Effective SEO strategies are essential to your site’s good performance. Unfortunately, there are many disreputable or shady SEO providers that will try to scam you. Before you sign a contract for SEO services, it’s important to know whether or not you’re at risk of being ripped off. How can you tell if your SEO contract is good or bad?
But first, is an SEO contract even necessary?
Stay away from no-contract SEO: Why you should require a minimum contract for SEO services
At a minimum, you should have some sort of SEO contract. Not only does it outline the services you can expect, but it also spells out both parties’ legal obligations.
Also, contracts are important for maintaining transparency and quality. It ensures that your SEO provider doesn’t resort to any potentially-damaging black-hat SEO techniques while allowing for a reasonable amount of time to conduct an effective SEO strategy.
How to tell if your SEO contract is good or bad: a quick checklist
Signs of a good SEO contract:
The warning signs of an SEO contract scam: 9 questions to ask yourself before signing
1. Were SEO services offered by unsolicited emails?
How did you first learn about the SEO agency with which you’re looking to do business? If it was via an unsolicited email or social media message, you’ll definitely want to run for the hills.
Why? Because any agency worth their salt will have first used their SEO expertise to optimize their own site. If they have to resort to spammy emails, then they obviously don’t have the capability to boost their own website traffic or they can’t compete in the search engine rankings themselves. This should stand out as a major red flag.
Also, SEO scammers usually make these claims in their unsolicited emails:
At best you’ll be flooded with a horde of useless “visitors” who aren’t interested in your products or services, and with only a terrible bounce rate to show for your efforts. At worst, Google will see through these tactics and penalize (or even de-list!) your website. So don’t get scammed into thinking you’ll be getting thousands of easy website visitors overnight. You won’t.
5. Does the SEO contract offer unreasonably low-cost services?
Does the SEO contract use language to refer to services as “combos”, “packages,” or “specials”? Are these services offered at an extremely low cost, or with a free trial, or at a deep discount?
Don’t fall for it. It’s likely a scam.
The fact is, SEO is a time-intensive process that can’t be done effectively in a short period of time. SEO agencies with good track records will perform extensive audits to determine your site’s initial performance; do keyword research to identify search terms that will drive the actual SEO strategy, conduct ongoing on-page and off-page SEO activities like link-building, schema tagging, and content optimization; and ultimately bring a large degree of expertise to the table.
Legitimate SEO services are an essential investment. But they’re not necessarily cheap. So it’s a definite red flag if your SEO contract offers these services at a deep discount since it’s very likely you won’t actually be getting what you think you’re paying for.
6. Does the SEO contract specify vague “secret” or “proprietary” techniques?
There is no “magic” or “secret” SEO. Effective SEO relies on tried and tested techniques that are gleaned from experience, result from a deep understanding of how Google’s algorithm works, are widely understood by other SEO professionals, and are designed to help influence search ranking results.
Since the earliest days of Google, unscrupulous SEO providers have worked every angle to try to game the system. Black-hat methods are always evolving in a (futile) attempt to try and stay one step ahead of each new algorithm update. So when a shady SEO agency claims they have some sort of secret new technique that they won’t share, it’s probably just their latest attempt to pull one over on Google.
If your SEO contract uses language like “proprietary techniques”, or lacks transparency on their methods, then stay away. On the contrary, it’s a sign that they probably use black-hat SEO methods that may give you an initial temporary rankings boost but will end up permanently damaging your rankings — at which point they’ll be long gone.
Remember: Google sees everything and knows everything. When they figure out your SEO “experts” are trying to manipulate them — and they will — your site will end up plummeting down the search rankings and your traffic will dry up with it.
7. Does the SEO contract promise to manually submit your website to multiple search engines?
Manually adding your site to multiple search engines was a great SEO strategy in 1999. Today it’s virtually useless. Google and other search engines use sophisticated bots to automatically crawl your website. So while you can manually suggest your site be added, and request Google to crawl your site, it’s completely unnecessary. They’ll find you anyway.
Offering to manually submit your website to Google won’t hurt. But if your SEO contract lists this activity as one of their provided “services”, it’s a sure sign that they’re trying to scam you.
8. Are spammy link-building services included in your SEO contract?
Most people know that link building is a critical aspect of SEO. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the fact that there’s a big difference between having a healthy backlink portfolio vs having a vast list of low-quality spammy links pointing to your site.
One will help your rankings, the other will sink them.
Don’t fall for an SEO contract that offers bundles of links. You’ll end having thousands of directory backlinks that aren’t only useless – they’ll earn you penalties unless you disavow each and every one.
9. Are the contract SEO services verifiable and reportable?
Finally, before you sign an SEO contract, it’s important to understand the quality of the reporting. Whether through regular and thorough reports or via a dashboard, a reputable agency will be completely transparent with their activities.
Better yet, before signing on the dotted line, ask for a free sample report. Never accept a contract that requires you to pay to monitor your investment’s performance. If your SEO provider is evasive or makes generic or unverifiable claims, consider it a red flag. At Miromind, we prioritize transparency by offering clients access to a dashboard for monitoring SEO performance and a dedicated Slack channel with pinned reports and documents. This approach fosters efficient collaboration and better results.
What does the best SEO contract type look like? To summarize:
A short and simple SEO contract is preferable
The SEO contract should be short (one to three pages is preferable), that clearly spells out the services offered, can be easily broken without excessive penalties, and specifies the reasonable obligations of both parties.
Reasonable SEO contract indemnification
Don’t sign an SEO contract with unreasonable contract indemnity clauses, i.e. one that limits the SEO provider’s liability too much. If they do irreparable harm to your site, they should be both liable for legal remedies that can be enforced. Protect your rights.
A clear action plan with verifiable metrics
A legitimate SEO contract will always offer clearly-defined services, at a reasonable cost, without making any wild traffic or ranking guarantees, and the ability to verify the metrics with clear KPIs.
Why Miromind’s contract SEO services deliver peace of mind
Miromind is a leader in providing effective SEO services to businesses around the world. Our 15-years of experience combined with an international SEO team of experts will work with you to help boost your traffic and sales, all with the peace of mind that comes with a simple, clear, and no-nonsense contract that doesn’t lock you into time commitments or cancellation penalties.
Contact us today to learn how our SEO services can help you meet your business goals.