hi francis, great post. Im a little late to comment. But i cant resist commenting on this. Im sickened to see the outrageous “GUARANTEES” provided. Just go to Google.com.sg and search for “seo singapore guarantee” or a similar term. Then check out the seo consultants various guarantees. For the sake of the industry, i will iron this out.

Firstly, if we base a guarantee on normal circumstances (meaning customer pay=> timeframe 6 months=>get results) then this guarantee model is flawed. No consultant can guarantee this, if the keyterm is super competitive or the competition is too too stiff, it can surely take longer than 6 months. Too many other factors can prevent your site from ranking including a G dance.

The guarantees shelved out are nothing more than marketing ploys packaged into hype to mislead the consumer. 

Here is the first UTTERLY STUPID guarantee thats very common.
1) “We  guarantee 1st page rankings, if we dont achieve it, we work for free until you rank.”
my comments: How stupid is that?? In time to come, the lenience of the algorithms can slip the consultant a lifeline, say after 2 years client ranks, and that will constitute a successful campaign?? Misleading and false. Next, how does the customer know you are working for free and not just sitting on your arse? Is it because you provide a cute log of work done in notepad?!?

2) “We guarantee 1st page rankings in Google.”
my comments: Yea, but what we dont tell you is we actually mean google.com.sg or google.com.sg (pages from singapore) or even google.com.sg business listings (google places)

3) “We guarantee 1st page OR YOUR $$ BACK!!”
my comments: Hogwash. The consultant will ask you for say 15 keyterms, and his guarantee more often than not will have sneaky terms such as: **money back void if 5 out of 15 terms rank on google.com.sg (pages from ‘singapore’ or ‘web’). Also to note, this should never convince a consumer to buy into, because the likelihood of satisfying all conditions for an eligible refund is VERY LOW, leaving the consumer at the losing end either way.

4) “We are superstar SEO consultants, Dont pay a cent until u see rankings!”
my comments: Again Hogwash. Read the fineprint. You will end up paying SOMETHING upfront. GUARANTEED! Its gonna be some silly setup fee or something gimmmicky. Also, again, they dont tell you ranking in which engine, localised or not, which keyterms, what placement. So in this case, the consultant will get you a minimally satisfying ranking and throw you an invoice, which you would be caught into. Remember, no consultant will be stupid enough to fufill work without collecting money, so DONT BELIEVE IT!

That covers my views on this GIMMICKY GUARANTEES. 

I always prefer to be transparent with my clients. 
1) Im offering SEO Service, not traffic, not ranking. The objective is ranking, but lets not be mistaken, the service is SEO. If service is rendered, you pay.
2) You do your due diligence, if you believe we can help your businesss via our SEO work, then go for it. 
3) We dont need cheap marketing ploys and hype. We show you our references, and we show you successful campaigns we have done that are similar to your niche. You can take confidence in this.

At the end of the day, if the consultant or company is good enough to run the campaign, a clean cut and transparent proposal is enough, no need to be spiced up with hard salesman tactics or magical guarantees.

Cecil Chen.

Thanks for the insightful comment Cecil.  I suppose you’re an SEO in Singapore?  Drop me a note on the contact form and maybe we can talk shop sometime.

Cheers,
Francis