LANDING PAGES

You already have a website so why is your SEO company proposing a separate landing page? The short answer is to tie you to that company. If you leave, guess what goes away along with the SEO company? Yup! That same landing page you've been paying for month after month! If you do go down this path, at the very least, make sure YOU or your business owns the domain associated with the landing page. Then, if you do stop using that company, you can redirect that domain traffic to your business website (which you should be doing in the first place!).  If you're absolutely sold on the idea of a landing page, make that your home page! There is no reason a landing page has to be within another domain.

FORWARDING PHONE NUMBERS

This is another tactic that has its value. Having a number forward to your business phone can allow you to track the calls associated with marketing to that number. We recommend it often in the arena of pay-per-click. Not only can you track the call, but you may also be able to record incoming calls. BUT again, make sure you or your company owns that number so that if you ever do decide to stop using a particular SEO company, you still get the benefit of the calls coming into that number.

GOOGLE MAPS NOT PROMOTING YOUR BUSINESS DIRECTLY

Many local SEO companies will do you the favor of setting up and claiming your Google Plus and Google Business pages. Google MAPS is central to a local SEO campaign. Very often a business can't even login to their own Google MAPS account! In many cases that page is promoting the forwarding numbers and landing pages that were set up by the local SEO marketing company. We've had several run-ins with these practices and it's NOT easy to gain control of an account that you should own.

POOR BUSINESS DOMAIN and WEBSITE MANAGEMENT

It's not unusual for your web marketing person to be the same person you pay for hosting and domain support. Make sure you are dealing with a company who has been around for a while. Transferring a domain to an account in your name, managed by your business is never a bad idea. If your web support person disappears, you may find it very difficult to regain control of your website and your domain. We recommend working with a web team that has been in the business for at least five years.

REVERSIBLE CITATIONS and DIRECTORIES

Businesses can pay a fairly hefty fee for an SEO firm to complete online citations and directories. There are literally 1000's of these directories but only a small percentage have a significant amount of weight as far as SEO goes. It is possible to reverse the effort of these submissions if an SEO company wanted to keep you on the hook indefinitely...and it would take that same company less than 10 or 15 minutes to do it! Most businesses have no idea how the directories get updated by the SEO company and few suspect that the process is so quickly reversible.Buyer beware.

A WORD TO THE WISE

The bottom line is this. Your business needs to treat your web real estate as true business assets and stop relinquishing your control of those assets to a third party who does not have your best interest at heart. That may take some vetting of your suppliers and asking some questions. Without pointing fingers, I can tell you that the bigger the company is, the less they seem to care about your business and your sustainable results. Be wary.