus in the SEO and web development field are just trying to sell you on their newest and greatest course or product. Yes, there are real web development professionals out there, but there are just as many that are just selling you their services, and whether you do well or not, is not really of their concern. There’s nothing technically wrong with that unless of course, they aren’t being upfront about it.
[clickToTweet tweet=”The sales pitch developer is always trying to tell you what you want to hear, but that does not mean he can guarantee improved web sales. ” quote=”The sales pitch developer is always trying to tell you what you want to hear, but that does not mean he can guarantee improved web sales. “]
Google and any other search engine are, by the very nature of the algorithms, very volatile. If you search for a keyword in Chicago, Illinois, the search engine results will offer up a particular company or website, but it will also show up differently if you are in Texas. Also if you search from a cell phone or a tablet you may get different search results. And to top it off, with Google’s new algorithms your personal search history will also influence what comes up. You see, Google varies the search results to test the listings to see which one is best suited for the top positions. The point is that rankings change and so they can never be guaranteed. This is designed by Google to be like this.
Good web developers are afraid of the word “Guarantee” because it sounds spammy, and because many unscrupulous web developers and marketing agencies have developed a bad reputation for doing this. Worse, they usually don’t deliver anything and sometimes even harm a client’s business with spammy links. There are web developers and online marketing agencies that guarantee a lot of traffic, lots of sales with a guarantee of your not having to pay the monthly fee if the website does not rank in the search engines. The offer sounds great, but the catch is that these companies choose the place to list your website, under their chosen keywords, and that does not necessarily mean you are going to get sales. The keywords they choose may not be words that help your business, but simply words that are not competed for. This is just a way to manipulate you into buying the service and trick you into the deal. It is a process that takes advantage of clients and it is a shame to see people in the industry do this.
Webmasters and owners want to get more visitors to a website, but what if the website does not sell a good product or service. The idea is not to just get traffic but also sales, sales leads or subscriptions. The assumption we make about traffic can sometimes lead to false hope. Web shysters just say, “Get a website and it will make you rich.” but that is not an absolute truism. All websites don’t sell well simply because they exist. But this does not mean you should just give up either, often a website does not sell because you have skipped a few steps.
Many websites have gotten used to getting lots of free traffic and depend on this free traffic for visitors and sales, but the competition for “top search engine rankings” has also increased. Add to this the fact that many search engines have moved towards paid ad results, the competition continually grows, leaving less room for top search engine rankings.
The truth is no one has control of the search engines. So offering a guarantee becomes an unethical situation. How can anyone guarantee something that is specified (even by Google) as being non-guaranteed?
Google is the ultimate authority in deciding on a search engine ranking and it is something out of any other person’s or company’s hands.
Here is an example of what we mean:
Imagine you have a website that sells magnets and you want to rank in the first or second position for that keyword. If we conduct a Google search for Magnets, we might find that Wikipedia ranks first for that spot. This tells us that you may not be able to rank product pages for this keyword because the user intent here is informational. You may not rank a page that does not fit a user’s needs.
Bottom line is that it is unethical for a web agency or a web developer to offer guaranteed success of a web page. Instead, these companies should focus on offering the best services and advice they can to grow the client’s website, the traffic and overall exposure on the web.
A better way to approach this would be to avoid such a generic keyword in the first place. Focus on ranking for the problems you solve with magnets. Phrases would rank better than words, and the people typing those phrases in are looking for something much more specific, maybe it’s your product!
A good web design can become a tool to help you sell but that requires good website performance. There is so much more to web development than just ranking and final sales, and in fact, this is an old-school way of seeing the process. Today, it is about websites that work on all levels. This requires a website to be easy to read, load quickly, offer the information the reader needs, be easy to navigate and easy to purchase from. In other words, it is about the interconnecting of all facets of web development, SEO, marketing and sales.
For all of these reasons, you cannot think that simply having a website will guarantee more sales. You cannot absolutely be sure that a new website will list for the keywords you want it to list under, and even if it does, there are many other significant reasons why a website does not sell.
Certainly not. We must reiterate, a website is a tool – and there are several factors that make it a successful sales tool. But there is no ONE THING any web developer, marketing agency or SEO specialist can do to guarantee more sales. This is because a website is about performance. A website that performs well, tends to have more traffic, rank better and ultimately, bring in more sales. But getting this requires meeting many different web development goals.
[clickToTweet tweet=”A website is a tool – and there are several factors that make it a successful sales tool” quote=”A website is a tool – and there are several factors that make it a successful sales tool”]
For this reason, alone, a #1 ranking may not be the objective that brings you a ton of traffic and sales. It may not be the objective you should focus on at all. Instead, you want to focus on great web development, responsive design, excellent load speed, easy navigation, a good balance of design and content, keyword analysis and targeting. It is the working on all of these areas that make a website an excellent sales tool.
Now here’s a fun clip about Guarantees from one of the best!
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