How many times have you received a sales phone call out of the blue with someone promising your website the top position in Google?
Do you keep getting emails offering you online marketing services that just sound too good to be true?
If your answer is yes then read this page before being tempted by a golden egg.
My position in this industry gives me a valuable insight into the many services, schemes and scams that revolve around search engine optimisation.
In this section of my website I shall give examples of some of the various scams I have ecountered.
I shall not mention any particular companies / individuals by name as they will probably know who they are and I believe in giving people a chance to redeem themselves.
A client is already being marketed by an SEO company and although he is getting business he still wants more. In terms of timescale his site has not been optimised for very long, yet he has good ranking positions on many different search terms.
One day he receives a phone call from a marketing company who he has never heard of. The salesman on the other end of the phone states that he can get the client a top Google rank in just 5 days. When the client asks under what keyword the salesman suggests a popular one within the client's geographic area. At this time the client is unaware that he is already on a page 1 position for this keyword. The salesman goes on to state that the cost for gaining top position on just that one keyword would be £250-00. Well they can certainly guarantee you a high position within 5 days if your website is already there.
Despite warnings by his SEO company the client continued to be tempted and paid the new company some money for a trial period. They were given access to all of his site's web pages minus the original SEO work and nearly three weeks later no sign of any newly optimised web pages.
The client starts to get worried as he was slightly concerned about an amateurish looking invoice they had sent him.
Upon investigating the new SEO company's background a website was discovered that quite clearly appeared to be built from a purchased flash site template. The information given on the website was sparse to say the least and totally contradicted what the salesman had said. For example the site itself said that optimisation can take between 6 to 12 months to start working. Well thats a little longer than the 5 days our friend said it would take. The company also boasted that it had been doing SEO and web design for over 10 years. Looking into their background it was discovered that both the company and domain name had been created about a month after the recent economic recession was announced. Some how I do not think they have been around that long.
As for the client he did not get the optimisation or his money back.
The following is typical spam that your website enquiry form might pick up.
Full Name: *********
Phone Number: 00-0000-000
Email: *****@gmail.com
Enquiry: Search Engine Optimization
Our company is on the first page when you search on Google for our primary search term "SEO Company." We would like to do the same for your web site so you can come up for your main keywords as well? All of our processes use the most ethical "white hat" Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized.
Please reply and I would be happy to send you a proposal.
OK lets take a look and break this down. First warning should be that there is no phone number. Next they give no company name. How can you verify their "SEO Company" keyword position if you don't know who they are. The final clue is the fact that they are using a disposable gmail address. Most genuine companies will have an email address based on their domain name as this is more professional and can be checked out via a WHOIS look up.
Hello and Good Day!
I am Joseph Kent, Business Development Manager
I was surfing through your website and realized that despite having
a good design; it was not ranking on any of the search engines for
most of the keywords pertaining to your domain.
I was wondering if you would be interested in getting the SEO done
for your website.
There is a simple equation that is applicable to the online world.
Ethical SEO -> Better Traffic -> Higher Sales.
We are an ISO Certified, SEMPO registered Online Marketing firm and
have over 5 years of working experience. All the techniques used are
ethical and proprietary.
In case you require any additional information, it shall be our pleasure
to furnish the same.
I look forward to your mail.
Yours sincerely,
Joseph Kent
Business Development Manager
ID: joekentmarketingmanager@gmail.com
Here is another excellent scam email example. Once again we have no company name and yet another disposable gmail address.
Do you really believe that they just happened to stumble upon your site. ISO certified? Really? Well they forgot to mention the ISO number. A member of SEMPO you say. Well how can I possibly verify that if you conveniently forgot to provide your company name.
As you can see these scamsters like this try and make themselves sound impressive. Fortunately most of us know what spam is and how to see through it.
Watch this space as I will be exposing more SEO scams in the near future.