If you’ve been in business for a while you’ll probably remember that when you start getting more e-mails, it’s both good and bad. Good, because you are receiving all the wonderful orders, queries and feedback, but not so good because you get increasingly targeted by spam emails. Of course, there are ways of filtering this in your settings by your e-mail provider, but still a few e-mails like the following one will come through.
You’ve probably got one of these before: E-mail that promises to get you to page 1 on Google. I always find them quite amusing and often wondered what would happen if I actually replied. So instead of replying back by e-mail, here is my open letter to all SEO companies that spam the e-mail in-boxes of small business owners.
Note: The blue text is cut & pasted from an actual e-mail, I’ve received recently. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it, neither do I…
Hi,
Hope you are doing well there!
Yes, I’m thank you for asking!
Would you like to increase the traffic of your website?
Of course, who wouldn’t?
Would you like to be listed at the top of Google for multiple search phrases (keywords) relevant to your products or services?
Yes, of course, bring it on!
Contact us for the best quote for your website & we will guarantee to rank your website on the first page of Google.
Ahhh, that’s super brilliant and how are you going to actually do that? Do you own Google?
I am Jamie, Internet Marketing Consultant, with a reputed organization in Online Search Marketing field based in New Delhi, India. Only 80% of the web searchers focus on 1st page of Search engine results, if your site is not ranking on first page then you are losing on potential traffic on your webpage thus Revenue for your company or Business.
Yes, I think you are right here, if I’m not on page 1 I’m loosing potential traffic. But how are you going to squeeze everyone on page one? Surely I’m not the only business you are talking to? And are you going to suggest a some useless random keyword that gets about 10 visits a month, but gets me to page 1 to make me think you are doing a good job? Can you rank me no.1 for ‘chocolate’ or ‘gifts’ or something else that actually would be useful to me? Thought not….
We are an online marketing company with expertise in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We can help your business website improve its presence on major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckDo and Munax.
I can’t remember last time I used DuckDuckDo to search for something, but sure, that sounds super useful. Oh, and can you please get me on page 1 on Baidu, I’m sure that my customers would love it!
While surfing through your website and realized that despite having a good design, it is not ranking on any of the search engines for most of the keywords pertaining to your domain.
Thank you for letting me know I have a good web design……..and by the way…..HOW DID YOU find me? Must have been my old aunty Gladys, because she is the ONLY one who knows our website address. Dam it…
Based on the research we conducted on your website, we have created an SEO audit report that marks the areas that you need to focus on. This report will give you a detailed version of what modifications need to be implemented on your website to make it appear on the first page of search engines.
Now we are getting somewhere! So, just to make this clear, you’ve created a detailed SEO audit on our creative market place website that has over 20K pages? Blimey, that’s impressive!
Do let me know if you are interested and also please do let me know Geographic Location and Keywords which you would like to be target.
I thought you were the clever one! Now you want ME to tell you my keywords?
YOU need OUR high-standard SEO for your business because our approach to content syndication as per Google website.
You’ve lost me now completely…
We can answer you quickly how much potential web traffic is available in your target market and area?
That’s awfully kind of you, can I borrow your magic ball?
If you want us to share this SEO audit report and discuss your website’s optimization, respond to this email with your contact details – phone, Skype. Can I call you this week to discuss your campaign?
Regards,
Jamie Lambert
SEO developer
How sweet, what company do you actually work for? Are you a real person? Oh, Jamie….
P.S In case you are wondering whether SEO can actually help to make you more visible, yes. of course it can! But these days is more about the psychology of your ideal customer, their shopping habits and social visibility, then about randomly stuffing your website with keywords. Curious to find out more? My practical SEO course has just started and you are welcome to join us. The details are here.
And as ever, if you have any questions, just post them in the comments bellow. I look forward to reading them.
Magdalena
