‘Used car salesman.’ Those three words are all it takes to draw a cringe from most people. The image itself might not be particularly faithful to the real members of that profession, but everyone knows what the image stands for: the use of specialist knowledge to bamboozle the average person.
For the newcomer to SEO, there seems a certain similarity between those in SEO sales jobs and used car salesmen. Some SEO companies take advantage of a newcomer’s lack of knowledge, offering them services they don’t need or wrestling them into unfair contracts. It’s the kind of situation every site owner fears, and more than a few encounters.
There is one main difference between all SEOs and car salesmen, however, and this is the difference that can help any newcomer. The difference is that while any used car salesman can talk themselves out of a tricky situation, no disreputable SEO firm should be able to.
A little research is one of those vital SEO jobs when choosing companies. Luckily, there are plenty of good resources for getting a basic grip on SEO. Good SEO firms should be able to answer your questions, but bad firms will give themselves away with bad answers.
Obviously, there is a lot of difference between most professionals in the search engine optimisation industry and the stereotypical image of a used car salesman. In most cases, no similarities can be found. There are a lot more reliable companies out there than unreliable ones. Research is key when you want to guard against those few in the latter category.
