Can SEO Deliver A Guaranteed Set ROI?

One question every savy business owner asks is can SEO deliver a set or guaranteed return on investment (ROI)?  And the answer is always no!
No matter what a salesperson at another SEO firm tells you, there is no way to offer a guaranteed ROI on SEO or on any marketing project for that matter.  I hear so many stories from business owners who have done SEO with other firms that guaranteed an ROI, and a year into the campaign the business has seen absolutely no ROI at all.
The reality is, even a good SEO company can’t guarantee a set ROI because it’s outside their hands.  What if the business owner is really bad at converting leads into customers?  What if their website is terrible but they refuse to fix it?  What if Google changes their search algorithm and they don’t rank on the first page anymore?  There’s millions of factors that are beyond the control of the SEO firm for the firm to be able to guarantee any sort of ROI with any degree of accuracy.
I can tell you from experience that the vast majority of our clients do experience an ROI well over 100%, but there are some clients that for factors beyond our control don’t see a good ROI, especially when they don’t heed our advise on website changes, lead management changes, or sales process changes.  I read a study last year that mentioned that over 50% of properly managed SEO campaigns experience an ROI in excess of 500%.  That isn’t the norm but it isn’t that unusual either.  SEO is one of the most inexpensive forms of advertising for small businesses, and I personally know that as we utilize SEO almost exclusively in advertising our services.
The bottom line is this: be leery of anyone offering guaranteed rankings, a guaranteed ROI, or anything that sounds too good to be true.  There’s a lot of SEO companies out there who will lie out of their teeth to get you to sign up, and deal with the undelivered promises somewhere down the road.  Here at Simple SEO Group, I can give you my word that we’re upfront and 100% honest, even if it isn’t what you necessarily want to hear.  I would rather lose 10 potential clients every month by being honest about our SEO services than be like some of the other slimy firms out there who will say whatever they need to say to close the sale.