I know that they are out there, but I didn’t know that they were right next door. What am I talking about exactly? Well, let me tell you the story that brought me to this slap in the face statement.
It all started with an email. The email was addressed to me from my father. He sent me a listing on Craigslist about a person who needed some basic SEO help. I normally don’t cruise Craigslist, but this email peaked my interest as to what else may be out there. There wasn’t too much of anything else, except I came across this listing: http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/sls/1592964195.html For those who don’t want to read it or it gets removed, here it is in all its glory:
We are a brick and mortar 11 year old web design company located in Oconomowoc, WI, and build hundreds of websites every year here in WI. For the last few years we have been developing our own SEO (search engine optimization) system. We have developed a way to get ANY business on the FIRST PAGE of Google (ORGANICALLY) for ANY SEARCH TERM within 11-14 days and for a FRACTION of what other SEO companies charge. When we show a company what we do, they literally sign themselves up for our program.
So, we have finally decided to launch our program and are looking for 2-3 sharp people to train to sell our program. We expect the people we chose to earn somewhere around $300 – $600 / day….starting within the very first week. Now although this is a commission job, we are willing to offer the right person(s) a salary after 30 days of proving yourself. (although you’ll tell us to stuff it because that would be taking a pay cut) But we will offer it anyway. 
The right person(s) will have some sales in their background, a good knowledge of the internet, good phone and speaking skills and a positive attitude.
If you are interested in learning more, please send your resume’ with job history and we will call you to schedule an in person interview here in our Oconomowoc office. Once you see what we’re doing and how fast it works…..you won’t sleep thinking about all the money you’ll be making.
This is all inside sales here in our office. Our office and dress code is RELAXED CASUAL, and the work hours are 8am – 5pm.
We look forward to speaking with you.
I am sure that you are as annoyed as I am after reading that. This is a posting for a Sales Position at that company and they are making some outrageous claims. Those claims are all centered around this sentence:
We have developed a way to get ANY business on the FIRST PAGE of Google (ORGANICALLY) for ANY SEARCH TERM within 11-14 days and for a FRACTION of what other SEO companies charge.
They haven’t developed shit, Period! Because if they did, why would it be at a Fraction of what other SEO companies charge. It doesn’t make any logical sense. Really, lets think about it. If you knew how to get ANY Keyword on Page 1 with in 11-14 days, would charge pennies for it. I don’t think so. I would charge whatever I wanted because I could command the price its worth.
I just wished they included the actual company in their ad or an example of just how awesome there system is. While I am at it. I came across this ad on Craigslist as well http://janesville.craigslist.org/cps/1601277441.html.
This guy, Matt as he calls himself, doesn’t seem too bad at first, except for guaranteeing Page 1 results. This, as we know, is a red flag to anybody worth their salt in the SEO field. The reason I say not too bad is because he actually appears to give you the exact places where he does his link building.
However, if we do a little bit more digging, we see that things start to fall apart. All you have to do is go to his website (just click on the ad because I am not linking straight to him) and go to his results page. But before that, can you believe that this Matt guy has his whole site in Flash and he calls himself some sort of SEO expert. As for the results, they are just not that spectacular.
Why is that? Well, even though he removes the keyword from the search box, we can deduce what his search query was based on the words in bold in the results. The first one seems to be for Chicago Lawn Care or Lawn Care Chicago. I could go into all of the keyword research to see if this is a difficult keyword, but Mat has already done that by calling out the number of results. I repeat, he called out the number of results as his evidence for victory. People please, don’t do that. It is not a measure for how difficult or competitive the keyword is.
I know that there are all levels of quality service in every profession out there, but when it hits this close to home it hurts just a little bit more. Not only does the company I work for have to compete against these Snake Oil Salesmen, local companies and their employees will be hurt by them. I guess that it is no surprise they don’t say what their company name is in the ad, but I wish it did so I could call their bullshit out to their face!
</rant>
Still don’t see it? Let me Zoom and Enhance
Ahhh, makes sense now “Google Everything“
Google Suggest fascinates me to say the least. I think I am going to be spending more and more time digging into it.
Another negative facet to this is that it only favors those with larger amounts of traffic. Since this is dependent on an algorithm to decide when and when not to provide a link, those websites that have a huge amount of traffic will be graced with a suggest a link. This can be seen in the example at the left. By combing information from Google trends we can get a clearer idea that back in early 2008 “fiver” really took off, but it has yet to beat out “fiver tv”