SEO Scams, SEO Email Marketing Scams – For Shame!!
Have you ever gotten an unsolicited email from a so-called “SEO expert” telling you what your website is missing and why you need them to improve it? Does it seem like a scam? Or is it just an ambitious person scouring the web for business doing you a courtesy? How do you know? Here’s the deal with that…
I get about 5-10 of these SEO spam emails each day. There are generally two types of these messages I receive.
1.) The “I happened to notice your site needs SEO improvement” Spam Message
2.) The “I’m wondering if I could help you improve your site” Spam Message
Regardless of the message, first thing’s first. I RUN AN SEO COMPANY. Clearly they are not even paying attention to whom they are sending their unsolicited SEO spam emails to, because if they’d just take a second to look at what type of business I am while they’re on my site hunting for the contact form, then they’d probably realize that hounding my business about SEO is a waste of their time. It would be like me emailing a taco shop to tell them why they’re making their tacos wrong (when I’ve never even tried their tacos) and that they need me to make them better for them.
So clearly there’s the evidence that these “seo experts” are not even paying attention to who you are and what kind of business you have. But step back another few feet and think about this. I am getting about 40 of these SEO spam emails per week and not only am I an SEO company, our website is optimized extremely well. We show up 1st page for just about every keyword that we target. (I’m not saying this to brag, it’s just what we do for a living). So when I get that email that says “Hi, I noticed your site is missing key SEO components and you’re missing out on traffic and leads, etc, etc.” I know that’s a pile of bull because they obviously didn’t take a second to look at my site or run any kind of SEO diagnostics on it. It’s simply just unsolicited email spam.
Do some of these companies know what they’re doing as far as SEO work goes? Who knows? Some probably do, some probably don’t… but if sending blind emails and acting as if you’ve done someone some complimentary research when you haven’t is their idea of marketing, that’s a big red flag to me.
If you think your website might be in the need of SEO improvement, the best thing you can do to find a quality, reputable SEO professional is to do a Google search for a local SEO company in your area or even in your market segment. Who shows up on the first page (not the paid results but the natural ones) probably knows what they’re doing. Call a few places and get a few quotes. Work with whom you feel the most comfortable with that seems like they can accomplish what you want within your budget.
Avoid anyone who quotes you one price and then says they can do it for substantially cheaper when you balk at their original price. I turn folks down for SEO as much as I win their business because I refuse to sell them something that I know won’t work just in order to fulfill their budget needs. Skimping on something might make their wallet happy but they’ll only be disappointed if you can’t deliver results!
Ask for references or look up their reviews and testimonials. Contact those people if you know how. But whatever you do, don’t reply to an unsolicited email about improving your site’s SEO because 10 times out of 10 it’s a scam.