Is Your SEO Agency Ripping You Off?

How to spot and avoid the top SEO scams.

In my decade of experience, I’ve spotted my fair share of SEO scams. Some scams are actually quite intricate, but none are as intricate as the algorithms developed to detect and penalize those who try to game the system. Believe it or not, some of these tactics actually work, but the results often times fade quickly and leave the clients worse off than if they did nothing at all. Unfortunately, there is much more to lose than your retainer. Even if you end up firing your scammy SEO agency, the negative aftermath of their toiling can linger for months, if not years. It’s time to start asking questions about what your SEO agency is actually doing.

In this blog I will teach you about the top SEO scams and how to avoid them.

Scam Number 1: Data Manipulation

This is by far the most common scam on the market. Slick talking snake oil salesman prey on victims who don’t have experience working with a real agency.
Here’s how the scam works: After the contract is signed the scammer adds the domain to a reporting portal and send automated keyword ranking reports to the client – essentially “setting it and forgetting it”. This part is not the scam since reporting is an important part of every SEO campaign. The problem is, many of these reporting tools can be manipulated by importing long-tail keywords which weren’t already being tracked in the software. Once the niche, longtail keywords are imported, then voila, a sudden spike in keyword rankings appears and it looks like the agency pulled off a brilliant maneuver when in fact they simply manipulated the rankings and the client is none the wiser.

How to check for it: The bad news is this scam is hard to detect without hiring an agency first. The good news is if they haven’t done anything on your account, reversing the black-hat strategy won’t be necessary.

How to check for it: You can speak with their referrals or review case studies, but those could be fabricated. If you’re wondering about your current SEO agency, you should be leary if you don’t speak with an actual project manager to review the actions taken on the account or decipher the data they are sending you, you might be getting scammed.

2. Content Spinning

Content is, and always will be king. Providing original content requires a well trained and paid writing staff. Many scammers claim to create and publish high-quality content on a clients website, which is an important part of any SEO campaign, however, not all content is created equal.

Here’s how the scam works: Content is either copy-pasted from a reliable source or created once and slightly modified using content spinners and published on all their clients websites. Who cares as long as it works, right? Unfortunately Search Engines have been savvy to this technique since the Panda update. Don’t believe me? Check out Google’s policy on Duplicate Content.

How to check for it: Fortunately there are a cornucopia of free SEO tools out there which can help you audit your website for duplicate content. I recommend Siteliner or this Plagiarism Checker tool.

3. Link Farming

If your SEO agency is pitching backlinks as the answer to all your problems, you should raise an eyebrow. Yes, backlinks are a crucial part of good SEO strategy, but there are still agencies who try to game the system.

Here’s how the scam works: After you’ve paid your retainer, the agency turns around and submits your domain to a link farm which distributes your website across a network and voila, you’re websites now #1. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. The good news is, you’ll get a ton of backlinks and could potentially outrank competitors in the short run. Unfortunately, Google’s Penguin algorithm update identifies backlinks and attributes the quality of the links to the websites “trust score”. Good backlinks = higher trust score, whereas bad backlinks = poor trust score. Fixing this is costly since you’ll have to pay a professional review and remove all those spammy backlinks to your site. This can cause long-lasting harm to a domain and requires a significant amount of work to reverse the bad karma.

How to check for it: If you’re already a client of an agency incorporating a backlink strategy, you can use a tool like Ahrefs Backlink Checker to run a report on the backlinks to your website. You can also use a tool like Monitor Backlinks to identify the quantity and quality of backlinks.
If you’re vetting an agency who is recommending a link building strategy you can run these reports on their website and current clients websites to better understand if they are implementing a white-hat link backlink strategy. You should also get a list of websites they plan to get backlinks from and find out how they plan to get you the links. Often times high-quality backlinks will require a level of PR or guest blogging to obtain them – work that scam artists can’t afford or don’t want to do.

4. Optimizing a completely separate site and making it look like your own

Good SEO tactics can be expensive and time consuming to implement. Agencies are always trying to figure out ways to retain clients without the high cost of operating a white-hat strategy. The solution is creating, managing and owning a version of the client’s site which is essentially taken hostage if the client ever wants to leave the agency.
Here’s how it works: If a scammer is hired to optimize www.website.com, they will create a version of your website that looks identical to your site and put it on a subdomain or subdirectory.

• Subdirectory: www.website.com/page.
• Subdomain: www.page.website.com

Heres how the scam works: How this is done is not important, but what you need to know is the scammers have full control over the new site they have built. They might even use white-hat strategies to get this site to rank, which could potentially be quite beneficial. This part is not the scam. The scam is when the client decides they don’t want to renew a retainer and the agency pulls the site, effectively reversing all the work the client’s paid for.

How to check for it: You’ll need to read the fine print in your contract and make sure there’s a clause “in the event of a contract cancellation the client retains all work supplied throughout the life of the contract” or something along those lines. The best way to avoid this scam is to own your website domain and website hosting. You could purchase both of these through a provider like Godaddy and allow your SEO agency access to work in an environment owned by you – the client.

Note: Creating/managing a separate website is actually standard practice for most agencies so they don’t have to manage the client’s site in the event it goes down or gets hacked. Just because an agency creates a separate site, doesn’t mean they are scam artists.

In conclusion

The sad truth is the digital marketing industry is saturated with these types of scams which poisons the well for those of us who work hard to build a trustworthy reputation. It’s unethical and downright rude!

Share this article and help us put these scammers out of business.

This blog was written by Chris David as a guest blog from the digital marketing agency Syndicate.Marketing

The post Is Your SEO Agency Ripping You Off? appeared first on Farotech.

source https://farotech.com/blog/is-your-seo-agency-ripping-you-off/

Four Creative Dental Marketing Ideas

Building connections with patients at a dental practice can be a challenge. After all, no matter how excellent your service is, many potential patients are held back by a deeply rooted anxiety about visits to the dentist. You may be aware that your practice is a safe and comfortable place for patients, but you need to communicate that. With some creative dental marketing ideas, you can connect with with potential patients and strengthen your connection with current clients. All it takes is the willingness to try new things! Check out these four creative strategies from the marketing team at Farotech.

1. Go Live!

When potential patients begin searching for a new dentist, one of the things they are looking for is a personal connection. They want to know that they have found a practice where they will be heard and cared for. The personal touch that can come from a strong doctor-patient relationship can go a long way to relieve anxiety about any trip to the dentist, whether a basic cleaning or a more in-depth procedure. A video introducing your doctors and staff is much more effective than text when it comes to demonstrating your friendly and compassionate nature. Have a little fun with your video, too, and allow patients to see the fun side of your practice!

2. Collaborate with Current Patients

No matter how much creativity you put into your own marketing campaign, nothing can beat the value of strong patient testimonials. No doubt your patients, especially those you’ve worked with for many years, are saying good things about the practice. Now is the time to tap into that resource. Surveys, interviews, and even short video testimonials can provide excellent material for any aspect of your other dental marketing ideas. To get patients excited about participation, offer fun prizes in a drawing for survey or interview participants. After all, who wouldn’t want to answer a few questions for a chance at a gift card to the local coffee shop?

3. Stay Connected

Because your current patients are one of your best resources when it comes to building or expanding a marketing campaign, make sure that you are maintaining a strong relationship with them. After each procedure, make sure that your practice is calling to check in the next day to make sure everything still feels okay. Send birthday cards. And most importantly, make sure you have a strong program in place to thank patients for referrals!

Want More Dental Marketing Ideas?

For more creative dental marketing ideas, contact the team at Farotech today! We are excited to help you put these and other strategies into action for your practice.

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source https://farotech.com/blog/four-creative-dental-marketing-ideas/

Effective Marketing and the Key to Building a Successful Sales Funnel, Part 1: Brand Extension

Learn about the role of brand extension in establishing a successful sales funnel.

Are you familiar with the concept of a sales funnel? The sales funnel represents the buying process that companies lead customers through. It begins by addressing a general clientele with general information–a step often called the awareness stage–in each step the focus is narrowed and users are drawn closer into the buying process. The sales funnel stages may vary depending on the particular sales model.

A sales funnel template can help us to visualize the continuous sales process and how the different steps flow into each other. If the process is not smooth and continuous–if there are gaps or bottlenecks in the process–then the funnel will not function optimally. This is the key to building a successful sales funnel–to create continuous, synergetic growth throughout the whole system.

When done properly each employee and each step of the process works like an assembly line creating, expanding, and passing on. Each part of the marketing process comes full circle to feed other parts of the system. Let’s take a look at the first of four parts of your marketing process that need to work together effectively to create a successful sales funnel.

Brand Extension as a Key Element of a Successful Sales Funnel

Every company, every business has a brand. And that doesn’t just mean your logo; a brand is much more than just a logo.

Let’s take a look at what your brand is so we understand its importance in creating an effective sales funnel. Your brand is:

• The identity of your company.
• The look and feel of the company.
• How and to whom you communicate.
• Your unique selling position.
• How your product or services establish value to your client.

For your marketing to be effective you must be very clear on each of these areas and consistently demonstrate it in these five ways:

1. How you segment your leads: You must get the right message to the right client at the right time.
2. Through usability and appearances: You need to make sure that your website is as user friendly and appealing as possible. You need to be consistently putting your best foot forward on your website and other forms of e-marketing
3. In how you communicate in your content strategy: You need to communicate creatively and effectively with your users and make the content your users are looking for readily available.
4. In social media use: Be purposeful in who you engage with and why on social media.
5. Effective retargeting and remarketing: Utilize retargeting and remarketing strategies to re-engage users.

Successful marketing requires a smoothly flowing, interdependent system. If you want to establish an effective sales funnel, then be sure to pay attention to your company’s branding and whether you are supporting all of the important functions beneath that umbrella. To learn more about improving your company’s marketing system or more effective sales funnel management, reach out to the marketing experts here at Farotech by calling us at 267-387-6620 or email us at info@farotech.com today.

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source https://farotech.com/blog/how-to-build-a-sales-funnel/

The Inbound Marketing Strategy: Converting Strangers Into Promoters

Who doesn’t want a foolproof inbound marketing strategy that is sure to convert strangers into your company’s best promoters? The good news is that inbound marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. We’re not talking rocket science here…just some simple steps that, when executed properly and consistently, can lead to exponential growth for your business. Sound good? If so, then listen in…

4 Steps to an Effective Inbound Marketing Strategy

1.) Attract!

Be careful that you’re not just attracting any and every stranger out there- they won’t all turn into promoters, no matter how hard you try. Create content and aim to attract only specific buyer personas for your company. Once those personas are established, you can go about getting their attention by way of these means: blogging, keyword optimization on site pages, and social media. Depending on your buyer personas, certain ones of these tools will prove to be even more effective than the others, but all of them are essential.

2.) Convert

Once the attracting has taken place and your specific, targeted clientele become familiar with your website and decide that they like what they see, it is time to start getting them to convert from strangers into customers and ultimately, into promoters for your business. After all, that is the goal of this inbound marketing strategy! In order to convert visitors into friends, you will need to utilize this set of tools: landing pages, calls to action, forms and contacts. Give the visitors a variety of places to get involved and interact with your site.

3.) Close

Now it is time for the turning point of this inbound marketing strategy; turning your accumulated leads into customers. This can be done with the help of these tools: email marketing automation, lead nurturing, and closed-loop reporting. Depending on the type of leads you wish to generate and keep, certain ones of these tools can be given greater priority than the others. Keeping track of not only the ways you choose to use these inbound marketing strategies, but also the results they are producing is crucial to your long term success.

4.) Retain

Keeping customers is just as important as getting them in the first place. Delighting customers and making sure they are always satisfied will your products and services will build your business’ reputation as one that actually cares about the people they are in contact with and provides their customers with helpful content and great service. The tool set to use here include: continued automated marketing, great thank you pages and social media.

The post The Inbound Marketing Strategy: Converting Strangers Into Promoters appeared first on Farotech.

source https://farotech.com/blog/the-inbound-marketing-strategy-converting-strangers-into-promoters/

Three Creative Physical Therapy Marketing Strategies You Should Try Today

When it comes to physical therapy marketing strategies, typical advice includes developing your social media presence or focusing on branding. While these are both important aspects of any marketing campaign, they can become tedious or tired if they are the only strategies you use. Every once in a while, it is important to add a creative flair to your marketing which will help you to reach new potential patients. At Farotech, we know what it takes to make those key connections; just take a look at our latest ideas!

1. Take Time to Teach

As physical therapists, you have access to a whole realm of knowledge that most people never consider until they need it. Yet, you are probably well aware that prevention is one of the most important aspects of an individual’s wellness. Contact a local community center about offering a seminar for the public. You can even select a target audience, such as seniors or parents of young athletes. Bringing your knowledge to them is one of the best physical therapy marketing strategies, because it demonstrates your concern for their well being while providing a familiar face for when they do need orthopaedic help down the road.

2. Develop Your Personality

When a potential patient is in need of physical therapy, they are most likely not interested in spending hours comparing similar credentials when what they are really interested in is whether or not they will feel comfortable in your office. Take some time to consider the personality of your practice. How can you show patients that you are more than a clinical expert; you are on their team, and will provide the encouragement or compassion necessary to help them achieve their rehabilitative goals.

3. Promote Patient Success Stories

Sometimes, one of the best physical therapy marketing strategies is to let someone else do the work for you! In this case, ask patients to share their stories of recovery. Whether you film them telling the story or post a written review on your website, the personal touch that these testimonials add to your campaign is invaluable. To add an element of fun as you gather the stories, you may even consider doing a promotional drawing for those who participate!

For More Physical Therapy Marketing Strategies

Whether you try one or all of these marketing strategies, your physical therapy practice is sure to see new and strengthened connections as a result. The key, then, is to continue building on this momentum. So, for more physical therapy marketing strategies or help with your online campaign, contact Farotech today. For over a decade, we have been helping practices like yours make the important connections both you and your clients need.

The post Three Creative Physical Therapy Marketing Strategies You Should Try Today appeared first on Farotech.

source https://farotech.com/blog/three-creative-physical-therapy-marketing-strategies-try-today/

Understanding the Importance of Content Development

As more and more people begin to use the web everyday, the percentage of people who use the web for product and service research is continually increasing. This means that a company’s website will typically be the first thing about that company that a potential customer interacts with. Quality content development ensures, along with other key factors (such as design), that potential clients have a positive first experience with your company. In this case, first impressions are, indeed, everything.

Understanding Why Content Development is Vital

If users do not immediately like what they see on your company’s website, there is a good chance they will just move right along to the next site offering the same or similar services and products. In addition, it is the quality content on your site that is going to draw a potential customer there to begin with and it is your position as a helpful, authoritative source in your industry that is going to build trust with those potential customers. Ultimately, we are talking about conversion rates, sales, profits. Content development is a powerful tool when utilized correctly and can help companies succeed in the big world of online marketing.

What Does Quality Content Development Look Like?

From the most basic information on your “contact us” page to detailed, educational content in your blog articles, quality content is professional, well thought out, properly spelled and formatted and flows beautifully.

• Spelling and grammar errors point to careless, lazy writers. When users encounter sloppy content, the entire company loses credibility.

• How written content will appear on any given page is also a huge factor in content development. Visitors to your site want to be quickly and clearly informed about who you are and what you offer. They do not need an in depth look into the everyday operations on your company.

• You also should be careful about offering too little information, as this can confuse users and leave them guessing as to what it is your company is all about. If you are passionate about what you do, developing the right amount of informative content for your web pages will not be difficult.

Taking it a Step Further

Blogs are becoming more and more important for those companies that want to distinguish themselves amongst their competitors. In order for a blog to accomplish the goals it is created for, it needs to be full of well written, edited material. Blogs should also be updated frequently to ensure a continual flow of information from your site to your current and potential customers. This task can sometimes become too overwhelming for a company owner or employees to keep up with themselves. Web development companies, like Farotech, exist to provide assistance to clients who wish to make use of a dedicated writer team that can generate great content on your behalf.

For more tips on how to successfully market your company online check out our blog! For more information about our services, contact us today or download the free resource below to learn more.

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source https://farotech.com/blog/understanding-importance-content-development/

Implement Powerful Strategies For Your Business To Business Internet Marketing

Don’t exhaust yourself with all the little details – just look at the big picture and let Farotech fill in the rest.

Are you looking to expand your business and increase your company’s visibility on the internet? Farotech has developed some great strategies on increasing your visibility by utilizing business to business internet marketing.

In the industry of small businesses, you have to work twice as hard as the big guys to get yourself noticed. Fortunately, the internet has become a super-highway for businesses to market themselves and increase visibility, revenue and reputation. With so many options to choose from when it comes to business to business internet marketing, Farotech provides you with a full menu of options.

Key Strategies For Business To Business Internet Marketing

Start Blogging.

According to Mike Lieberman, Chief Marketing Scientist and President of Square 2 Marketing, the more you blog, the more traffic you will generate from Google because of the frequency of fresh, quality content.

But hold the phone – don’t you already have to run your business, cast vision, implement strategy and oversee every detail of the functionality of your company? Don’t worry. Here at Farotech, we have a team of writers who create effective and informative blogs that don’t only offer creative writing techniques with little effort from you, but you suddenly become a reputable expert in your industry.

Become A Social Media Fanatic.

Who wouldn’t want to sit around on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all day? Alright – we know you have other stuff to do, which is what gives us an opportunity to serve you. With various social platforms – there are endless possibilities when marketing your company via social media.

According to Kipp Bodnar of HubSpot, LinkedIn should be the focus of any business to business internet marketing because companies that traffic through LinkedIn are highly qualified potentials in comparison to Twitter or Facebook.

Create Incentives and Opportunity With Free Offers & Email Marketing

When utilizing free offers through your company (eBooks, Questionnaires, eBrochures, etc) you create an opportunity to gather a potentials information, whether as a client or strictly networking. Here at Farotech our team provides everything from offer ideas to email marketing without giving potentials that ‘pushy’ feeling.

You can also utilize a call to action in each one of your blogs to attract traffic to your offers and create a steady inbox of potentials.
So what are you waiting for? Do you have questions about our marketing approach and how we can work for you? Jump on board with our team at Farotech and discover what business to business internet marketing can do for your company.

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