Recently, I heard that BT have gone into search marketing, from £74.99 a month. Personally, having experienced their telephone, internet and customer service (with a general rating of 1 and a half stars on Trustpilot), I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. I’m also concerned about the ‘out of the box’ service offered. You are locked in for three months, pay a £100 set up fee, and your initial consultation is limited to just thirty minutes. For their pay per click service, you have to commit to a minimum spend of £300 a month (for three months) – and if they conduct the campaign poorly, without using all your budget, you get a refund – but minus their ‘management’ and ‘administrative’ fees.
The basic package seems okay, if you aren’t expecting much. The next level up, starting at £349.99, includes 50 directory submissions (a fairly old fashioned way of building links) and 3 article generated links a month. These articles could be good or bad – no way of knowing until you are locked into the contract. So essentially you’ll be stuck paying £275 extra a month for 50 directory submissions (which may or may not be accepted, and may or may not be harmful) and 3 links of unknown quality. You can also purchase an optional link building package. The first item, offering manual link building, is reasonable. However, they again mention directory submission, and submission to DMOZ – a formerly excellent place to submit links which is no longer edited – most SEOs have reported not even hearing back from the directory, let alone having their site included. Please also bear in mind BT’s track record with the internet – back in 2000 it tried to sue another company on the basis that it had ‘patented the hyperlink’.
I’d always go with a local, friendly Lancaster SEO company – somewhere where you can knock on the door, meet the proprietor and chat about any ideas over a cuppa. As well as get an ethical, safe, white hat package.
