Don’t get taken by shady SEO offers

I’m pretty certain that if you’re in business you get phone solicitations or email offers to put you at the top of list on search engine results pages. You may get such offers even if you don’t have a website!

These are some signs that the offer is suspicious:

• You didn’t request information of this type.
• It’s sent from a free email address – Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, or other.
• Spelling, grammar, or command of English is poor.
• No mention or where they are located or no way to verify it if they do.
• Company name is often omitted.
• No phone number. No website address. **
• The price given, if at all, is extremely cheap. Impressive results are promised – with no effort on your part.
• General areas for improvement of your website are recommended. These may sound reasonable but they could apply to most websites. Here’s an actual example: “Need to update fresh contents on your website and blogs as per the latest Google guideline.”

** Warning: Don’t click on any links in these emails. It’s not likely to link to anything good.

Note: I only had to wait a couple of hours after writing this post before I got the following email which I will use as an example.[toggle title_open=”Close this nonsense” title_closed=”Click to show actual sample email” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]

Click the plus (+) signs to read each of my comments.

SUBJECT: Guaranteed Google Top Ranking!![btw]How can you “guarantee” results?[/btw]

FROM: Nisha Chauuhan rr079182@gmail.com [btw]As a Search Engine Optimization, I would think you’d use your own domain name (usually the company name) to send email. Especially email pertaining to THIS subject![/btw]
12:17 PM (3 hours ago)

Dear Web Owner, [btw]You say below that you “studied” my website so I’d think you’d address me by my name? It’s easy to find it without “studying” my site. It doesn’t see like you were referred by someone I know.[/btw]

Want more clients and customers?

While studying your website [btw]Which of my many websites are you referencing?[/btw]I couldn’t help noticing it lacked any significant ranking in Google – for any of your keywords. [btw]What keywords are you referring to?[/btw]

As you already suspect, this means your site is virtually invisible to potential customers searching for a supplier in your field.[btw]Can’t even name my field? [/btw]

We will help them find you by putting you on the 1st page of Google. We have some special offers this season.

Do let me know if you are interested and I would be happy to share our Methodologies, past work details and client Testimonials and Prices[btw]Actually I’d want to read more on your website before I’d contact you. But you don’t give a website (or phone number) and I wouldn’t click on a link in this type of suspicious email anyhow![/btw]

Thanks
Nisha Chauuhan (online Marketing Manager)[btw]No company name, location, or phone?[/btw][/toggle]

What I find most remarkable about some of these offers is that they basically use spamming methods and trickery to promote their supposed Search Engine Optimization services. I see these as contrary. No ethical and professional SEO provider would use spamming methods to promote their own business. If they were good at SEO there would be no need for them to resort to spamming. A legitimate SEO pro will use SEO techniques to get more leads. They won’t send email to anyone who has not shown an interest in their services.

I don’t find these approaches to be very sophisticated. Unfortunately, the lay person who is not familiar with SEO concepts may not recognize these offers as spam. In any case, I wouldn’t want you to throw your hard-earned money out. At best, they will offer no real added value. At worst, you’ll get ripped off. Hence, I give you this post. As they say, “forewarned is forearmed.”

Bottom line: Be informed. Be a bit suspicious of some offers for Search Engine Optimization. If in doubt about any offers like those described here, contact a trusted web professional for a referral. And move emails like this into the spam folder.

[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”If you’re curious…” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Are you wondering how successful this approach could be? It’s hard to say but you have to figure that they have next to zero cost involved. It’s easy to lists of email addresses. There’s no postage or other cost to send the email. They can send out thousands of email in seconds. They may also send email to other lists for unrelated products like weight-loss pills. If they get only a few people out of several thousand to plunk down some money, then it’s all profit. And the risk of getting caught and penalized are slim.[/toggle]

What can you do about such spam? Not much. Periodically check you email spam and junk mail settings and just delete the emails if they do reach your inbox folder. Alas, this won’t stop the offers from coming. Even if you block their specific email address, they just use another random assortment of letters. For example, the email example above that appears to come from rr079182 @ gmail. A similar one – possibly from the same sender – may come from rd049113 @ gmail a little later. They know you can’t block email from all domains like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, and so on. That’s why they don’t send email from a domain that they own.

I’ll write more about the legitimate side of email marketing in future posts. In the meantime, read this post on how to spot SEO scams.