Of course you do, who wouldn’t? If something sounds too good to be true then it probably is. SEO companies seem to plague legitimate website owners and sometimes they are allowed to work on their sites. My advice is to be very very careful in letting someone that phones or emails you access to your ‘crown jewels’ aka your website / social media, as it could end up costing you a lot of time, money and hassle to rectify their mistakes.
When you decide to put your website’s promotion / SEO in the hands of a 3rd party SEO company you really need to be aware that they could really cause problems for your website, potentially getting it penalised and causing damage that cannot easily be rectified or measured. Imagine the business you could lose by being removed from Google’s Index so this isn’t something you should take chances with.
The following is an example exchange between an ecommerce website owner and an Indian SEO company that has been allowed to do off-site SEO work on a website on behalf of a website owner.
[SEO Company] We will need access to your website (ftp access) and Google Analytics access to proceed now.
[Website Owners] It appears I do not have direct access to Google analytics. My website design company emails them to me periodically (monthly) which I have already emailed to you did you not receive them? I sent you all latest analytics when I sent you the spreadsheet. Let me know if you need more access and I will ask my web designer to advise where and how I log in to retrieve this information.
Thanks for sending the links below. May I ask what the purpose is of putting my products on classified ads? Is it to create brand awareness or to get my company name more active online? I’m interested to know.
Thank you for attaching the content marketing links, however do NOT publish just yet as I need to make several changes to the grammar and also the language as some of it is emotive language (eg. using the word “fat” and “flabby”) is not appropriate! I will amend and re-write some parts of the blogs and will get them back to you later today.
Also, please advise where your writer gets the content from to write the text? I don’t want them to be copied from any other source without giving them credit as this could work very negatively against me in the eyes of Google as I know Google does not like copied content from other sites or blogs. Please let me know where this content came from?
Regarding social media; what kind of content will you be uploading onto my Facebook and twitter feed? I would like to have an idea. Please advise.
Finally; Just for your information, I have 10 new products for the ecommerce part of the site to add later today. They will be uploaded by the close of UK business.
Thanks for your ongoing support and frequent contact. I think it may be useful to talk on Skype soon.
[SEO Company] No we didn’t receive the analytics. Please ask your website designer to give me full access to the Analytics, it is quite important for me to analyse my work and try more to get improved result each time.
Classified ads are type of online ads which can bring you sales as well as creating brand awareness. We input your products with all the details so that any one finds it in web if like it can but from your website.
Regarding the webcopy they are not copied content. My writers are aware about Google’s copied content algorithm and they always write unique text after researching on the industry.
My social media team will work on your all social media profiles / pages. They promote your business and products, create brand awareness, will focus on targeted people and places, will grab more likes/followers on pages, and share recent news about your industry that will attract people to visit your website.
Regarding the press releases please let me know once it added to the website. Can you write a press release on this so that I can share in news or media? Please find the attachment to know the guidelines to write a press release. Thanks for your response and for more discussion, we can talk on Skype.
[Website Owner] My website designer has given me access to view analytics however he hasn’t given me credentials. I have chased today. In the meantime I will send you the google analytics from past few months via email which will follow this. I have already uploaded the new products to the ecommerce website and I will write a press release and send to you (thank you for the help sheet!). The links you have created currently are clearly ‘spammy’ and worthless (the words of my website designer) and I think you shouldn’t create anymore as I don’t want to lose my Google listing.
I will also reword the two news posts you sent. However I would like to change the first piece to something else, as we are heading into Autumn / winter now and those products perhaps are seasonal and will not be popular over these coming months, so, can your writer instead write a piece for the products going into Winter? Please send to me for me to look at and tweak (amend) accordingly before you publish.
My website designer sent me something on inappropriate link building when I told him you were working on my behalf. He told me to be careful and sent me a link explaining Google’s Penguin update. Please confirm that you follow all of Google Webmaster’s code of practice and follow their strict rules, including link building and not spamming on irrelevant sites as I don’t want my website and brand to be penalised or tarnished.
[SEO Company] Yes I received all the analytics files. Thank you. But what about the Google Analytics access? I need to check all the traffic behaviour such as referral websites, organic keywords, visitor flow etc. Please write the press release and send me soon. Regarding contents, I will take your approval on contents before publishing them anywhere in the web.
We were aware about all Google Algorithms such as Panda, Penguin, EMD, Hummingbird, Pigeon and others. Our working strategy and action plan are based on those algorithms so that it will not hamper your website and there will be no penalization. Please don’t worry.