As a business owner with a site, I’m sure you get bombarded with emails and calls offering to get your website to the top of Google, often for a price that seems too good to be true. Well, that’s probably because it is!

Cheap SEO can have a myriad of negative effects for your site and how it ranks on Google, a lot of which can put you in a hole that can take a long time to dig yourself out of. Below we list some of the biggest dangers of cheap SEO:

1) If the company you are being contacted by is UK based, but is offering cheap SEO, the likelihood is they can’t actually invest the time, manpower and resources that a website will need to get excellent results with such a small budget. This results in these companies often outsourcing the work abroad, often to India.

This means they may well share logins and passwords with these companies, which is obviously a major security issue! There have been numerous occasions of websites being held to ransom by overseas third parties that have been given access to help with the work.

2) If SEO is being offered for a really low price, it’s likely the key bit of work they’ll be offering is backlinks. This is an issue for a number of reasons. The main one is that while backlinks should be part of your strategy, they shouldn’t be the sole focus. Generally, companies will source backlinks from an overseas provider and these links often turn out to be highly questionable and offer no benefit or value in terms of SEO.

If you get links, they need to be naturally accrued, if possible, from websites that are already well regarded and trusted by Google.

3) There will be little to no ‘hands-on’ SEO work on your site. If we work on a site, we will take the time to go right through the website, carrying out any fixes & making everything as good as possible. We will write new content & adopt a hands-on approach to your SEO.

This work takes time and really needs to be carried out by someone who not only has the skill & expertise to do the job, but also the ability to put in the time your site deserves.

If you are approached by a company offering seriously low-priced SEO, here are some good questions you can ask them:

• Do you outsource your work and who will my logins be shared with?
• Can you provide a roadmap of everything you will be doing, week on week or month on month?
• How much time will you be spending on my campaign per month?
• Is any of the SEO work automated, or done by software?
• Will I have my own account manager, and if so, how often will they communicate with me?
• Have you worked with clients in the same or similar industry to me?
• How do I know you will fully understand my business, my goals & my objectives?
• What level of reporting & updates will you provide?
• Can I see testimonials and reviews of other clients you have worked with?
• How long do you expect it to take to see results? (If anyone gives you a definitive answer, that’s a huge red flag and should be automatic disqualification).

If you would like to see how we can help you with your SEO, please request yourself a free review today.