SEO agency makes "hard to believe" claims

[propertysaviour]

Hi

I operate in a highly competitive niche of "sell house fast" in UK.

Sites that are in top 1-3 tend to have thousands of links.  Some of these are spammy type links.  These sites have Domain Authority too.

My site has good content http://propertysaviour.co.uk and is listed with around 12 well known directories.  I have been building back-links manually over the last 3-4 months.

The SEO agency we are looking to work with are claiming they can get my website to first page with above keyword.

How would you go about this strategy? What questions would you ask SEO agency?

What elements can do I myself?  By the way, I am good at producing content!

[MarieHaynes]

There are companies that can get rankings that quickly in competitive verticals.  But to do so they'll need to use techniques that are not within Google's guidelines such as using private blog networks or injecting links via hacking other people's sites.

If this is a site that you can walk away from should it get penalized, then hiring them might make sense.  I'd want to ask how they are getting links and to make sure that they are not doing anything illegal or anything that involves hacking other websites.  Getting links from a private blog network (if that's what they are doing) is not illegal or immoral, but if Google catches on and the site gets penalized then you may never be able to recover it.

If this is a site that you plan to keep for the long run, then it makes more sense to hire an agency that will improve your search presence gradually.  Good SEO usually takes a lot of time.

I have been building back-links manually over the last 3-4 months.

Be careful. I'm seeing links that Google will likely see as unnatural such as:

http://www.linkaddurl.com/Arts___Humanities/Performing_Arts/Business/Real_Estate/?p=6

http://cqycxzfwzx.com/sell-my-house-fast-for-cash-your-request-fulfilled/

You're in a competitive space.  I am betting that those sites above you with spammy links will drop out of site the next time Penguin hits.  If they don't then it's because they're using private blog networks that Google hasn't been able to detect algorithmically and they're prime targets for a manual penalty.

My advice for hiring an SEO company would be to ask them exactly what they will do for your site.  Are they going to improve your on page SEO?  If so, how? Are they able to get you links? If so, how? If they tell you that the process is proprietary then it's probably not above board.  If they give you marketing speak like, "We'll leverage your blah blah blah and produce stellar content marketing blah blah blah" without actually giving you a concrete idea of what they'll do then that's not good.  I'd also ask for references.  If they hide behind an NDA that's not good.  Good SEO companies will have people lined up to give them a reference.

[Sam.at.Moz]

It's still as easy as it ever was to build spammy links. But it's just not what you should be doing to build a long-term high traffic site.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

The SEO agency we are looking to work with are claiming they can get my website to first page with above keyword.

Walk away. No-one can make these claims without doing something a bit dodgy. Generally these sorts of claims turn into results that are short-lived and after a few more months, Google has caught up with what they are doing and you end up with a penalty.

Link building is not as easy as it once was. Now you need to have a reason for someone to want to link to you - if you want good links that is. A good linkable asset can make a real difference, so you need to start thinking outside the box a little bit on what you can do to help make you stand out a little.

-Andy

[propertysaviour]

Sam

Thank you.  I can do the link building.  What I am not so good at is finding good sources of manual link building.  Is there any recommendations?

I have used the Web Explorer tool as seen my competitors spammy links being built. I do not want to go down that route.

Would love to get your opinion on this.  What tools do you use for finding good links?

[Sam.at.Moz]

In all likelihood they're telling the truth.

Shock? Perhaps, but here's another truth in the following 12 months you'll get slapped so hard your site will be in a worse position than today!

Sam

P.S. Talking from experience as I once used one of these agencies!

[propertysaviour]

Thank you for your input.

The SEO agency is claiming that in 2-3 months, I should be ranking in top 1-5 positions.

How do I increase domain authority and page rank for my website.  The websites I'm up against have tens of thousands of links (mostly spammy)!

I have seen guide to building backlinks.

Help!

[N1ghteyes]

I dont have a huge amount to add to this, other than in my experiance a lot of agencies tend to be 2 or 3 years behind in general practises, especially the smaller ones.

"The times of looking to rank numero uno for one term are long gone." is completely correct though, so be very careful about messing up other key words etc.

[94501]

The times of looking to rank numero uno for one term are long gone. What sounds like your existing strategy of having good content is the way to go. The risk with an agency that would even focus up on one term and promise number one is that they are going to inadvertently wreck your link profile.

If I were you, I would read the beginner's guide to link building https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building and continue to make good content. Don't allow an agency to manipulate the hell out of your profile for the sake of one term.