Describe the project or task Zoek: Search Defined helped with:
Client ID 418598.
I signed up in June of 2021 and paid $1,600. I was told by Will (Sales) that my entire site would be optimized for SEO and Google Core Web Vitals. Services such as Images without Alt Tags would be added, Meta Descriptions optimized for local search, SCHEMA and Structured Data added, Internal Link Building, Fixing Broken Links, etc. Be mindful that my site already had a steady growth of organic traffic since the website has been live for several years. The site had over 75 subpages and over 50 blogs posts. The sales team was aware of the size of the site and ensured complete optimization would be done.
After signing up, access was given to the Dashboard, where I added all the necessary information GoZoek needed, including Social Media Pages, Access to Google My Business, etc. The Dashboard is nice, but the knowledge of the employees who demo it is lacking.
As for Off-Site SEO I was told they would update my business details (NAP - Name Address Phone) on multiple directories, and where necessary, duplicates would be deleted, and incorrect data would be changed. I provided documentation to GoZoek with all the listings that already existed. Did they reference this document? No, they published new duplicate listings. Somehow the one listing that did exist with a wrong telephone number became eight listings with the same wrong telephone number. I communicated this issue to GoZoek Team within three days of that issue arising. Now I'm aware that they use a Third Party for Listing Management (Advice Local), but GoZoek sat on the errors for two and a half months before I took matters into my own hands. Once I spoke with Advice Local, all but one issue was fixed in 7 days.
GoZoek made three landing pages (Under About Section) for Computer Repair and Service, Mac Computer Shop, and PC Computer Shop. Check them out; they're horrid. Even worse, they didn't include a Call to Action button on the page to increase conversions until I asked them why that was omitted. *shakes head* Side note, they still don't rank according to their Dashboard.
GoZoek cleared all my previous SCHEMA Structured Data and applied the same Local Business SCHEMA on all pages. This change caused traffic to drop 60% from the previous month. Their Team told me to wait a few months, and it would go back up. Guess what, three months later, and it hasn't. Their dashboard (which links to our Google Search Console) shows our site is no longer ranking for the keywords they optimized my site for. I did have one employee try to swindle me into believing traffic was going up, but that was because of a blog post about "Why Computer Motherboards Fail," which I wrote and published in May 2021. That blog post gained a lot of traction outside the USA. Thankfully I had Google Analytics Reports before working with Zoeks and am familiar enough to show where traffic was coming from. Don't let them fool you with Clicks and Impressions either.
Even more insult to injury was the GoZoek Team had Manager access to my Google My Business listing, which they said they would optimize. The only edit they made was keyword stuffing "Computer Repair" into the Company Name, which violates GMB conditions, and led to a suspension of that listing. Thankfully after paying $35.00 for Google's Small Business Advisors Support (I highly recommend this program for any small business) and explaining the situation, Google looked into the case and advised me to remove GoZoek access to the GMB Listing and restored the profile. With 60+ reviews on the listing and most of our calls coming from the Google Map Pack, this was a big hit in the wallet for the one week it was down.
It's 2021, post-COVID era, and they don't do screen sharing.
I sent a response to the CEO on my experience and have was told by their CEO, Sam R is out of the office "indefinitely" and the best they can do is refund $300.00 to me.
Zoek's promise of Advanced SEO at no charge until traffic increase was not performed and they have blocked my phone number from their systems, banned me from communicated with them on their Social Media Pages and are ignoring my E-mails.
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