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.
I watched as more and more people entered the market though, forcing click bids up. I watched while Google changed their rules, time and time again making it harder for affiliates to make money with pay per click. I watched and worked up to the point where the time involved in managing pay per click campaigns as an affiliate, was no longer worth the commissions the campaigns earned.
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.
During this time, I have frequently been asked by small and medium sized businesses to help them with their internet marketing. I've never promoted myself in this way, they all came to me from word of mouth, referred to me from others I've done a good job for. The business owners who have come to me all had two things in common. First, they could see potential for their business on the internet. Second, their efforts had been frustrated by an unscrupulous and poorly skilled internet operator.
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.
My tourism service is a great example. Its a tiny little operation on Australia's Gold Coast, we hire surfboards to tourists. Do a search on "Gold Coast Surfboard Hire" or the less specific "Surfboard Hire", I'm pretty easy to find. My business is Gold Coast Surfboards. As you can see in the search results, its a well optimised website for the relevant terms to the business.
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've worked out exactly what they do. They find my website and recognise it as a small business. They'll do a few Google searches and see that I really am well optimised, so then they set about finding some search phrases that I am not optimised for. In their belief they know more than me, they then try to scare me into buying their optimisation services for the less relevant search phrases. Phrases such as "surf accessories" and "holiday rentals".
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.
If you are under pressure from an internet salesman to sign up for their optimisation services, my advice is to first get a really good understanding from you clients, as to which search phrases they use on the internet when they are looking for your product. If the salesmen are trying to get you to optimise other phrases, don't do business with them. At the very least they have not researched your market enough to work on your website. At its worse, they are just manipulating you in an attempt to wring some money out of you. Either way, it will damage your business.
If you are thinking about using the internet as a way to promote your business, ask around. See if you can get a referral for an internet professional who has built and marketed a website for someone else in a way that brings them business. The good professionals run their businesses on referrals with little self promotion. When asking around though, be very clear with people. Tell them you are looking for someone who markets websites, not someone who builds websites. There are just too many people out there who will charge you a small fortune to build a masterpiece, one though which no-one will ever find.
And to all the shonky operators in our wonderful industry, please make an effort to bring some standard of ethics into your operation. You need to stop selling for the sake of sales and start selling to add real value. If you can add real value to a potential client's business, great, please do so. Its so nice when businesses speak highly of the internet marketing industry. If you can't add value to them though, leave them alone. They are better off without you. - 15432
I watched as more and more people entered the market though, forcing click bids up. I watched while Google changed their rules, time and time again making it harder for affiliates to make money with pay per click. I watched and worked up to the point where the time involved in managing pay per click campaigns as an affiliate, was no longer worth the commissions the campaigns earned.
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.
During this time, I have frequently been asked by small and medium sized businesses to help them with their internet marketing. I've never promoted myself in this way, they all came to me from word of mouth, referred to me from others I've done a good job for. The business owners who have come to me all had two things in common. First, they could see potential for their business on the internet. Second, their efforts had been frustrated by an unscrupulous and poorly skilled internet operator.
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.
My tourism service is a great example. Its a tiny little operation on Australia's Gold Coast, we hire surfboards to tourists. Do a search on "Gold Coast Surfboard Hire" or the less specific "Surfboard Hire", I'm pretty easy to find. My business is Gold Coast Surfboards. As you can see in the search results, its a well optimised website for the relevant terms to the business.
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've worked out exactly what they do. They find my website and recognise it as a small business. They'll do a few Google searches and see that I really am well optimised, so then they set about finding some search phrases that I am not optimised for. In their belief they know more than me, they then try to scare me into buying their optimisation services for the less relevant search phrases. Phrases such as "surf accessories" and "holiday rentals".
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.
If you are under pressure from an internet salesman to sign up for their optimisation services, my advice is to first get a really good understanding from you clients, as to which search phrases they use on the internet when they are looking for your product. If the salesmen are trying to get you to optimise other phrases, don't do business with them. At the very least they have not researched your market enough to work on your website. At its worse, they are just manipulating you in an attempt to wring some money out of you. Either way, it will damage your business.
If you are thinking about using the internet as a way to promote your business, ask around. See if you can get a referral for an internet professional who has built and marketed a website for someone else in a way that brings them business. The good professionals run their businesses on referrals with little self promotion. When asking around though, be very clear with people. Tell them you are looking for someone who markets websites, not someone who builds websites. There are just too many people out there who will charge you a small fortune to build a masterpiece, one though which no-one will ever find.
And to all the shonky operators in our wonderful industry, please make an effort to bring some standard of ethics into your operation. You need to stop selling for the sake of sales and start selling to add real value. If you can add real value to a potential client's business, great, please do so. Its so nice when businesses speak highly of the internet marketing industry. If you can't add value to them though, leave them alone. They are better off without you. - 15432
About the Author:
Damian Papworth, concerned with the lack of ethics in internet marketing, promotes ethics before greed.
