Beware Of SEO Secrets That Aren’t “Secrets” At All!

Please Know Who You are Buying Teaching Materials From

This post is for all you newbie online marketers and maybe not so newbie, too! Because I have such a fondness of helping people new to online marketing get up-and-going and pointed in the right direction, I thought the subject of today’s post would be a good one, and should be addressed! I hope my words are taken as a helpful warning, and that you will learn a simple, but valuable tip that you might not have thought about doing.

This post is prompted by an offer I received in my email inbox this morning. Wowee! A free eBook that was guaranteed to be chock full of “SEO secrets” and “killer tactics” that would propel anyone’s website to the top of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. And that “1000′s of hits” would start coming into your site and you could do all this for free.

You think I didn’t want to get that free eBook to check it out? I sure did download it (still waking up a bit and had a little time available this morning to review it) … and EGADS!

Sigh … just what I anticipated. This was a piece of junk! The SEO that was discussed in this so-called “killer SEO secrets” eBook was so bad, that I can’t say anything good about it, except that there was other non-SEO information in it that wasn’t too off the mark.

Of course, sprinkled all throughout the eBook were hyperlinks to the writer’s super-duper $80.00 SEO product’s sales page. That’s OK … I have no problem with a free eBook having other promotional information in it. That is a very ethical and accepted marketing tactic.

But what makes me sick, is what the information told you to do to supposedly search engine optimize your website to achieve thousands of hits each day! Even the most basic of optimization best practices were wrong! But how would a trusting newbie online marketer know?? And herein lies the vulnerability people like this guy take advantage of!

How about a few examples of what got me ticked off as I read?

• No mention of the need to do keyword research to see what people looking for your product or services are actually using as search queries. It instructed you to sit down and make a list of terms you thought people would type in.
• No mention of the length parameters that are a best practice for the Title tag and Description meta tag.
• Completely horrible ERRONEOUS information given as how to properly write the Title tag. As a matter of fact, this author encouraged you to add your top keywords at the end of the title, separated by commas!
• And the list of wrong, wrong terrible “how-tos” goes on and on ad nauseam …

“So”, I said to myself … “just who is this guy, and what can I find online about him?”

Here’s the tip I want to give all of you. Unfortunately, not everyone selling a “great killer super-duper this is all you will ever need” SEO product (or whatever else kind of online marketing product) is 100% trustworthy. I mean, if you or I are brand new to learning something, and we’ve no one to personally recommend a worthwhile product or service to spend our hard earned money on …. we are somewhat gullible and might find ourselves being taken advantage of … HYPED, SCAMMED or whatever term you wish to use.

Perform an Online Search on the Person’s Name & the Product’s Name!!!

I suggest you first type in the person’s name, surrounded by quotations marks – remember quotation marks around your search term returns much more specific results. Such as “Joe Smith”.

Boy, when I entered this guy’s name into Google, you know what? This is the honest-to-goodness truth! There were nothing but listings of articles that were calling this guy, his eBook AND his SEO product exactly what I thought it all was … worthless AND full of information that was wrong! One title read: “(Name Here) Sucks!” (sorry, but that is the word that was used!). Now … other organic listings went on with comments such as “he is a total rip-off artist; his $80.00 SEO program is nothing but a scam”. You get the idea.

These articles were not the result of a few disgruntled customers. No – it was clear his product was a rip-off because there were no positive reviews. I didn’t even bother to Google the product – why waste my time? I certainly needed no more confirmation of my suspicions!

Moral of This Post …

Please always check out the person/group/product/services you are thinking of purchasing! I don’t know of anything that will magically nor instantly catapult your new online marketing website into instant top rankings for the most searched keywords bringing you instant hoards of visitor traffic!

Yes, there are things that can certainly help cut your learning curve. Yes, there are products and software that can be a huge asset to getting your website pointed in the right direction.

I’m just saying … buyer beware of so-called expert SEO guru’s and the like. Investigate. Do a quick FREE search engine background check first!

How about a shameless plug for my free (yes – free) SEO eBook that does provide ethical “best practice” suggestions to help you properly optimize your website. And guess what? I’m not plugging any product in it. I wrote it to help newbies or those of you who are still wondering why your website is lost in the rankings. Get a copy today: The SEO Edge.