Grumpy SEO Guy
Why SEO Agencies Sometimes Lie About Who Their Clients Are - Episode 69
This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 69. Why many agencies and consultants publicly mention and lie about their clients? You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm Grumpy today. I'm Grumpy today because there are many, many SEO consultants and agencies who lie about their clients to try and make themselves sound cooler and more established than they actually are, and I will explain what I mean in a minute. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started, everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience. This podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Now, we're going to talk about this in this episode. We're going to talk about why they do it. We're going to talk about why, even if they're being truthful about their clients, that doesn't mean anything at all. And we're going to talk about why most clients will not even let you say who they are. Okay, one of the first things you might notice, should you ever go on an SEO agencies or an SEO consultants website, is it probably has a part at the bottom of the site that says a statement like, "Our clients include." And then it's got some brand names and usually they'll have their logos. And it's pretty flashy. Let's be honest, okay? Because now let me tell you what I've seen, okay, and then we're going to get into all the problems with this. I often see this on SEO consultants and SEO agencies websites. It will say, "Our clients include." And then it will have like Microsoft or Apple or IBM or Xerox. And it's like, first of all, first of all, there's so much say about this, okay, first of all, they're probably lying, but we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Here's the thing, some random consultant that you meet on a marketplace, okay, and you know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to be specific here, did not have Microsoft as a client. That dude that you met on a marketplace who's charging you like $80 for some SEO package did not have Microsoft as a client, okay, just no, okay, he also didn't have Apple, he didn't have IBM, he didn't have Xerox, and you know what else? I actually saw once, I saw a consultant who listed Google as one of his clients, okay, Google does not hire random SEO consultants. Do you want to know why? Because they're Google, they can do anything they want with a line or two of code. They would not need to hire an SEO agency or consultant. And furthermore, what is there to SEO? Do you think if you Google Google, you're not going to see Google as the first result? Like, what? No, Google doesn't need SEO, okay, but let me tell you why these people are lying. Now look, previous to doing that, I want to talk about the concept of social proof, okay. Social proof is basically, if you haven't heard of this concept, it's applicable to many different things, like business and life. And there are people who study social proof and they apply it to companies and to politicians and to literally pretty much anything you've ever done, social proof has been relevant in some way, okay. But we're just going to talk about it a little bit from a business perspective, okay. But social proof basically just means other people vouch for me, therefore you don't need to do as much research into my legitimacy, okay. And for those of you who have listened to Grumpy SEO guy, you probably think this sounds familiar, you may be thinking, hey, wait a minute, that sounds very similar to the authority algorithm and how websites are ranked. You're exactly right. And there's many, many times when this is the case, it applies to business as well as social interaction, okay. So you can like, just, this allows your brain to bypass the critical thinking step and go immediately to the trust step. Now, I think it's pretty clear why businesses would do this. And there is an evolutionary reason why your brain works this way. Look, if you see a bunch of people running in a certain direction, you're going to start running with them. You're not going to say, wait a minute. Before I actually follow these people, I need to determine all of the data about why they are, no, you just got eaten by a tiger. So that's why your brain does it that way. And your brain is correct to do it that way, okay. But marketers take advantage of this to get you to buy stuff without thinking about it. So next time you see a celebrity on TV promoting a product, don't think, well, I need to buy this product because the celebrity says it's good, it must be good. Instead, you should think, wait a minute, is this a good product? Do I even need this product? Remember, people are going to say, oh, celebrity uses it, I use it too. So when that SEO agency has Microsoft listed as a client, okay, your brain will think, wait a minute, if Microsoft trusts them, I must trust them too. Okay, take my money, but they're probably lying about Microsoft being their client anyway. Do you want another example? How about influencers? When you get to a specified amount of followers on social media platforms, companies will pay you loads of money to promote their products. Why? Well, if this influencer says it's good, it must be awesome. I'm going to buy it too. Is that a good reason to buy anything? No, it's not. So stop being susceptible to this. Anyway, that's why SEO agencies lie about having big-name clients. Basically, the reason they're doing this is, if an agency says our clients include IBM or Xerox or, you know, some big tech company, you've heard of them, okay? You've heard of them, and then you think, well, if IBM trusts them, I can probably trust them too. It's the same reason when they get actors to sell products on TV, right? Well, if that actor eats that snack, I'm sure it's good enough for me too. Like, but what really happened is that actors being paid a lot of money. Anyways, that's why they do it because it's supposed to make them look more honest and trustworthy from the perspective of the client, okay? Well, if Apple trusts them, I will definitely work with them. Okay, that's fine. That's the reason they put it on there. And the more, for example, household names you see on their website, the more you think that they probably know what they're doing, okay? Here's the first problem with that. I'm not even getting into why they're probably lying about it, but here's the first problem with that. When you do SEO, 99% of your clients, if not more, will be companies and businesses and agencies that no one has ever heard of, okay? I've been doing this for 15 years, and we have possibly, possibly two household name clients in that 15 years, okay? And those aren't even like main household name clients, okay? One of them, if you happen to be involved in the martial arts industry would be a household name probably, and the other one, if you happen to be involved in the vitamins and supplements industry, would absolutely be a household name, okay? And just to be clear, it's an actual company. I'm not talking about one of these, like, MLM vitamin companies, you should stay away from them. I would recommend you to do your research, but I'm not talking about that. We don't even take MLM clients, so it doesn't matter, but look, in 15 years, that is the closest we have ever come to having a household name as a client, okay? So, it's very improbable that that SEO consultant that you met has not only one big tech company household name client, but multiple big household name tech companies as clients. I mean, look, maybe, maybe they had Apple and Xerox and IBM and Microsoft and, you know, all the other companies, but like, probably not, okay? So, but when you see them on there, you think, oh, that's a good company, and if they trust them, they must be trustworthy. No, because they're probably lying, because those big companies probably did not hire that random SEO consultant that you found in a marketplace. The marketplace on the internet, okay? They probably, I'm not going to speak to every big company, but they probably have an in-house department doing the SEO, okay? And if not, they're contracting out to either a private company or a huge SEO agency, not that random dude on the marketplace, okay? Now, I feel like, I feel like that's good. So, they're probably lying, but let's, let's just assume for a second that they're not lying. They are lying, by the way, but let's just assume, let's just assume that they're not lying, okay? And that agency that you're talking to really did have Microsoft and IBM and Apple and Xerox and all the other companies that you've heard of. I'm not going to keep naming them. Just think of any big company that you've actually heard of and pretend it's on their website, okay, as a client. Let's just assume that they're telling the truth about that, okay? Let's just assume that for a moment. Having those clients does not mean they're good at SEO, it means they're good at sales, okay? You could get Xerox, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, I'm not going to name anymore, but you get the point, you could have those companies as clients and get terrible results, okay? But in that case, it would still be truthful, if you're being honest, it would still be truthful that they were your clients, okay? So, it's not wrong in this case, assuming they're not lying, it's not wrong to list them on the website, but that doesn't mean they're good at doing SEO, okay? There is a difference, and I've talked about this a lot in other episodes, there is a difference between being good at sales and being good at SEO. The best salesman can get lots of clients, I will completely agree with that, does not mean they are good at SEO, okay? So, even if they got Apple and Microsoft and all those other companies, doesn't mean they got them good results, it doesn't mean they understand SEO. Having a client listed on your website means literally nothing, whether it's true or not, okay? Now, part two of this, okay, there's two more things that I want to say about this, okay? First, listen, your clients is absolutely worthless, regardless of if it's true or not, because it doesn't mean you're good at SEO, it means you're good at sales. The only way to prove that you're good at SEO is to show case studies, okay? And a case study, among other things, should be verified by an independent third party organization, okay? You, on your website, saying we did this and we got this keyword movement, doesn't mean anything. I have even seen people who made an Excel chart, okay? Using Excel, the program, an Excel chart to show SERP movement. And by the way, for those of you that are not familiar with the word SERP, it's a word that we use in this podcast pretty regularly. SERP is an acronym, it means search engine results pages, S-E-R-P. All it means is what position do you rank in? So, as you're doing SEO and you're tracking your SERPs, you're tracking the position that your website is in for the keywords, and of course, the goal of SEO is to be in the first position. You would track your SERPs, it would produce a chart that shows you where you rank on a daily basis, and it is often used in case studies. But come on, Excel? Come on, I could make that in 30 seconds, that's not third party verification, that's some scammy nonsense. That's you using Excel to try and convince people that you got positive keyword movement. No, it doesn't work. Can you imagine if you were hiring, for example, a private equity manager, okay? Maybe you have money and you need somebody to manage the money for you. And you said, "Okay, Mr. Private Equity Guy, tell me about your track record." And he goes, "Oh, yeah, well, just trust me, bro, we made our clients 80% last year on their investments." Here's an Excel chart. Would you say, "Oh, okay, I believe you, I don't need any proof that you're actually telling the truth." I would expect that you wouldn't, okay? So if somebody has a handmade chart on their website showing, I'm airquoting here, keyword movement, red flag, no, super fake, just no, no. Anyway, so if the case studies are not independently verified by a third party who doesn't care about you or your client and is only verifying the data, they don't count. Anyway, let's talk about the other problem with that, because I haven't even gotten to the biggest problem yet, okay? The biggest problem is this. Clients do not let you put them on your website. Storytime. Years ago, I was trying to do this, okay? We had a lot of clients that were working with us for years, okay? At the top of the search engines, exceedingly happy with the results they had gotten, okay? And I started asking them, I said, "Hey, you know, do you mind if I..." And by the way, these were not household names, okay? And I said, "By the way, do you mind if I mention on the website our clients include and just, you know, just put your brand and your logo and all the stuff, right?" Like a case study and all that. Every single person said, "No, you can't." And the reason, it's not because they weren't satisfied with the results. They were quite satisfied with the results, okay? The reason is because clients do not want their competition to find out who is doing their SEO. Can you even think of the conflict of interest that could create? Clients do not let that happen, okay? Clients will not let you put them on your website. I stopped asking years ago because every single person said, "No," okay? So, we do have case studies, but they're redacted because websites are blocked and the keywords are blocked because the clients will not allow it. And by the way, that makes perfect sense, okay? Because they shouldn't allow it. It would be a bad idea for a client to allow their SEO agency to mention that they're working with them as a client because then their competition could come in and, you know, maybe make a better financial offer to take them or an unscrupulous company might allow money to damage the rankings of the competition. I'm not saying that we would ever do that, but I'm saying I would not be shocked if it was a thing because we're talking about SEO and internet marketing, which is a pretty suspicious industry in the first place. Anyway, let's recap all the things. Number one, people who list household names, especially multiple household names of businesses as their clients are probably lying. They are probably lying because that big tech company you're thinking of did not hire that guy to do their SEO, okay? Second thing, even if they're not lying, that doesn't mean they're good at SEO. Getting clients does not mean you're good at SEO. It means you're good at sales. Big difference, not the same thing. I'm not sure how else to explain this. Number three, listing a client means nothing just like listing a case study means nothing unless it's independently verified by a third party, which most of them are not. Most of them are really pretty reports and they're stamped with the logos and the brands of the agencies and they look really cool and whoa, it's impressive. Show your manager that, he'll want to hire us, but they're lacking basic information that you need like third party SERP movement verification. Anyways, and the final problem with this is that clients wouldn't even let you post their name on your website anyway. And the reason for that, of course, is secrecy and privacy, which I do not blame them. As soon as I asked a couple clients, "Hey, can we put you guys on our website?" And they all said, "No." I'm like, "You know what? That is the correct answer." And that makes a lot of sense. I'm not even going to ask again because that actually makes perfect sense. Anyway, so there's that. I've mentioned this before. I mentioned this a lot on some of the first episodes, but real SEO is a very secretive industry. Real agencies who get real results do not publicly broadcast all the things they do, okay? We have another episode coming up. It's going to be called Something Along the Lines of Never by Backlinks Off a Menu, okay? Because a lot of people recently have been asking about buying backlinks, and they want to know good places to get backlinks. And my response to that is usually, "Do not buy from anybody who is offering backlinks off a menu." Because if they're offering backlinks off a menu to you, they're offering backlinks off a menu to anyone. And as soon as it becomes public, it stops working, not immediately, but later. So guys, SEO is a secret industry. The best SEO consultants and people in the world, you have never heard of them. And I'm not being a conspiracy theorist here. Put on your tin foil hats. Yes, some of the things that I talk about are a little bit tin foil hat-ish, but I also tell you to put on your tin foil hats before I tell you those things. This is not one of those things, alright? Real SEO is very secretive. When there are thousands or millions of dollars at stake, nobody's going to publish that nonsense and let the world know what they're doing. Come on. That's the dumbest thing I can think of. Nobody would do that. So that agency who you met, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, bro. Yeah, we've got Microsoft, and Apple, and Google, and all that. Tesla, they're our client, too, and Ferrari. Oh, yeah, we totally work with Ferrari. And who else do we work with? Microsoft, I know I already said them, but they love us so much. They hired us twice. Yeah, they hired us twice. Microsoft did. They're pretty cool. And yeah, let's see. Who else do we work with? Oh, Samsung. Yeah, totally. We've got Samsung and Sony. They're our clients. Bro, just stop. Just stop. Like, no, no. Maybe I would believe it if they had third-party verified results showing positive cert movement for keywords for those clients. But the other pro... Oh, here's another topic because I'm not done ranting yet. Okay? Here's another problem. Those companies are not even hard to do SEO for. Okay? I mentioned this in a very early episode. I'm pretty certain it was SEO Stories 1 was the episode. I have a friend who I used to work with, like different company, but we were in the same office. He was in charge of hiring an SEO person for their company or something. And he was interviewing people. And afterwards, I was very curious. I was like, "Hey, because I had done SEO for like eight years at this time." And I was like, "How did your interviews go?" And he told me about this one person they interviewed who said that they were sharing some past experience from themselves. And they said that they had good experience like ranking. And anyways, what happened was they took a giant and outranked a mom and pop shop. No kidding. That's not hard. That's not hard. And I told my friend. I'm like, "No, the person that you should hire is the person who had the mom and pop shop and outranked the big player. That's who you need to hire. That person is good at SEO. A person who takes an already authoritative domain and outrinks some novice domain with no authority. That's not hard. That's not even hard. Why is it? No. So anyway, that's the end of the story because I don't even remember who he hired. But like, if Microsoft were your client, like, just post something and it'll rank, like, come on. I mean, seriously guys, like, whatever. But anyway, look, the point is Microsoft is not your client. They're also not my client and they're also not the client of anybody who's trying to sell you their business. No, it's not that random dude that you met on the internet who's offering you, "Hey, dude, here's my affordable SEO services." He was not their contractor, okay? And also, I don't actually know how Microsoft does SEO, but I would presume that they do it in-house. I feel like they could just afford to do whatever they wanted. Maybe they outsource it. I don't really know. But the point is, one, like, I'm being honest with you. I'm unconcerned with how big the SEO agency is, okay? I'm telling you, if you see even one household name, on listed as a client, it's extremely suspicious, okay? And if you see multiple household names, it's almost guaranteed dishonesty by the agency, okay? Because that's just not how the industry works. With that said, I guess let's circle back, okay? Most agencies would not list clients who are not household names because nobody would care. Look, when you're an SEO consultant or when you own an SEO agency, the majority of your clients are going to be individuals, small companies, and random niche things that you've never heard of. Startups, okay? Nobody's ever heard of most of these startups. That's going to be a lot of your clients provided they have the funding because a lot of startups do not actually have the money for SEO, which is a different conversation. But nobody wants to list that because why? Because that doesn't create social proof. If you say our clients include and it's a bunch of stuff nobody's ever heard of, how would anyone even know those are actual companies? They could be fake companies that you're even lying about to try and sound cool. I'm just going to make up some companies here, which I guess is a little better than saying Xerox is your client. Okay, take a step back and think about it. You're thinking of hiring this agency to do your SEO. You go to their website and it says, "Our clients include." Then you scroll down and it's like 10 companies you've never heard of. Would you care? Would you literally care at all? Maybe like 2 out of 10. Maybe like 2 out of 10 you'd be like, "Oh, well, it seems like they get some business. I guess they're okay." But you wouldn't care because you've never heard of them. Ultimately, you wouldn't care. It's like when you're talking to that person who's like, "Oh yeah, let me tell you my five favorite bands." And it's like five bands you've never heard of. All right, that's cool, but you don't really care. Now, if that person's like, "Let me tell you my five favorite bands." And like three or four of them are also bands that you love. You guys are going to be buddies forever. But if you're on an SEO consults website and it's like our clients include and it's all these big tech companies, it provides legitimacy to the agency. That's why people do it. The problem is most of them are probably lying. They can't all have Microsoft and IBM as their clients because come on, you think Microsoft just sits around hiring random SEO agencies all day long? I don't think so. So anyways, look, this is my perspective. And a lot of people on Reddit disagree with me when I tell them that A, putting clients on your website is shady because it will probably never happen. B, they're probably lying and C, just because you got a big client doesn't mean you're good at SEO. It doesn't mean you got results for that client. A lot of people disagree with me on Reddit when I say that. It doesn't mean they're right. It just means maybe they're not on the same level as grumpy SEO guy listeners. That was elitist. But the other reason I think they do it is because they are people who list their clients. Anyway, look, that's the end of this episode. I'm telling you just one more time for fun. Almost anyone who puts clients on their website is lying or is good at sales, but not SEO if they're not lying. But I think they are lying. And, and the clients probably wouldn't even let them do it in the first place. Oh, which I forgot. The other option is they didn't even ask the client, which brings me to my next point that would have made more sense earlier in this episode. But I'm just going to share it now anyway. And that's this. How would you feel if your SEO agency put you on their website as a client without asking you? I think you should be pretty angry if that happens. I also think you should be pretty angry if your SEO agency is sharing case studies of you without your permission. So if an SEO agency, this is kind of a different topic, but I'm going to leave it in here anyway, if a consultant is posting case studies on their website naming their clients, you can assume they will do the same thing for you too. A real case study should be redacted. And in the event that somebody needs to know who the client is, and I can't really think of a time when that would happen. But if they did, they should make you sign an NDA before revealing it. By the way, people love to downvote me when I say that clients should never ever be revealed without signing an NDA first. Oh, downvote, downvote, downvote. Oh, grumpy SEO guy. You must not even do SEO to say a thing like that. That's what I think. And the cool thing about this podcast is you can disagree with it. And I'm indifferent, like disagree or not. It doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that you understand how to do SEO and that you work with agencies that are going to get you good results. If you disagree with me about listing clients, awesome. But also, I'm indifferent to that fact that you disagree with me. And also, if you disagree with me that content isn't king, cool. Go write some good content and let me know how you rank in six months. But make sure that you save these episodes because you'll probably want to listen to them in six months when you're not ranking because you're really good content didn't do anything. Okay, thanks for listening. I'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. I use your name as grumpy SEO guy. You can visit the grumpy SEO guy subreddit or you can email me at hello@grumpyseoguy.com. If you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so at patreon.com/grumpyseoguy. And I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about why you should think twice about buying backlinks off a menu. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]