Seriously, you couldn’t make this up. I know that even Google gets these every day but come on chaps, give us a break!
In today’s inbox is a lovely email from India which starts;
Hello & Good Day!
My name is Rxxxx Rxxxxxx, Marketing Manager for an international marketing company based in India.
While studying your website I couldn’t help noticing it lacked any significant ranking in Google – for any of your keywords.
OK, so I’ve changed the name for legal reasons but come on chaps, give us some credit. Bear in mind you’ve sent this to an email address with the letters ‘SEO’ in it. And if we didn’t rank for any of our keywords how on earth did you find us?
RR is undeterred by these obvious issues and continues;
As you already suspect, this means your site is virtually invisible to potential customers searching for a supplier in your field.
It’s as though you’d made an expensive TV ad and then forgotten to buy any airtime for people to see it!
No, I didn’t already suspect this; I fact nothing of the sort. Currently we rank #1 for pretty much all the keywords that we need to and even despite all that, this isn’t where the business comes from. But you don’t know that do you. In fact your TV advert metaphor shows you simply don’t understand Online Marketing or SEO at all.
He carries on;
My company can solve this problem for you. We are an Indian based Company, with over 6 years experience in the field of Search Engine Optimization.
We have the expertise to send hundreds, or even thousands, of customers to your website.
Make your website visible on Search Engines!!
Improve your business website ranking!!
Wow. Six years’ experience. Amazing. And you’re still in business? And the expertise to send thousands of customers to my website? I don’t think so. I can’t handle thousands of customers. Not many small businesses can and if you had any kind of business acumen about you then you would realise that. And the fact that our site is already visible in search has still eluded even your most basic checks which doesn’t entirely fill me with confidence about your SEO abilities.
What gets me more than anything about this and thousands of emails like it every week is not that they are from the Indian Sub-Continent; a lot of very good and talented people live there and we’ve worked with some of them before, but more that we see too many small businesses who’ve been suckered by this.
Far too often we end up talking to businesses who’s opening line is “I got ripped off by an SEO company before…..” and in so many cases it has been outsourced to idiots who have no business sense, no idea of how to optimise a website and frankly care nothing for customers. All they succeed in doing is giving the industry a bad name and more importantly ruining small businesses.
So if you get an email this week from a snake oil salesman like this feel free to add them to your blocked senders list. If you need SEO then talk to a firm who really do exist and will provide a good service. There are thousands of us up and down the country so choose one you like, can work with and trust. After all it’s your business and nothing is more important.
