Promising a first-page ranking for a chosen keyword is dead, and anyone still selling it should be avoided. SEO as a service is alive: a technically sound site, content that answers real questions and links from places that matter still decide who ranks. Hire for the work, not for the promise.
The way the web works keeps changing. At the agency where I used to work, which sold SEO services and still does, clients regularly asked to rank for a specific keyword. Fair enough. Delivering it organically is close to impossible, as Ryan Stewart explains in Why I stopped selling SEO services on the Moz blog.
Ryan suggests giving up on paid SEO services altogether. I beg to differ, slightly. SEO is a professional service and will remain one for as long as search engines exist. A website has to be technically sound to stand any chance of ranking, and that work does not do itself.
What is dead is the old definition: optimising a site for a handful of keyword targets so it appears on the first page of Google. Nobody honest can promise that. What lives on is the work that earns rankings as a by-product: a fast, well-structured site, content that answers real questions, and links from places that matter. I go through the three factors that decide most rankings in a separate post.
Talk to me about getting that working for you.
Questions people ask
Can anyone guarantee a first-page Google ranking?
No. Rankings are decided by Google’s algorithm, not by the person you hire, and anyone guaranteeing a position is either guessing or planning to cut corners that will cost you later.