Last week, I wrote about SEO offer spam emails. Having just received another one of these annoying emails, I thought I’d give some examples of why I don’t trust them…
We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.
Sincerely,
First Last
So what is wrong with this email?
- no greeting is rude. Even if he didn’t want to take the time to research my name, he could have said “Hello” at the minimum
- who is he? There was no other information to help me identify his business or contact him except by reply email
- if he doesn’t know what my website is (so how did you email me then?) how can he be sure he can help my rankings improve? Maybe I’m already at the top, maybe it’s a family site I don’t care about rankings for, maybe a thousand different things that mean his service is not relevant
- what does he mean by ‘top of a search engine listings’ anyway? Top of page 10 in Google is still top but not something I aspire to! Top for an irrelevant or obscure keyword won’t help me either. By not being clear, he missed an opportunity to show me he knows what he is talking about and starting some trust.
- where is he located? Yes, we could deal via email which means his location isn’t too important, but knowing he is overseas helps understand time differences. Further, I would be more likely to hire an Australian as they understand my market better and I don’t have to deal with the dollar value.
Whilst I hope you don’t send out spam to get business, the above tips will hopefully help you avoid answering spam like this and help you write better sales emails.
Use your words wisely!
These types of emails are flogging one thing only… their “services” in setting up Google Adwords (and similar Pay Per Click) campaigns for you.
The only quick way you can get to the top of the search engine listings is to pay for it – i.e. the “sponsored” ads at the top of Google search pages…
And with most small and micro businesses, you certainly do NOT need to pay someone to do it for you! It is a task you can attempt yourself, as long as you put a limit on the amount of money you spend daily, AND carefully select the specific key words/phrases you bid on (avoiding the more obvious and expensive “generic” words relevant to your niche).
I certainly would NOT be paying anyone who approached me in this manner for ANY service they might be flogging!
Cheers
Stephen Spry
Thanks Stephen. I hadn’t thought of them just promoting AdWords – definitely something I can do myself!
I am a strong believer in providing good content and a good site for humans as the main way to do well with search engines – keeping SEO techniques like keywords in mind, too.