Rank Me Locally

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a nonprofit.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rank Me Locally, and what were your goals?

To design and market a website targeted in Boston, MA. They pretended for months to be working on it. I asked for evidence of progress and they had none. Then, they simply began ignoring me completely.

SOLUTION

How did you select Rank Me Locally and what were the deciding factors?

They sold themselves with a lot of bragging.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

It was all over the phone and email. They were supposed to complete the web design by early December. They were supposed to launch a GoFundMe for the holidays and continue to market and raise money in 2021.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

3, Marshall was the manager (Steve). Don't know the other two people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

They never designed the GoFundMe site... that likely cost 30-40k. They never designed the website or marketed it, and that cost is unknown.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Phone, email, and an app they insisted I use called Basecamp.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They seemed experienced at this. They sent me three similar sites to what I was looking for and they were nice sites.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

They shouldn't have taken the job since they clearly had no intention of doing it. And my money, which I'm having to fight for through my bank, should have been refunded.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of a small language website that helps share language learning resources and teaches how to learn languages.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rank Me Locally, and what were your goals?

They were hired to help market our company on social media and to do SEO.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I found them online. I read the reviews that were all glowing, but I realized after signing up with them that they were reviews listed on their own website.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

They sent me a list of about 8-9 things they were going to do for our company with this project, including SEO and social media ads. I signed up for $300 for the first month. The day after signing up Jim, the salesperson, called me back to say for $400 more I could get an additional two months.

I was skeptical because I was unsure of how things were going to go with them. He assured me I could absolutely get my money back if I was not satisfied after the first month, so I reluctantly agreed.

After about two weeks I hadn’t really heard anything so I finally contacted them and was told yes, they have been working on it, it just takes time, and wouldn’t you know it the next day they had some ads ready for me.

It was clear they threw the ads together that day. They were terrible. The English were embarrassingly bad (remember I own a language site) and the images were just crappy stock photos. At that point, I knew this was all a mistake but I approved a few of the ads and just figured we’d see if anything worked. Of course, it didn’t.

I called to try to cancel and they told me that what I thought I signed up for wasn’t what I had signed up for at all but they would upgrade me “for free”. Still, nothing happened. I called to cancel again and they again pushed me and said we will upgrade you “for free”. Finally, I had had enough and I insisted on canceling and getting my money back.

I had even established a date I could “for sure” cancel by and get my money back. I canceled well before that date. After much arguing Erwin, my account manager finally agreed to send me a refund in 7 days. That “refund” that was supposed to be for $400 for the two months of work they did not do came in the form of $1.84 to my account today.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I talked with Jim, he was the salesperson. Erwin was my account manager and Sam was the one who Erwin got on the line when I tried to cancel and he insisted on “upgrading” me and essentially wouldn’t let me cancel.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I don’t know of anything really worth measuring that they did. They claim to have gotten us 1000 likes On Facebook (although they promised 2000) but it is obvious they are fake accounts so it doesn’t matter much anyway. They also claim to have gotten us 7-8 leads but we never got a single sale from anything they did.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They use something called basecamp. It’s basically an email thread that tracks and records all communication, which I am glad for because I now have proof that they are liars and thieves.

During the project time, they were fairly good about communicating on there but their communication is unclear and even more unclear on the phone because they are not native English speakers so they are difficult to understand, some more than others.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Nothing. They were absolutely terrible.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

They have no idea how to listen to their customers. They just push you around and try to force you to stay on so they can keep your money. They promised me I could get a refund of the extra $400 I paid them but they clearly lied. I guess what they could have done differently is be honest.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an IT consultant at Gaia Organic Seeds, an organic seed retailer to home gardeners and small farmers who have up to five acres of land.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Rank Me Locally?

I needed help with SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I hired them to work on our SEO. However, there was a lack of agreement that we signed up for 30 keywords and they were going to get me a higher ranking. I never got a response back. I kept asking for a confirmation to verify the keywords, but I never received it. They did random keywords that were easy to do and not words I wanted to do.

What is the team composition?

I had a point of contact at the beginning. This is the individual I signed up with and had a verbal agreement with on what Rank Me Locally was going to do. We didn’t get along very well. The manager they assigned afterward was great. He did all the things I asked him to do with the exception of what I previously explained.

How did you come to work with Rank Me Locally?

I found them through a Google search.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested about $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–July 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I signed up for 30 keywords that I was hoping to get national-level rankings on the first page of search results for. I only got 14 keywords ranking locally, not nationally. We had agreed to do it at a national level, but they didn’t do it. It was my fault for not reading the contract correctly. The contract states only certain keywords. The contract said something different than what they said on the phone.

Their team used backlinks on the worst websites we could think of. There was no proper blog. It was a complete scam. They had content on random websites with just a page describing how organic vegetables are good and that people should buy seeds.

I was using Google Ads myself to increase our traffic. I tracked my progress and realized whatever they did didn’t make an impact on the traffic at all.

How did Rank Me Locally perform from a project management standpoint?

They gave me a monthly report. I don’t know how they had access to my Google Analytics. I checked Google Analytics, and they showed the traffic was going up. However, I checked the exact same month they were referring to and it wasn’t the case.

I confronted them but they didn’t respond. They don’t give straight answers and don’t want to because they’ll be held accountable for it. I asked them several times if we could agree upon the 30 keywords, and they never gave me a straight answer.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They offered me complimentary website services and that was good. Their website maintenance service was excellent. Anytime I asked for help, the project manager was always up for it and asked his team to do it. That was positive but everything else was terrible.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s been a lack of communication since day one. They’re never straight with their answers. They’d commit to things but at the end of the day, they didn’t do any work for me.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make the agreement very clear. In our agreement, it says they will rank us for only certain keywords and they don’t specify on how many keywords. On the phone, they told me we were going to rank nationally for 30 keywords but in the agreement, it doesn’t say that. Make sure they include whatever they say to you in the contract.