Management
Is the SEO Sector Full of Scammers?
How this works is that these scammers have software that locates domains and automatically sends the contact email address of the domain an email much like the example below. They get an email address through scanning your websites content such as the contact us page.
I think no one would try and change your mind if you did.
I have written a few posts (here, here and here) on SEO and how easy it is for the average small business to do a good job themselves without spending thousands on an ‘expert’. The main stream media also smell fresh meat and are in for the kill – see ‘Regulator chases party boy’s Publicity Monster‘
We must be SEO Experts!
We just had a gander at our latest position report for the search term ‘business blogs’ and we are now in 2nd place for US. How did we achieve this magical feat being a small business in little New Zealand with no SEO experts?
Well as I stated in previous posts all it takes is to write great content that people love to read.
People will share your content with their networks if its good enough to share. Google locates the sharing and rewards you in rankings.
Forget meta data, forget blackhat SEO, forget back-linking, forget optimized titles, forget keyword riddled content that looks like a dogs breakfast. Google knows these tactics so its pointless employing them.
Of course this takes time – writing great content – but in the end it works and Google rewards you for being honest.
Spam Template Emails by the Thousands
I receive about 10 offers of SEO services via email a week (see below for an example) so I am very worried that some business owners, not having the skill to work out they are BS, will pay up and damage their brand. Seriously, think for a minute, what type of ‘expert’ would send out mass SEO spam emails?
They all have the same template content – ‘a colleague told me about your site‘ or they ‘stumbled on you site‘ (more like they have a piece of software that havests search results).
How this works is that scammers have software that locates domains and automatically sends the contact email address of the domain an email much like the example below. They get an email address through scanning your websites content such as the contact us page. When the software finds an email address that matches the domain of the website the software then sends an email.
The scammer might get a response of 1-2 out of a 1000 emails. Not bad results for doing nothing but run the scanning software.
Here is one of the less exciting templates below.
Hi,
My name is [insert bogus name here] and I would really love to tell you how [your domain goes in here] can rank even better in Google.
I’m a SEO expert working at [scammers BS business name goes here] and while doing a research for some of my colleagues I found your email address and decided to contact you immediately.
If you are interested I will be happy to send the additional information and all the details needed to make it happen.
Thanks a lot,
[bogus details]
If you are a small business owner please read my post on SEO (links below) and save yourself the pain of wasting thousands on scammers. The dummies guide has EVERYTHING that we do which resulted in our current ranking.
