“Your site on the first page of Google”, “50% more traffic”,
so many promises you’ve probably already seen on the Internet. They’re all very tempting, of course. However, no SEO agency today can guarantee you a particular position in the search engines for a specific query.
Why can’t a web agency guarantee your positioning? What obligation does it have to you?
Can a web agency guarantee your SEO results?
No, no digital agency can guarantee the results of your SEO campaign.
Moreover, legally speaking, an SEO service provider only has an obligation of means, but no obligation of result.
In a nutshell, he has to prove that he’s done everything necessary to ensure that your site gets a much higher ranking in the search engines. On the other hand, he has no obligation as to the final positioning of your site in Google results for a given keyword.
This is comparable to a doctor’s obligation to prescribe the right medicine to make you well. Even so, he can’t guarantee a cure.
Unless it’s stipulated in black and white in your contract, you should be extremely cautious about SEO service providers promising you a first-page Google ranking on a well-defined query.
What’s more, even in the case of an obligation of means, the terms of the contract and the work carried out on the site may be subject to change, if only because the algorithms have evolved and require new criteria, or will now be stricter on others.
For example, you wouldn’t want your agency to work on a tag that Google has just rendered useless in SEO for 1 year, on the pretext that your contract stipulates it… It’s more interesting that the SEO agency should be able to evolve the terms of the contract towards ever more interesting tags, or priority criteria, even if they differ from your initial contract. In this respect, even an obligation of means must remain flexible in order to bend to the search engine’s reality.
Why is it impossible to guarantee a Google position?
It’s impossible to guarantee a result when it comes to search engine optimization, simply because because it ultimately depends on the search engine itself.
In addition, a number of parameters that are difficult to control can influence your positioning:
- Google’s algorithm is probably one of the best-kept secrets in the world;
- The American giant rolls out a huge number of updates every year. While most of them have a minor impact, some of them regularly shake things up;
- Your positioning also depends on your domain’s history (past penalties, expired ndd, seniority, previous SEO actions, etc.). These are all criteria over which your future agency has no control;
- Your competitors may also set up an SEO campaign when they see your site passing them by.
- Your site “lives”, and regularly receives updates, new content, new products, and may produce new errors. These imponderables have to be taken into account by the SEO, who sometimes has to completely revise his priorities to manage an SEO emergency not foreseen in the initial contract.
What guarantees does an SEO professional offer?
If it is Google that ultimately decides where your pages will appear in the results, an SEO professional must guarantee that everything will be done to ensure that it is in line with your objectives:
- SEO audit: the aim of this is to take stock of your site’s strengths, but also of the various aspects to be worked on to meet all the SEO criteria recommended by Google at the time of the audit;
- Setting up and deploying a “white hat” SEO strategy, i.e. one that respects the guidelines imposed by the search engine. Crossing the limits imposed by the search giant (black hat techniques) would expose your site to Google penalties;
- Position tracking and monitoring to stay one step ahead of the competition;
- Different in-house skills: to successfully implement a web visibility strategy, you need not one, but several skills (development, SEO, copywriting, hosting management, etc.). A web agency like ours brings together many SEO specialists working in synergy for your site.
For more visibility, contact our digital agency for advice and an SEO audit.
