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 changed my approach. I started to build websites and learn about search engine optimization. I still used PPC marketing, but to drive traffic to my own websites while they optimized in the organic search terms. The result for me was half a dozen highly optimized and profitable website businesses. Of these, only one has its own product. The others either promote affiliate programs or sell advertising space.
As my skill grew, so did my reputation. The result of this was a continual stream of business owners who, having heard of my expertise, wanted to hire me to sort out their web presence. These business owners all had two things in common. They all saw the potential the internet had for their business and they all had been taken advantage of by unscrupulous internet operators who took their money yet added no value. So I took them on and applied the same strategies to their websites that I applied to my own. Much to their delight, their websites now create business for them.
That's the problem with internet marketing. Its not a university degree, its not a regulated industry. Anyone can and does call them self an internet marketer. That's why internet professionals as an industry have such a bad reputation. Our industry is packed with graphic designers who know nothing about marketing and professional marketers who know nothing about the internet.
Every week I see these operators at work. They operate on the assumption that they know more about the internet than their clients and therefore can create sales through misdirection. They promise the world, deliver very little and once paid move onto the next unsuspecting victim.
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 optimized website for the relevant terms to the business.
Despite this I get the so called "professionals" writing to me every week trying to sell me their SEO services. "We can put your business on steroids" they tell me, getting you on the first page of Google on such terms as "Surf Board Accessories" and "Holiday Rentals".
You can see exactly what they do. They find a small business website with the assumption they will know more about the internet than the websites owner. (He after all will be busy running his business) They will look at the main products and then trawl through Google to find a search phrase that the website doesn't compete well with. Then they try and scare the business owner into signing up for their services.
This sort of thing really scares me. It makes me realize 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 con men, 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 optimization 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 optimize 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.
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.
Damian Papworth, concerned with the lack of honesty 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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