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I have become a little annoyed, to put it politely, recently by other SEO companies claiming that anyone offering a guarantee to customers, involving specific Google results, is cheating/black hat/lying/dishonest.

Well I write here and right now furiously dispute those allegations.

I will go further. The reason these companies are afraid to offer a guarantee is exactly because they are afraid of their own capabilities, or lack thereof, being exposed.

I will add an important caveat to Busybath’s 1st page placement guarantee – It is only offered to a company that can attain such a ranking and keep it. We wouldn’t dream of offering a performance related deal to a thin affiliate or cookie-cutter site owner for example. The main reason being that if we got them to even 1st place on page one there would be nothing to stop those direct competitors in 2nd to 10th place from putting in sufficient effort and monies to overturn our listing using the exact same keywords and backlinks that produced the result in the first place.

Those businesses that allow us to showcase their results have attained high placement because we vigorously filter their anchor text and keywords before we take them on. It’s not a case of only backing prospects who will gain the results we tout, or a cute business strategy. It is a hard-nosed assessment of their product’s potential, the website as it stands, their current results position and the strategy required to change those factors to the extent necessary to produce a suitable outcome.

For example, BigWood Play Equipment. They approached us with an already established website and their desire to Get More Customers ;-)

We did our due diligence and saw enormous potential, not only for their on-page SEO and layout but also their competition’s lack of efficiency and focus.

At the time BigWood’s site did not achieve any results in the top 20 of Google’s serps. Some of that deficiency was down to on-page issues but mostly their complete lack of off-site optimization was key. We worked together to change both aspects and then I offered a guarantee.

I would get bigwoodplay.com into the first page of Google worldwide or they could have their money back and £1000 on top for their trouble.

Money in extremely close proximity to mouth.

What happened? Let’s take their main keyword; wooden play equipment

www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=wooden+play+equipment&meta=&aq=0&aqi=g4g-m1&aql=&oq=wooden+play+e&gs_rfai=&fp=459b761b84e2996a

and discount the paid placement “sponsored” (of which there are nearly always 3) above the actual organic results (along with the maximum 8 paid links on the right).

As of today [20th April 2010] they hold the No2 position worldwide on page 1 of Google for that loose phrase (at the data-center producing results for my newly cleared cache, Firefox browser here in Bath – your results may, and often will vary) from “Results 1 – 10 of about 962,000 for wooden play equipment.”

They have not fallen out of the top 5 on page 1 of Google results since 2007 when the optimization first took place.

For the precise phrase; “wooden play equipment”

www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&q=%22wooden+play+equipment%22&meta=&aq=f&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=%22wooden+play+equipment%22&gs_rfai=&fp=459b761b84e2996a

from “Results 1 – 10 of about 9,320 for “wooden play equipment”.” Worldwide.

I guess they won’t be asking for their money back so our guarantee is safe.

OK. I just got off the phone with someone, who shall remain nameless, believing that they are a competitor, they have a more honest approach and that I “cherry-picked” my client for my diatribe against those SEO companies who will not give at least some kind of a guarantee.

So, lets see what else we can come up with.

As I said in that post the customers who do not mind in the least how we show their links and results allow us to have this page as a showcase, if you will. They are by no means our most successful, happiest, most visible or, more importantly, our only customers (*or our only customers who allow us to display their association with us).

Let us pick the very next on the list;

safecollective.com

Who have been with us for just over a year.

Now, apart from the obvious first choice which should cause neither celebration or surprise when it comes up No1 on page 1 of Google’s serps – you guessed it, Safe Collective – our brief was to take one of the owner’s signature phrases, and get top results for that also.

Voice of the unheard youth:-

www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&q=voice+of+the+unheard+youth&meta=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=voice+of+the+unheard+youth&gs_rfai=&fp=a3412f17c792c95

Results 1 – 10 of about 460,000 for voice of the unheard youth.

currently residing in the top 3 on page 1. Worldwide.

Then there is the current focus (in progress for less than two months);

UK teen outreach:-

www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&q=UK+teen+outreach&meta=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=UK+teen+outreach&gs_rfai=&fp=a3412f17c792c95

Results 1 – 10 of about 34,900 for UK teen outreach.

currently residing in the top 5 on page 1. Worldwide.

Is this customer happy? Will they remain a customer? A happy customer?

Did we offer a guarantee?

Yes. (the sole answer to all the above)