* LeadMarket will be running limited customer-support hours during SMX, Feb 26th - 28th, 2008.

common SEO mistakes & cons (Ads) to avoid

Having said that, let’s move on to the common unscrupulous SEO ads we are seeing currently online and on eBay. Yes, eBay.

Ad #1

“Guaranteed First Page Ranking!”

No one, but no one, can guarantee an organic ranking in a search engine. And the search engines themselves are always shuffling the rankings around, so what’s the deal here?

A) Some firms that advertise this way simply take your money, and by the time you realize you’ve been had, months have gone by and it’s too late. And even if there is a contract, do you know how expensive contract-related lawsuits in the U.S. can be? And if you’re SEO is in a foreign land – forget it.

B) Some firms place a Pay-per-Click ad on Google or Yahoo (which you of course pay for) and then they ask for their fee because now you’re “technically” on the first page, though you could have done this yourself in 10 minutes or less.

C) Still, other firms may choose a very weak and unpopular phrase for your industry which, though sounding good to you initially, actually does not traffic many visitors. For example, if you sell widgets, then the phrase they might SEO for you would be “wholesale widgets in California.” Sounds great right? Wrong – while “widgets” may consistently bring 100 visitors every day to the website ranked #1, “wholesale widgets in California” may bring in 100 visitors all year! Now the SEO firm collects your money (after all, you’re on the first page now for “wholesale widgets in California”) and you’ve learned a valuable lesson about how SEO works. And how it doesn’t.

Ad #2

“You Don’t Pay Until We Get You Ranked!”

At first, you think, I’ve got nothing to lose, right? Well, maybe nothing except your hard earned money.

Carefully check the terms. Almost always, there is some upfront fee and the rest of the fees are “waived” because they are so confident they are going to get you ranked, make you rich, etc. After the upfront payment has been delivered, the results usually fall into the A, B, or C mentioned above in Ad #1.

This type of SEO ad also falls into the category of a “Pay-per-Click ad on the first page counts as a first page ranking,” type of bait and switch. Meaning that you pay the search engines to get listed (again which anyone can do in 10 minutes or less) the SEO hands you the bill for the work since once again, you are now technically on the “first page.”

Ad #3

“SEO Yourself. My Book Explains All the Tricks You Need to Get to the Top!”

Again, this sounds like a winner. Why pay someone else to optimize your website when this book can teach you how to do it yourself?

Let me dispel a popular myth these types of books sometimes propagate – you can NOT become a competent SEO at any level without having a mastery of HTML and know some web programming. It is just not possible.

If you are truly wanting to SEO you site or become an SEO yourself, the first book to buy is an “Introduction into HTML Programming.”

Let me also say that at almost every SEO and Internet Marketing conference I go to (and I go to most of them throughout the U.S. each year) I am consistently humbled by the incredibly intelligent and creative people I meet. Many of these professionals are long-time Internet advertising veterans, have extensive relationship networks with other eMarketers, years of web programming under their belts, and have had the experience of having carefully spent hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars into search engines - which, believe me, gives you an education in how search engines work that nothing else can give you! Let me again emphasize, the best education in search engine mastery can only be bought through real life experience, spending considerable resources and money on search engines – and that experience (because it has to be bought) can be very, very expensive.

This is not to discourage you, just to give you a sense of the reality of where today’s Search Engine Marketing environment is. Think about it this way, in every industry, being in the top rank of the major search engines can mean significant revenues for those businesses. How likely is it that you can outrank these folks with a $60 book? And in time for you to make the money you need your website to produce?

If you plan on being a professional eMarketer (and certainly there is plenty of opportunity for smart, creative folks in this young, exciting industry) plan on giving yourself at least 6 to 12 months to ramp up your technical skills – and treat it like a fulltime job at that! Then give yourself another 12 months to ramp your real world eMarketing skill-sets. If you don’t have that kind of time, once again, you’re not going to realistically go anywhere with a $60 book on “SEO Yourself.”

Ad #4

Buy this website and make a lot of money from home!

Again, this sounds great. Here’s someone selling a pre-made website with generic content, a SearchFeed ad, Adsense ads – and all the seller claims that you have to do is get 40 to 50 people a day to come to your website and you can make $3,000+ a month working from home. And it’s so cheap, just a few hundred dollars! Sounds like a dream right? You can make at least $36,000 a year for just a few hundred bucks, and not have to do that much work!

This is my favorite type of unscrupulous ad because these types of websites can be quite funny. They usually involve some text telling you how successful they are and how much money the seller of these canned websites have made with them. They invoke feelings of awe and jealousy, especially when they show you screenshots of their Adsense checks or pictures of their multi-million dollar Florida beach home.

So how does it work?

The website is merely acting as a page full of ads from search engines, shopping engines, and affiliate networks. They may contain a combination of banner ads, pay-per-click ads, impression ads, and even some links to outside pre-sell pages.

So will you get traffic and make money?

That depends. If you’re a good writer, great marketer, and a tireless worker who has a mastery of HTML and web programming - with an advertising budget on hand - quite possibly. But then again, with these types of skills and their own advertising budget, why would anyone buy a single website page instead of putting up their own online business?

So to answer the question in a nutshell - absolutely not. In fact, more likely you will lose more money than the amount you already shelled out for the website in additional materials, hosting plans, and let’s not forget – unless you know web programming or HTML - there will be times in any website where you will require the assistance of an actual webmaster. And this will again drive your costs up further. All without having made a single dollar.

SO WHAT”S THE ANSWER?

There is no singular or simple answer. Every web business I have seen is different, even though they may be in similar industries or selling the same product, because every business owner has a different idea of success, different advertising budgets, different amounts of time they can devote, different courses of marketing that they are or are not comfortable with – each solution has to be unique.