AVOID GETTING SCAMMED AND RIPPED OFF BY SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING SCAMS
Search engine marketers are trolling the web for easy prey. Here’s how to recognize the five red flags for these online predators promising you the moon for website traffic. The old American axioms, ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and ‘if it’s too good to be true, it usually is,’ are still true today.
Search engine marketing scams are here to stay, so doing your homework is vital. Let’s face it: we’d all like to take the smooth, easy road to online success, but the road less traveled is the road that leads to success. And it’s straightforward to get sidetracked unless you have the facts.
THE SCAMMERS’ EMAIL USUALLY STARTS LIKE THIS
You already know your website needs some help. I’m talking about your website from a marketing standpoint. There are things you should do to get more conversions and sales. I’m an independent internet consultant working with many small businesses to help get seen locally in search engines.
I have a “gray hat” trick that I can do for your site that will blast you to the top page of Google in 7 days for just about any keyword …..guaranteed! Don’t worry; it won’t hurt you with Google; it’s only a “gray hat” because I use the software, and it’s completely legit!
FIRST RED FLAG
There is usually a phone number and a free email domain name such as bigdealmarketer@gmail.com, Hotmail, yahoo.com, or other free email domains. Ask yourself, ‘Why isn’t a company domain name in their email?’ The truth is they are hiding behind a facade. Therefore, they can quickly disappear into the woodwork when they fail to deliver results.
SECOND RED FLAG
The email is usually filled with misspellings. I corrected the spelling in the email pitch above, but there were five mistakes initially. A legit professional company does not make this kind of high-school mistake.
THIRD RED FLAG
If there is a phone number or person’s name with the email, take a moment to vet them over Google. Having recently received many clients’ emails containing a search marketing pitch, I saw the same number with a 512 area code.
When searching using the whole phone number, the 1st page of results was filled with websites referencing the same phone. Numerous postings were lies, scams, and complaints. You should still do your homework even if you don’t find complaints.
It is good to ask what state they are incorporated in and whether they have a city or county business license. It’s a good idea to request a list of 10 references. If they can deliver the goods, they should have hundreds of contacts, but ten will do!
FORTH RED FLAG
If they promise 1st-page results on Google, Yahoo, or Bing, run the other way. No one, absolutely no one, can guarantee a 1st-page position on these search engines.
FIFTH RED FLAG
They will dazzle you with fancy terms and jargon like
High-Quality Keywords
Backlinks
Quality Links
Anchor Text
Inbound Links
Out-Bound Links
Viral Marketing
Blog Marketing
XML Site map generation
Therefore, do not be taken advantage of!
TIP: Google posts on its website article pages and forums precisely what you should do. For example, they publish the requirements for a successful website with good placement on its search engine.
For example, here are a few Google quality guidelines and fundamental principles.
a. Make website pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
b. Page cloaking. Don’t trick your visitors’ users or present different information to search engines than display to users. This is known as page cloaking.
c. Do not use tricks intended to improve search engine rankings.
d. Don’t participate in link schemes to increase your website’s ranking.
Avoid spam linking or lousy websites on the web. Your website ranking may be negatively affected by those links. This is a standard method used by backlink builders who dump your website link on hundreds of useless blogs, forums, directories, and article websites.
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Services include custom web design, web development, E-commerce web design, WordPress web design, Joomla web development, SEO, and web maintenance services.
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Call: (757) 619-6456 or email info@visionefx.net.
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