There are self-proclaimed "SEO Agencies" out there that will sell you snake-oil without a moment's hesitation. You may have seen such wildly embellished claims, including "#1 Rankings in 24 Hours" and anything else that alludes to a shady practice, wavering between the division of what is ethical and what is not.
We will never promise what we can not deliver. We adhere to codes of conduct, a promise to our clients, that guide our actions—how we develop and implement our SEO campaigns. Because it is important that we have confidence in our clients and their products, we believe it is imperative that our clients have a similar trust in us.
Our codes of conduct are the groundwork for our operations, but are in no means a limitation to the effectiveness of our campaigns. While we pledge to uphold the guidelines below, we can also assure our clients that their SEO campaigns are completely authentic and the product of research, sound judgment, and collaboration.
At THAT Agency, we adhere to the following ethos:
We pledge…
• To work to our capacity to leverage and maintain client performance. As we are contracted to perform a service, we will do everything within our resources to provide that service as we would expect it to be provided for our own website. Likewise, we will never employ strategies that we have proven to be ineffective or are irrelevant to a client.
• Not to misrepresent our qualifications or experience. We recognize that our clients are not only contracting a service, but the talents that supply that service. We will never promise what is impossible or what we are ill-equipped to provide. Our qualifications are not secrets and we will provide them if and when they are requested.
• Not to issue excessive expectations. The SEO industry is littered with outlandish claims that encourage a negative image upon other genuine and legitimate SEO agencies. We set realistic goals with our clients that allow us to meet and exceed client expectations, and prevent malcontent between both parties.
• Not to misrepresent work that is not our own. All of our work is completely authentic and a product only of the minds that created them. We regard plagiarism as a fiendish offense that not only deprives the client and their customers, but the offender as well.
• Not to falsify content on a client's website. We will never misrepresent specific on-page elements with actions deemed illegal in an attempt to cheat a search engine's algorithm and potentially leverage a client's ranking. Cloaking text, serving dissimilar versions of the same page, and other mischievous conduct is not to be tolerated.
• Not to mislead the consumer. What the end-user searches is for is what he or she should receive. Relevant results are essential the utility of a search engine and paramount to user experience. We do not condone tactics such as "baiting" in an attempt to deceive the consumer into clicking through to an irrelevant website.
• Not to infringe upon the guidelines imposed by search engines and the authorities at a federal level. We will continue to adhere to copyright and trademark regulations set forth by state and federal law. Likewise, a client's campaign will follow the straight-forward rules and expectations expressed by the search engine's own guidelines.
• Never to intentionally impose damage to a client's website. All actions and strategies that comprise a client's SEO campaign are created to improve their standings with search engines. We will never utilize practices regarded as fraudulent, and that could potentially result in the removal of a client's website from a search engine's index.
• To further our education and continually re-assess our practices in an attempt to provide our clients the most effective SEO solution. It is our intent to offer the best in practice and strategy. We believe that by encouraging our own education, we are able to maintain relevance in the SEO community and provide the best service to all present and future clients.
Our clients' success, likewise their reputation, is on par with our own; therefore, we care for every SEO campaign as though it were intended for our website. It is by these codes of conduct that we are able to provide a legitimate, valuable service, but also work toward relieving some of the misanthropy given to search engine optimization, and the companies that provide it.
– THAT Agency
