Internet Marketing - Are You Tired Of The Hard Sale?
I entered the internet marketing industry around 2003. It all started for me with an affiliate program and a pay per click campaign. Back in 2003 there were not many savvy Australian internet marketers so I had very little competition for my campaign for quite some time. Having had some great initial success, I got a little disappointed as I watched new entrant after new entrant come into the market, copying my campaigns and forcing the cost of pay per click (PPC) advertising up. This combined with Google's enhancements (which did make their search engine work better, just not for affiliates) made the time involved in managing a Google Cash style business, to be way in excess what the diminishing returns would compensate.
So I left the "Google Cash" method of internet marketing and started putting websites together, focussing on content and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques. I basically learned everything there is to know. That which I learned, I applied to my websites and watched them succeed. Today I still run half a dozen of my own websites. One promotes my own product in the tourism industry, the others either sell affiliate based products or advertising space. All are successful in their own right.
Over the 6 years I have been active in internet marketing, I have picked up quite a few clients who wanted help with their web presence. I never promoted this service, they all came to me on referral or by word of mouth. They all had two things in common. Firstly they wanted a website that sold their product. Secondly they had been ripped off by an unethical internet marketer who took their money and left them with a website that didn't work.
There is a real issue with the internet industry, it is packed with these bogus operators. There are graphic designers who put together internet masterpieces, charge a fortune for the website, yet no-one can find it. There are marketing professional who apply all their skills, yet they know nothing about the internet so their message doesn't find an ear to fall on. Our industry is unregulated and we are largely self trained. Unfortunately this has left the industry open to the unscrupulous and ignorant. Our clients have been damaged and the industry suffers also.
Every week I see how these charlatans work. They prey on the assumption that their clients are ignorant. Despite the fact they know so little themselves, they assume their clients know less and therefore can be baffled with a few technical phrases and a pretty graph.
Gold Coast Surfboards is a great example to prove the point. This is my travel business. Its the only website I run to date which sells its own product, a long-term surfboard hire service. Do a Google search on Gold Coast Surfboard Hire. You can find me easily. Or even use the less specific search phrase Surfboard Hire. You'll see how well this website is optimised in the search engines.
So I have a website which is supporting a business perfectly. Its optimised in the search engine for the search phrases which are popular and relevant to the service. Despite this, so called internet "professionals" contact me every week trying to sell me their SEO services.
I think I've figured out what these charlatans do. I think they find a small business website and mine the search engines for "sort of" related terms, until they find one which is pretty low on Google. For my website, the type of terms that they come up with are "Surf Accessories" and "Holiday Rentals". Terms which are related but not really relevant. Once they have found one, they'll construct a sales pitch based on the traffic they'll send my website by optimising it for those terms. Of course there is always a decent amount of scare mongering in these sales pitches, telling me how much of my business is going to my competitors, business which I can claim for my own.
This sort of thing really scares me. It makes me realise that there are people in my industry who manipulate our clients to make a quick buck. They are quite happy to modify a website to attract irrelevant traffic in order to make some money, with little care of the damage this does to the customer's business. To embellish, if I had have listened to these hard selling conmen, my website would either be attracting lots of people who needed surfboard wax or fins, or in the Holiday Rentals case, people who are looking for hire cars or accommodation at goodness knows which destination. One thing is for certain, people visiting the Gold Coast would not be hiring my surfboards.
Here's some advice if you are in a business which has internet professionals hard selling their services to you. Think about the phrases your clients use when they search for your services. Ask them what they'd type into Google. Have an understanding of this and then reject outright the approaches from operators who tell you they will optimise your website on Google for different search phrases. These people are selling you services that will not add value to your business, services which may damage the good work you have already done on your website.
If you are thinking about doing some work to your website but do not know where to start, ask around. The really good operators work on reputation and do little self promotion. When you do this though, be clear that you are looking for an internet marketer, not a designer or developer. Its one thing to make a masterpiece for the internet like many graphic designers do, but a whole new kettle of fish putting it where all your clients can find it.
If you are an internet professional reading this article, its time for all of us to smarten up. We need to look after the industry and we can only do this by being ethical in the manner in which we operate. So please, stop going out trying to extract a pound of flesh, go out to add value to your clients. Once you are adding value, the new clients will come, following your reputation. Continue operating as you are though and soon no-one will talk to internet professionals anywhere.
About the Author
Damian Papworth, appalled by the lack of ethics displayed by todays internet professionals, promotes honesty over greed Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
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