As a business with web sites, I have started to get calls from SEO companies. Before I tell you of my experience yesterday I want you to know I am active in a few SEO forums, and do all my SEO in-house. I am ranking on the first page on Google for a lot of terms. So I am no newbie to SEO. 

Well, yesterday I received a call from a company called SEOP. He first started off by telling me what SEO stands for. Then he asked if we were happy with our ranking. I did the wrong thing at that point and told him no, and that I am always working on my rankings as it is my job. He then asked me to go to Google and type in some keywords. Then he gave me the word of ‘bank’ and explained that Bank of America was their client and they got them to the #1 spot, doubtful(a company that big is not hiring someone to submit to directories for them as they have 95,000 back links), but I humored him. Then he gave me a great keyword ’spine surgeon’. That’s when he told me that he got the top listing in their position. I proceeded to laugh at him at that point and told him to give me a real competitive keyword to search for. He couldn’t think of any so I asked him if I could find his site under the first 10 pages for Google for the keyword ’seo’. It was not there! How about that! 

Remember that there are over 300,000,000 results for ‘bank’ and could supposedly rank them first, but ’seo’ returned just over 100,000,000 and they were not in the first 100 results. 

I have come to regard these companies as “SEO Telemarketers”. They promise the world, but have not a leg to stand on.  In the end he was transferring me to a “senior technician” but after being on hold for more than I minute, I had all the fun I could handle and hung up.