In an effort to improve my website positioning and not rely on what had become an expensive and non-lead productive PPC source...I cast my net and found several realtors who relied heavily on webleads and used a company called Internet Advancement.....soooooo I called, put the phone on speaker and my husband and I listened intently to the sales pitch.....in 15 days you see some results and by 120 days we would need at least one assistant if not more to keep up with the business....OK then....$5,000 and then when I was sitting on top of the web in 120 days, $140 per month maintenance....
Sixty days passed,...not one lead....oh just be patient, I was way ahead of schedule in the rankings....90 days...not one lead....patience, patience they told me....I kept objecting and telling them I could hardly believe that on the magical 120th day, the flood gates of leads would open...I had now talked to about half a dozen people at the company and no results....oh yes......WHOOPS...they don't know what happened but it was all done incorrectly,.....it is now almost 6 months...they have $5,280 and I have zip...calls and e-mail go unanswered...oh surprise....Can anyone suggest a solution ?
hhhhmmm, get out now and don't pay them anymore. Best to cut your losses and move on. If you tie in your Active Rain profile to your website you will see a better return and it won't cost you anything. Use you AR profile as the tool to draw business to you and your website. That is what I've done and I literally get 6 to 8 calls or e-mails a week from all over America (North America, South America, and Central America) looking for financing.
Just a suggestion,
Sean Allen
My Broker and I had a similar experience with a company. We would actually receive leads, but the amount was no where near what they promised. It's hard not to think that there isn't some magical way that will drive you business from the internet. My general rule of thumb is to ask myself what they are promising and if it seems to good to be true, then it probably is.
The internet is gaining in complexity, the game changes a little bit everyday. I have found that a combination of websites, blogs, social networks, website & keyword positioning to work the best for me. Try a few different things out and see what sticks for you, if there is a large amount of cost involved I personally would shy away from it. You do have to spend money to make money, but no one ever said you have to spend all of it.
Hope that helps a little,
Bryan Maynes
There is no magic bullet in this. You have to put the time in to create organic results and no one can guarantee the results they did without lying. Hope you can get out of the contract and find folks who can help you do to the work the right way. I'm on the same search right now!
I agree with the comment above. I'm asking anyone I'm talking to do define exactly what they'll be doing so I understand what I'm paying for and know how it fits into my overall plan.
Hey Guys...
I didn't fall off the Christmas Tree yesterday....we have had a site for 5+ years with varying results and after talking to several realtors who swore this was the single biggest contributing factor to their success...I sure thought it was worth a try.....No magic...They got results....Not too good to be true...they got leads...I LOVE the website idea.....sounds nasty but then again so is not only losing the money but the business as well !
I had something similar happen and I stopped their SEO and moved on thankfully I never ended my first SEO, they are costing you more money to try and recoup money and they will probably not credit you back, I would stop payment now. Good Luck
I got a call last year from a company wanted me to invest 5000. too. I kept them on the phone, they had no web site just an idea. I told them to call me back I had to think about it. So they did and said another agent was wanting the spot and I had to make my mind up. I blogged on it early on AR. But, it was a scam big time.
No one can promise you first position, no one. The only way you get there is a sponsored link.
Sad story, and I appreciate your candor. No, your not stupid, but I have to question several things about this company.
First, your domain is a .net versus a .com. This shouldn't matter in the search engines as much, but nearly everyone is going to the Remax site that ends in .com when going by memory. You will be loosing traffic, and that (from linking) can hurt your ranking.
Next, you have no links on your page to Wisconsin Real Estate, nor any headers. These are some of your keywords that should carry the most weight. Without this addition, the crawlers will be thinking your content doesn't match your keywords well. Further, you have too many links in ratio to the amount of content on your page, and your site is written for a pretty high intelligence level. Has to do with your coding, but the sentences seem to long to search engines. Places you at a -37 fleisch level, 40-60 (yes positive versus your negative number). Your site has good description, keywords, meta tags. Your content doesn't match.
I would challange this company for your money back - They did a really bad job. I did my site (the first thing you'll say about my site is too many words on the index page - that was for ranking and it worked) using www.seotoolset.com. Cost me $90 per quarter. I optimized my site in July, and I'm on page 1 for my terms on 2 or 3 search engines and I'm coming up on the third (Google, MSN, and Yahoo).
The problem is, buyer beware if you know what to look for. Do we really know what to ask?
A simple google of this company's name would have resulted in the following finding:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/internet-advancement-fuels-my-rage
In fact this link was right below the actual company's link.
You can follow links to a wide array of other complaints.
Sally and David,
It has been around for a long time. Even in this day there are snake oil salemen.
I have found that hard work and effort, and a little luck, has helped me get along.
Sincerely,
Tom Braatz
Caveat Emptor! Let the buyer beware.
There seem to be a lot of intelligent people getting sucked into scams for SEO these days. I am hearing more and more people saying the have paid for "guaranteed results" which never materialize. I think the bottom line has been stated again and again... that effective SEO takes hard work and time to happen. As the internet become more crowded, it just takes longer and longer to climb the ladder.
Sorry to hear about that. Internet Advancement are some of the biggest scammers out there. They are notorious in the internet marketing community. I would demand a refund.. get nasty about it if you have to.
On another note... SEO does not replace PPC, or any kind of marketing for that matter. You could relate it to the saying about putting all your eggs in one basket.
I'm curious what you mean by "the head clicker" wouldn't change words? Negative keywords are the way to stop getting unwanted search queries.
Sean,
How do you tie in your AR profile with your website? I have linked my website with AR... is that what you are talking about?
Nick
www.yourdallasmls.com
www.nickgood.com
You might do what I did. I am a Home Inspector. I received a voicemail from someone who said that they had some people in the area that needed inspections. I called back and found it was from the Super Pages. They started their spiel about how they had hundreds of people contact them looking for home inspections in the Orlando area and how if I just paid them $XXX, they could send me the customers.
I told them that was fine. Send me the customers and I would pay them with the money I made from the inspections. The hung up really quickly!
Robert Sole
www.REMinspections.com
She got a full refund because... I drop the HAMMER on SEO SCAMMERS!