Search Engine Optimization is a powerful online marketing strategy. Unfortunately, it's poorly understood, causing people to respond to SEO spam like this one I received today:
Is your site at the top of the major search engines? If not - it should be. And we can get you there quickly and with little expense. We have worked with thousands of companies and can give you solid references from many happy clients. Want a free site analysis? Email us at (_________) List all the web addresses you want us to check and the best way to reach you.
What's wrong with this email? First, it's spam because I didn't opt-in to receive it. Getting into more detail:
1. They didn't visit my site. They could have at least mentioned the site they were talking about.
2. They sent this to my SEO consulting email address, which reinforces that they're spamming.
3. Should my site be at the top of major search engines, like this email suggests? No. The best sites should be #1, and my site is not the best.
4. "And we can get you there quickly and with little expense..." is nonsense. Top search engine rankings are extremely valuable since they correlate with highly qualified prospective customers visiting your site. If something has value, people will compete for it, and competition leads to costs (time and/or money).
5. References: Great. Are the legitimate? Can't hurt to ask if you want to encourage more spam.
6. Free analysis: Again, it can't hurt to ask if you want to encourage more spam.
7. Email us: Hmm, no link to the company site where I can find our more information. That's strange. What kind of SEO business doesn't have a website?
Most importantly, what kind of search engine optimization firm has to use email spam to generate business? Shouldn't they be able to get all the business they can handle using SEO?
1. Posted by: Aaron Landry on December 15, 2006 1:07 PM:
I seriously hate those spams. I used to get phone calls too. My favorite issue with SEO scams is when I received a phone call from a company, wrote about it on my blog and then they called me back again. By that time I was ranked higher on Google than their own company was when searching for their own company name. I told the guy on the phone to google it and when he found my site I said "That’s me telling you how much your company sucks." The company was eResults Inc. ;-) They've since fixed their situation and are now #1 on Google when you search for them (and my entry is not in the top 30 anymore).