Your SEO agency might be stabbing your business to death!

Words are that the sailors were last seen sailing towards a pool of beautiful maidens in hope: None heard from them ever.

Contents

This is not merely some mythological excerpt, but the truth somehow. And one cannot deny this truth when it comes to SEO and businesses.

We nurture our businesses, hire those SEO agencies spread the word, and wait in hope to see our business soaring up to hoots and ovations.

But sometimes things just do not turn our ways. The prime reason being fraud and trickery. But what could have been done?

Many SEO agencies claim sweet and sublime, but deception lies ahead. How would one know if the SEO agency one has hired is true or terrible?

What does an SEO agency do to your website?

An SEO agency is like a guide on the foreign lands. One knows its important alone when one falls lost. Internet, although, might seem intangible, it is no less a world in its own. People and entities try to come and create their digital presence.

Purpose? One and only to spread and soar in this real world. But this digital world is a little different; here people stay oblivious.

It has its own rules and regulations that one requires to follow to get recognised. Data has it that almost 91% of all the websites (or businesses) suffer from zero organic traffic. The reason?

Google (or any search engine) works as a gateway to lead a visitor with a query towards a website with a solution. To make it happen, it uses algorithms.

Consider these algorithms as some invocation that a website needs to chant to let a search engine be aware of its presence and thus getting recommended. SEO agencies know how to do this. They not only know what ways to walk, but also how to walk and walk not!

When a user asks google about something, Google provides that user with a list of websites in SERP.

Suppose you ask Google about the best SEO Agency in Perth, Australia, then Google will look through its database and provide you with the best results possible.

How does it make it happen? Using a certain set of rules called algorithms. But the main question is why does it show certain websites over others? This is where SEO agencies step in.

SEO agencies help websites getting ready for the show by aligning them in accordance to the SEO guidelines. But not all SEO agencies do this. Some SEO agencies sing beautiful, but they bring havoc to the website. How? And how would you know if the agency speaking of itself as Brisbane’s No 1 SEO agency is not lying?

How to know if your SEO agency is not fake?

Many SEO agencies claiming to be the best try tricking people. They do not only imbibe upon money but time too. But there are ways in which one can save itself from stepping in their snare.

Your SEO Company sings super soothing words: The very basic thing that fraudsters do is to bait using words that imitate the script of some dream. You might bump into one someday claiming to make your website reach the number one spot in the SERP.
Or they might vow you some certain-thousand visitors within days. Know that both these things are possible, but they take much time. Reaching the canopy is always the hardest part. The visitors they show you are no more than bots.
Your SEO agency promises you many quick links: It was back in 2012 when Google had surprised the netizens with its Penguin update. A lot of people were using blackhat tactics to create foul links. Because Google was using links as a ranking factor, it was resulting in bad quality websites getting ranked higher. This leads to link spam filtering.
Now the focus was on high-quality links from authoritative websites. If you have a website about chocolates, an inbound link coming from a website related to car will be disregarded.

An inbound link should come from a genuine website related to the subject you deal into. Google now values websites with higher trust scores. Bad quality links lead to website getting penalised.
Your agency denies telling you their strategies: No genuine SEO agency will deny you the ways they help your website with. A fake company will hesitate telling you the exact tactics they use. Ask your company about the ways and reports regarding the performance.
You are getting warnings from the search engine: Fake SEO agencies are like that slow poison. Google strictly warns against using blackhat tactics to rank higher. A website caught using the same gets penalised or even banned forever from its servers.
Fake SEO agencies use spammy links. This harms the health of your website and ruin its image for very long. If you are getting promised 100 links within days, many thousand visitors within days, number 1 SERP ranking within days – Step back and run miles away.
Your agency claims to have some secret person in Google: Google never reveals its algorithms to anyone. Situation is such that those algorithms even startle Google itself sometimes. If an agency is claiming to have secret information about the SEO, know that it is time to step back again.
They own your social media accounts: Some SEO agencies take ownership of social media accounts on papers. All go good until you are with them, but the moment you step back a little they show you their foul flesh.Never give ownership of social media accounts on papers to anyone. These companies then sell your accounts to other people for good money. Know that giving password does never mean giving ownership.

Should you be worried?

If you already have an SEO agency, it is time to look if you are not getting stabbed behind your back. Look at the Google warnings using Google search console (or any other tool for different search engine).

It is very likely that a fake SEO agency will push you to get some brutal warnings and penalties. These are the signs that you should look for:

You are getting warnings from your search engine.
Your ranking is dropping continuously.
The website links to too many spammy websites.
Poor quality inbound links.
Your visitors are not turning into customers.
Leads are coming from irrelevant regions.

If these signs are visible to you, then opt out as quickly as you can!

The Statistical Reality: How Your SEO Agency Might Be Ripping You Off

The Numbers Don’t Lie – Australia’s SEO Nightmare

Wake up, Australia! While you’re busy running your business, there’s a statistical bloodbath happening in the digital marketing world that’s draining your bank account faster than a pokies machine in Crown Casino.

The Staggering Waste Statistics

Let’s talk cold, hard numbers that’ll make your accountant weep:

$6.149 billion – That’s how much Australian brands threw away on digital advertising in 2023 alone, up 17% from the previous year
43% of every dollar spent on digital advertising was completely wasted – nearly half of the $14.1 billion invested nationally
$123 million was wasted in Q2 2024 alone, hitting a record high for quarterly waste
Only 100 complaints were officially lodged with the ACCC about SEO services in 2018, but the Australian Small Business Ombudsman says there are “many more ripped off businesses out there”

The Scale of Australia’s Digital Spend

Here’s what makes this even more painful – we’re talking about serious money:

$13.5 billion in digital advertising spend in 2023, representing 72.4% of total ad spend
$14.7 billion in online advertising spend by the end of 2023
$15.8 billion projected market volume by 2028
Search and directories alone grew to $1.69 billion in spending

The SEO Scam Epidemic

The Australian Small Business Ombudsman has officially called out the SEO industry for “ripping off” Australian companies. Here’s the brutal statistical reality of how they’re doing it:

1. The “Guaranteed Rankings” Scam

90% of SEO agencies promising guaranteed #1 rankings are using tactics that will destroy your website
The top 20% of agencies get 80% of the real results, while the bottom 80% are just taking your money

2. The “Cheap SEO” Trap

Companies offering “$300 SEO packages” when legitimate agencies spend thousands per month on proper SEO
20-40 hours per month is what a real SEO agency should be spending on your account – not the 2-3 hours you’re probably getting

3. The Reporting Blackhole

Zero transparency in monthly reports – they show you pretty graphs but no actual ranking improvements
No access to your own Google Analytics or Search Console data
Vague metrics that don’t correlate to actual business growth

The Real Cost to Australian Businesses

With Australia’s digital advertising market projected to grow by 4.44% annually through 2028, reaching $15.8 billion, the amount of money being wasted is only getting worse. When you break it down:

Small businesses are losing an average of $2,000-$5,000 per month on ineffective SEO
Medium businesses are bleeding $5,000-$15,000 monthly
Large enterprises are throwing away $20,000+ per month

What You Should Actually Be Getting

The statistics show that legitimate SEO agencies deliver:

Measurable traffic increases within 3-6 months
Transparent reporting with actual keyword rankings and conversion data
Full access to all your digital marketing accounts
White-hat techniques that won’t get you penalized by Google

The Bottom Line

With $6.149 billion wasted annually and 43% of every digital advertising dollar going down the drain, Australian businesses can’t afford to keep feeding these SEO vampires. The Australian Small Business Ombudsman isn’t issuing warnings for fun – they’re seeing the carnage firsthand.

Stop being part of the statistics. Demand transparency, measurable results, and access to your own data. Your business deserves better than being another statistic in Australia’s digital advertising waste report.

Remember: If your SEO agency can’t show you exactly where your money is going and what results you’re getting, you’re not getting SEO – you’re getting scammed.

There are a lot of Agency scams out there in the World Wide Web these days. Many SEO agencies claim to be able to get you listed high in Google in a very short time. They then send you stuff like paid Google AdSense accounts or e-mail phishing schemes.

The only reason they ask you to pay them is because they have some kind of leverage over you. They know that if you do not pay them, they will be out of a job. But if you are smart you won’t let them get that leverage.

The way that an SEO agency scam works is pretty simple. You make a payment to the SEO Company and they promise you results. Then you start getting e-mails from them telling you to go to a “special offer” or something along those lines.

Once you go to the site, you find that there are actually hundreds of other people like you. So you end up spending more money than you were supposed to.

One of the most common SEO Agency scams is when someone from the company asks you for money before they provide you with any help.

If someone promises you results, and then charges you for something that you can get for yourself, they’re probably not real. It’s sad, but this happens more than you might think it does.

So, make sure that you check references first, and make sure that they really do have a good track record. Sometimes it’s better to just pay the fee and save the headache.

So if you want to dodge the common agency scam bullet, make sure that you know what you’re looking for, and that you ask smart questions.

If the SEO Company representative doesn’t give you good answers, or if you feel like they’re just trying to get you to pay up, then don’t even take the meeting.

And finally, if you decide to work with someone that you’ve only met online, make sure that they actually are who they say they are!

General research and reports indicate over 85% of all self proclaimed SEO professionals and agencies either have no idea what they are actually doing. Or just an outright scam!