Emails like this drive me mad. To be honest I still can’t believe I get this sort of rubbish in my inbox…

“Greeting, I hope you are doing well and have time to read my proposal.

If you would like to improve your Business Reputation, rankings, visitors and inquiry rate through search engines then check out our services.

We are a Leading Indian Based SEO & Web Development Company and one of the very few companies which offer organic SEO Services with a full range of supporting services such as SEO, SMO and complete internet marketing etc.

We would be happy to send you a proposal using the top search phrases for your area of expertise.

Thanks & Regards,

Business Development Consultant”

Can you see what’s wrong with this approach?

First off, it sounds like it has been written by computer software. It’s robotic, devoid of personality and there’s not even a human name in the sign off.

Secondly, who starts ANYTHING with the word “Greeting”?

If this is the best this ‘company’ can do with its business-to-business emails, imagine how awful the content will be that it produces for your website.

It amazes me that people still fall for this SEO claptrap…

But then again, there’s a powerful lure behind this promise…

“We’ll help you hack Google so that your website rockets to the top of the search rankings. Your website will pull in crazy amounts of organic traffic and you’ll make a tonne of money.”

Wow! What’s not to like?

I can’t blame businesses for being tempted. Especially because this USED to work, many moons ago, in the early days of the Internet.

The idea behind Search Engine Optimisation was if you stuffed your webpages with the right keywords and created backlinks to your website you’d pull in thousands of visitors – even if site was crappy, poorly designed and devoid of any genuinely useful information.

Of course, perfectly good businesses used SEO – but so did a lot of terrible businesses, scammers and chancers.

After all, why bother with delivering anything of value when you can plaster your website in clever word combinations and fake backlinks, then sell your high volume of website hits to advertisers who flog cheap tat and dodgy products?

This is why SEO became the dark art of Internet marketing.

In fact, these techniques became known as “black hat” methods. This is because they were sneaky and unethical – playing tricks on both search engines and Internet users.

Hack writers specialised in pumping out keyword-rich articles, filling the Internet with boring tripe with zero nutritional value.

Expensive software “bots” created nonsense articles.

Digital cowboys specialised in tagging pages and creating fake links to make websites seem more popular, relevant and credible than they really were.

And so the Internet filled with spammy pages, clichéd content and plagiarised material.

Meanwhile, an Internet marketing advice industry grew out of selling SEO systems, strategies and software to entrepreneurs.

I remember it only too well because I’ve spent years at war with these black hatters. I’d get sent masses of these offers to review from my subscribers – with SEO offered up some kind of moneymaking voodoo.

Wearily I told my subscribers: “You need to start by creating compelling, interesting, original content for your website.
Establish close relationships with your readers. Then think about how to optimise your site.”

But I was a voice in the wilderness.

People didn’t want to have to analyse their customers, create interesting blog posts and write engaging emails – they wanted magic bullet solutions.

That’s why lots of marketers made money telling other people how to big make money from SEO… but without teaching them the principles of good communication.

For me, it’s totally the wrong way to go about building a lasting business.

People buy based on trust, and that comes through being genuinely helpful and useful, not by filling your website with the right word combinations.

You’ll know this yourself. It’s a horrible feeling when you search on Google and click through to a site full of useless clichés, repeated phrases and empty buzzwords.

You can’t build a successful business with that approach

Thankfully, the days when you can cheat Google with black hat SEO tricks are largely over.

When Google realised spammers were ruining their customers’ experience, they defended their multi-billion pound business by ensuring the system couldn’t be rigged.

Since 2011 they’ve developed smart, ever-changing algorithms to block the black hatters and ensure Google finds the highest quality pages for its users.

Yet there are still people trying to flog magic turnkey SEO software, strategies and shortcuts that magically produce content that pulls in the punters.

However, from now on you can ignore them.

Not only do they hoodwink you into paying for software and systems that create truly terrible websites… but this stuff just doesn’t work anymore.

In fact, try using one of these SEO services and you’ll find that Google quickly penalises you, knocks you down in their rankings and blocks you from ever being found by your customers.

The Only Genuine Way to Build a Business Using Search Marketing in 2016

Don’t hand over another penny to marketers who promise traffic generation through keyword stuffing, backlink software and duplicated content (pre-written articles or bought-in guest posts).

I’m putting together a very special issue of Digital Upstart for October that I’d urge you to read.

It will show you why you should completely disregard the old black hat SEO methods.

Even if you manage to find a cheat that works, it’s likely that by next month, it won’t work anymore.

What’s more, they won’t actually deliver high quality prospects — the sort of people who might actually stick around and buy from you.

In worst-case scenarios they can even ruin the reputation of your business.

Instead, I’ll show you get ranked highly on search engines by working WITH the underlying principles that drive the algorithms.

In doing this you’ll not only convince Google to trust you, but you’ll also increase the trust in those online searchers who might become your customers.