I got a call yesterday from a very unprofessional and pushy saleswoman, trying to sell me backlinks to my website. Had I not known better, I might have ended up falling for her tricks and paying for something I can do myself, for free, and without a risk of ending up blacklisted by Google.
What’s more, after a quick search for the company name and phone number, I found a thread of equally angry comments from a variety of business owners. I have also noticed that the company’s tactics changed over the course of the last 2 years (they used to sell you help with your AdWords), but still remained highly unprofessional and even rude.
I know that some of the people reading this blog are either in the process of starting their own business, or already own their small business, so I though I’d share this with you so that you can avoid being pushed into paying for something you don’t need to pay for.
This particular company I’m so unhappy with is called It’s Cold Outside (and I’m not going to link to them) and their number is 01619 286 999. If you’re using AdWords to get traffic to your website, they will call you at one point or another (it means they also click on your AdWords link, thus costing you money, when they don’t even intend to buy anything from you).
They will start by asking how you were finding your AdWords experience, whether you want to get to page one in Google search results, and then ask you whether you know about backwards links. At this point it was pretty clear to me that they were onto selling me some SEO (search engine optimisation) services, and I told them that I am not interested, thank you very much.
I was ignored, and the woman proceeded suggesting I go into Google and try to search for something. It probably would have been their own website and the phrase they know they rank very well for. I repeated that I will not ever pay for backward links to my website, that I will build them myself over time, and I am not interested in their services. It took me two more attempts to get the message through, at which point they wished me good luck (rather sarcastically) and hung up.
I must admit though, that if I didn’t have a clue about SEO, I would have listened to this woman, trusting everything she had to say. I think that’s what they are counting on. So if you’re new to the game, here’s a few things you need to now:
Nothing is guaranteed with Google.
One day you may be ranking as number one for a certain search phrase, next day you’d be on page 3. SEO consultants may charge you lots of money, and may well achieve good short-term results, but SEO isn’t about short-term results. You can’t just do it and then forget about it. SEO is something you do day in, day out, as long as you have your website.
For example, I used to be on the first page if you googled for ProPhoto3 template, simply because I did a review on it before the majority of people did. Now that there are many reviews and mentions of it from a better ranked websites, I’m no longer on page 1.
You should never pay for links to your website.
Some SEO consultants will try to convince you it’s the best – and only – way to get good search rankings. Don’t listen to them. Although links are very, very important (even more so than good content) Google can distinguish between genuine contextual links, and link farms. And I don’t believe there is a way to get a large number of genuine contextual links, short term, through an SEO consultancy.
Don’t stay in the dark.
Learn about SEO yourself, and don’t let dodgy consultants fool you. The absolute best book on SEO I read so far is SEO School by Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz.com. It’s written for real people. If you only read one book on SEO, make it this one. So go buy it. Like NOW.
By the way, the link to Naomi’s book is what a good backward link should be. It’s contextual (i.e. I link some relevant text), and it’s surrounded by text on SEO (which is also important). And the way to achieve it is to provide genuinely good product or service, the one that will get people talking and writing about it on their blogs and websites. And Naomi’s service is unbelievably outstanding. And if you want some ideas on how to get people talking, get yourself Purple Cow by Seth Godin
That’s all I’ve got to say on the subject today. Hope it will be of use to at least one person.
And because blog posts are always better with pictures… Here’s one of my neighbour’s son. How cute is he?!
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