May 27, 2024

With the explosion of AI generated content and the overall decline of quality search results over the past 12-24 months, it’s getting harder and harder to determine real quality content and businesses vs. low quality content and “fake” businesses. In my opinion, this challenge is most prevalent when searching for businesses which can provide a service from anywhere in the world. This includes HR services, recruitment, marketing and of course web design.

While the illusion of local has been an issue since the dawn of search engines, I’m finding that more and more results (both sponsored ads and organic) are leading users to less-than reputable companies just trying to make a quick buck.

I thought it might be helpful to put together short list of a few clear signs that a company that’s claiming they’re nearby may not actually be around the corner. This list mostly applies to web design companies but you can apply a few of these to any business.

Missing 519 or 226 Phone Number

Right off the bat, the most clear sign that a company isn’t actually local is the lack of 519 or 226 number. Even if the company is using a call tracking service to swap out they’re actual number with a “tracking” number, usually the number its replaced with is a local area code number.

Long List of Services Areas in Footer

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are plenty of companies who provide web design services throughout Canada, but I always have a little chuckle to myself when I see a long list of “service areas” with their own unique URLs in the Footer (bottom) of the site. This is clearly a tactic used by experienced (???) SEOs to try to ensure they’re website comes up during any “(insert city) web design” search.

Pricing Seems Too Good To Be True

Like I said, many of these challenges have been around since the dawn of search engines and this particular one has been around since the dawn of sponsored ads. Keep an eye out for any company promoting $99 (or really any too good to be true) price of web design. Oftentimes these are off-shore content farms which use identical web templates for their designs, charge a small upfront fee and then a lifetime monthly fee.

Vague Or Non-Existent Company Info

Not every local company feels comfortable sharing employee photos or personal anecdotes on their “company info” page but you’d at least like to read something about their company origin, Founders or something related to the city they’re local to. If they use their about us or company info page as just another way to present they’re services, chances are they aren’t nearby.

Portfolio Doesn’t Include Any Local Businesses

Almost every reputable web designer will have some type of portfolio or previous work page on their website and if you take a peek at that page and don’t recognize any of the businesses they’ve complete work for, chances are they aren’t local. Take a look at the example below, this page appeared as a sponsored ad which led me to a page with the URL “/web-design-windsor/”. Notice anything funny? I did, work completed for companies in Toronto and Phoenix but nothing even close to Windsor.

Example of completed work but not a single local business in sight

Keep these thoughts in mind next time you try adding “nearby” or “local” to your search and use the checklist above to sniff out any potential non-local web designers in your area.