A few months ago, one of our client was approached by BrandRep claiming that they list his site on the first page of Google. The client called us to confirm and was informed that “Even Google does not guarantee that”. Nonetheless, he still went ahead with the transaction because they offered him a discount.
The very first thing BrandRep wanted was to take ownership of my clients Google page, Our client was notified that this does not seem right and he asked us to speak to the rep @ Brandrep
When we asked why the needed the ownership on Google Business, they sent the following scripted email:
why does BrandRep need ownership access?
BrandRep needs ownership access to the business’s Google Plus page in order to ensure that we can provide our services. As owners, we can do the marketing work that we have promised. This is not only for protection over what we do, but also protection of your 90 day guarantee.
what happens when i cancel?
If you provide us with the login information, when you cancel, we will transfer the ownership of the page back to you, upon your request.
If you did not provide us with the login information, when you cancel, we will release the page into Google for you to claim, upon your request.
When asked for more information, we never got any reply. We think they like to speak to business owners to avoid the technical questions.
Anyways, so we started checking their site and here’s my finding:
- Their customer review rating on their own website is 4.8 / 5 with a total of 194 reviews (a 2.10% increase)
Unfortunately, it is just an image and does not provide more details.
BBB.org shows the customer review rating as 23% (14 Positive & 48 Negative reviews).
53 complaints have been filed on BBB
Here’s the link to Brandrep on BBB.org
Trustpilot shows the customer review rating as 7.5/10 (60 reviews)
Trustlink shows the customer review rating as 4.6/5 (70 Reviews)
Yelp shows trhe customer review rating as 1/5 (35 reviews)
2. The price for Local SEO annual package is $4266 but my client was offered the same package for $1000.
3. The initial setup of SEO is to audit the site and prepare an action plan. We were never contacted by Brandrep to audit the site or given any action plan
4. We constantly monitored our clients ranking on Google Analytics and there is no difference to the ranking
BrandRep might be a amazing company but our personal experience was not so good and we recommend you do your homework before signing up with any SEO Agency. Here are 11 Questions to ask an SEO Agency