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 who works with many small businesses to help them get seen locally in search engines.
I will blast you to the top page of Google in 7 days for just about any keyword.
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: isn’t it 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 and a person’s name with the email, take a moment to vet them on Google. Having recently received clients’ emails containing a search marketing pitch, I saw the same number with a 512 area code.
When I searched the full phone number, the first page of results was filled with websites referencing the same number. 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!
FOURTH 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
Outbound Links
Viral Marketing
Blog Marketing
XML Sitemap generation. Don’t let them take advantage of you!
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 or present search engines with different information than you show users. This is known as page cloaking.
c. Do not use tricks intended to improve search engine ranking. Don’t participate in link schemes to increase a website’s ranking.
Avoid spam linking or links from lousy websites. Those links may negatively affect your website’s ranking. 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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Call: (757) 619-6456 or email info@visionefx.net.
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