SEO lead generation companies should be avoided at all costs

SEO lead generation companies should be avoided at all costs

Over the years I've been contacted multiple times by SEO lead generation companies who tell me that they will send me XX amount of leads for $XXX.  Now this is great because I could really reap the benefits of having someone out there generating actual leads for me.  The only downside of this is that the methods these companies are using to generate the leads aren't exactly seen in a good light.

When I started working online I never thought I would have an SEO company that would essentially generate leads for my clients.  What I didn't think about was how I was going to be getting my clients, and that's where these lead generation companies filled a gap.  I needed leads and they were providing them.  I didn't mind paying the high price for the leads, between $15 and $50 per lead, because I could close 1 in 3 if they were warm leads.


But there's always a catch...


Lead Time
When you go to these lead generation websites they say that you can purchase your leads and they will be sent to you quickly.  What you're thinking is that this company has been talking to people for a while and is now selling them as a lead so you can easily sign them up.  NOPE!  What you're paying for is them to start a lead generation campaign and send you leads as they come in.  So it could actually take over 2 months to get your 5, 10 or 20 leads at a time.  The company doesn't care about the lead time because they have you pay up front lol.  So if you're paying $25 per lead and getting 50 at a time, you're parting ways with $1,250 that you don't know if you can get back.


Lead Quality
When these companies say they're going to send you warm leads, you're thinking "Ok, they've talked to these people a couple times and gotten their info, now they're going to pay them off to me so I can close"  WRONG AGAIN!  These lead generation companies will get a response any way they can and then consider that a lead.  I actually saw one of the responses was "Please remove me from your list" and that was considered a lead to them lol.


Method of Capture
When you think of a company going out and obtaining leads for SEO companies you would think that they'd at least be sending some unique emails to these companies in order for them to return an email with some interest.  WRONG FOR THE THIRD TIME!  I had multiple lead generation companies show me the emails they were sending out and they were not personalized at all, not even a business name was put into the email, just a bunch of crap about how "We" can increase your rankings and make you more money every day.

These emails being sent out were probably some of the most outdated looking things I've seen in a while.  They highlighted certain lines of text in yellow and bolded other parts.  It looked like a kid got his hands on some kind of text editor and was told that yellow backgrounds and bold sentences were what you needed to do to seal the deal lol.


The "Guarantee"
Most of these SEO lead generation companies will give you some sort of guarantee.  Either they will "refund" your money if you aren't getting the leads, which isn't likely because they consider everything a lead lol.  They will also have a guarantee that if your lead isn't aware you're about to call them, a dead lead, they will replace it free of charge.  So pretty much they will not refund you but they will replace bad leads with something else that isn't great lol.

Now I know I should always be spreading positivity and good methods, but these companies really piss me off lol.  To get back at them I signed up for one that I used a loooooonnnng time ago and it was one of them who offered to replace dead leads.  I signed up for a 10 lead package and got them down to $10 a lead, then I just kept saying the leads were dead until they stopped sending them to me lmao   I got 68 leads for the price of 10.  Even then I didn't get a single one of them to sign up


Exclusive or Shared Leads?
If you do find a credible company that is selling these types of leads, you need to figure out if the leads are shared or exclusive.  It sounds just like you think it does, shared leads are generally shared between 2 and 4 companies while exclusive leads are only yours.  Exclusive leads generally cost 4x as much, but you don't have any competition when it comes to who these companies are selling their leads to (or so you would hope).

Shared Leads: Leads that are split between multiple companies and sold at a lower price
Exclusive Leads: Leads that are only yours but cost 4x as much on average


How You Know They're Fake Companies
When I was "working" with one of these companies I told them that I didn't want to part with $1,000+ without knowing who they were, how long they've been in business and they basic system to generate leads.  Now a lot of companies won't tell you how the create leads, which I understand, but a lot of information can be public record.  I didn't get any more information out of these companies than their business phone number, email, and prices lol. 

I flipped it on them and even offered the companies $300 per lead that actually signs up with my services.  THEY TURNED ME DOWN!  Most of these companies say that you can convert 1 in 3 or 1 in 5 of their leads to a paying customer who understands that SEO costs a minimum of $750 a month.  Now if you're doing some math, that means if I buy 50 leads at $20 a piece, I can make $7,500 a month   But that's a load of sh*t lol.  After the first few companies shot me down at $300 per lead that signs up, I upped it to so that they would get the first month payment of whatever the client signs up for   Now if you know anything about big SEO companies, they can charge $10,000+ per month per client and get it   BUT I WAS STILL TURNED DOWN!!!!!!   This just proves that these companies are out to take your money and have no intention of actually doing quality work.



Now when it comes to lead generation there isn't really a quick way to do it.  You need to put your time into it and grow your lead like it was a child and you're trying to send it off to college lol.  Build a relationship with your lead and even give them free advice or a few backlinks here and there as a sort of treat before they decide to sign up.  You can even give them a free month in order to keep them on.  Do something like "You get a free month and if your rankings don't increase at all, we will cancel everything and work for free until your rankings begin to move." 



In Conclusion:
You need to do your own lead generation or even hire someone to do it for you.  You can't have someone just spamming out emails in order to get some random responses and hope to get a lead that way.  You need to put in the work to get the lead and nurture it until it goes away to college lmao   These SEO lead generation companies are a bunch of crap and should be avoided.

You should know that I'm not talking about SEO companies that increase your rankings in the SERPs for a monthly fee.  I'm talking about companies that generate leads for those credible SEO companies.


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Thanks!

Razzy