Top 5 Lies Told By SEO and Content Services

I’ve spent a decent amount of money outsourcing various SEO and online marketing related services. The top two being content writers and linkbuilding services. Over the years, I can’t help but notice a lot of sellers make very similar claims, promises, and statements. I get that it’s sales, and you’re trying to get people to buy your service. But a lot of these sellers are telling straight up lies. I thought it would be fun to put together a list of some of the most frequent lies I see SEO and content services provide.

1- Native U.S. Writer!

I can’t count how many times I’ve seen listings on Warrior Forum and Wicked Fire where the sellers use the phrase “Native U.S Writer” or something similar. Sure, sometimes this is true. But a lot of the times, it’s not. Most of the high quality writers that I’ve hired don’t have to advertise that they’re from the U.S. because they’re the people writing the content and you can clearly tell from their listing that they are actually from America.

The funny thing is when they put that in the title of their listing, then when you get into their sale thread, it’s filled with broken English and grammatical errors. I have absolutely no problem hiring writers who aren’t from the U.S., or even don’t speak English as their first language. But if that’s the case, it should be reflected in the price. Unfortunately I’ve been in situations where I’ve bought content from people on forums that claim to be American writers, then when I get the content it’s clear that it was written by someone who doesn’t have English as their first language.

In order to avoid having this happen to you, always ask exactly who’s going to be writing the content, and where they’re from. That way if you get garbage content that’s obviously written by non-native english speakers, you can ask for a refund and you’ll have proof you were lied to.

2- Page 1 Rankings!

Nobody can guarantee you first page rankings. There are way too many factors that go into play. If someone gives you a guarantee that they will get you on the first page of Google, they’re overly-confident. Sure, they might get you on the first page, but since rankings are controlled by algorithms, it’s impossible for them to guarantee you anything.

3- I had technical difficulties

This is code for “I slacked and didn’t complete your order on time so now I need an excuse to tell you”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had writers in particular give me this excuse. The funny part is they never tell you unless you ask. I’ve ordered content, had weeks go by without a single update, and then when I email them they give me some story about their internet went out.

I’m telling you this right now, 9 times out of 10, when someone gives you this excuse they’re lying. I’ve straight up cancelled orders before after having people tell me this lie. I’d much rather have someone tell me the truth about why my order isn’t ready and be straight forward.

4- Manual linkbuilding!

No. Just no. If your link building was 100% manual like you said, you would be charging a lot more. I’ve seen link building services that include tiered link building say that they’re done manually. I know of very few people who are doing tiered link building manually. And the ones that do aren’t charging $50 to do it.

I have no problem with automated link building and I use a lot of services that use tools and are mostly automated. But the sellers are honest and transparent about it.

5- White hat

Stop it. I’m not going to go into all of the reasons why this is such a lie. I’ll just say this– any manipulation done with the intent of improving your search engine rankings is blackhat technically. Yes, that includes private blog networks. That’s one of the reasons Matt Cutts spoke out against guest blogging.

Personally, the whole “white hat vs blackhat” debate is pointless to me. And when I see link building services use the term on their sales page, it has about the same effect as “100% natural” on processed food products for me. It means nothing.

What are some of the lies you’ve seen from SEO services or content writers? I could do an entire post on the lies WSO sellers tell haha.