Watch out! Unscrupulous search marketing companies on the hunt for gullible clients
It really annoys me when unscrupulous companies take business people for a ride to make a quick buck. And for some reason they just keep on getting away with it!
I was chatting to a fellow business person last week about a friend who is a ‘search marketing expert’. “Don’t talk to me about search marketing” he replied in utter disgust. Of course I had to ask what had prompted such a response.
He had received a call from someone claiming to be ‘from Google’. Now as soon as I heard this alarm bells went off in my head. It would have been enough for me to say “yeah, right, and I’m the Queen of England”, but to some these words hold weight.
“How would you like your business to be on the front page of Google?”
The businessman’s eyes lite up. For a 3 month trial he could have his business listed on the ‘front page of Google’ (Google Adwords).
He asked to be sent an invoice, but of course they wanted his credit card details on the spot!
8 weeks prior to the end of the trial he rang to cancel his business. “No!” they said, “You had to let us know 10 weeks before the end of the trial, it says so in our terms and conditions.”
A bitter exchange followed with this company refusing to listen to the concerns of their client (who had not received the terms and conditions), and taking two further payments from his credit card for the next 12 months – over $1000 per business category.
“Did they talk to you about how you would measure the success of this campaign?” I asked.
“Did they talk about having tailored landing pages to convert those visits, because you know it is all very well to draw people to your site, but your site must lead them to pick up the phone or email you about doing business.” His sales rep nodded in agreement. It’s sales 101!
“No they didn’t!” the business owner replied.
I checked out this search marketing company’s website. On first look it seemed to be genuine; the content on search marketing appears to be in line with current thinking, if light on detail. They also offer website design services but don’t show any samples of their work – their own website looks like it has been built from a pre-designed template downloaded from the web.
None of the testimonials on their site were from Australasian businesses despite their claim that they help ‘local business’. I am also very suspicious of business websites that display a PO Box address instead of a street address, and do not identify or profile any of their staff or management.
I raised this whole issue in Twitter and it turns out this is all too common. Other businesses have received the exact same calls – on a fairly regular basis.
The moral of this story is to be on your guard
We all know the saying that if something sounds too good to be true it usually is just that! Check out the credibility of any cold calls of this nature with your website developer or business colleagues. Ask for the contact details of other local businesses who they have done work for.
Dodgy search marketing companies rely on the power of ‘Google’ and the relatively open nature of it – using it to their advantage. They also know business people are very busy and aren’t always well informed when it comes to search marketing.
Don’t let them take another victim!
Posted on October 5th, 2009 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: General, Social Media
Yes! I’ve seen these emails. One went through to a client of mine, and I was fortunate to get the chance to warn them.
The trick they use is that they don’t mention Google Adwords at all, they just “guarantee #1 spot on Google”, which they can get away with because the vast majority of people don’t realise what the difference is between organic and sponsored search results. So they buy their way to the top using your credit card with bids of $5 or more per click.
Shameless!
Thanks for your comment Sheldon. Yeah it’s sad to hear that there’s a lot of it going on out there. I think the last figure I heard was that 70% of Google users click on an organic search result over a sponsored result. I bet these companies don’t tell that to their clients!
Thanks for the warning Mark. I’ll also note that I’ve got a client who came to me for web design work and in our initial talks about SEO, he mentioned that he was working with a company “to get his site on the top of Google.”
Seems they’re just re-selling Google AdWords for a monthly fee at inflated rates. Does anyone know where they’re from and if they’re trading as a legitimate company somewhere?
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