Internet Marketing; There Is a Right Way

I got into internet marketing back in 2003. Like most of my ilk I was tempted not by the riches, but by the perceived better way of living. Setting my own hours and full automation is what appealed to me. I started with the old “Google Cash” business model. Promoting other peoples products on a commission basis using pay per click (PPC) advertising.

I watched as more and more people entered the market though, forcing click bids up. I watched while Google changed their rules, time and time again making it harder for affiliates to make money with pay per click. I watched and worked up to the point where the time involved in managing pay per click campaigns as an affiliate, was no longer worth the commissions the campaigns earned.

So I changed tack. I’d pretty much learned all I could with pay per click advertising anyway. At this juncture I started building and optimizing websites. I spent thousands working out the most successful and enduring methods of search engine optimization (SEO) and applied all the techniques to my own businesses. I still own about half a dozen successful websites. Only one promotes my own product, a tourism service I set up a couple of years ago. All the others sell products in affiliate programs or advertising space.

As my skill grew, so did my reputation. The result of this was a continual stream of business owners who, having heard of my expertise, wanted to hire me to sort out their web presence. These business owners all had two things in common. They all saw the potential the internet had for their business and they all had been taken advantage of by unscrupulous internet operators who took their money yet added no value. So I took them on and applied the same strategies to their websites that I applied to my own. Much to their delight, their websites now create business for them.

That’s the problem with internet marketing. Its not a university degree, its not a regulated industry. Anyone can and does call them self an internet marketer. That’s why internet professionals as an industry have such a bad reputation. Our industry is packed with graphic designers who know nothing about marketing and professional marketers who know nothing about the internet.

Every week I see how these charlatans work. They prey on the assumption that their clients are ignorant. Despite the fact they know so little themselves, they assume their clients know less and therefore can be baffled with a few technical phrases and a pretty graph.

For example, my tourism business hires out surfboards on Australia’s Gold Coast. Do a Google search on “Gold Coast Surfboard Hire” or even just “surfboard hire” for that matter. I’m sure you’ll find me, mine is Gold Coast Surfboards. Clearly for the product I am selling, I am very well optimised in the search engines.

So I have a website which is supporting a business perfectly. Its optimized in the search engine for the search phrases which are popular and relevant to the service. Despite this, so called internet “professionals” contact me every week trying to sell me their SEO services.

You can see exactly what they do. They find a small business website with the assumption they will know more about the internet than the websites owner. (He after all will be busy running his business) They will look at the main products and then trawl through Google to find a search phrase that the website doesn’t compete well with. Then they try and scare the business owner into signing up for their services.

This sort of thing really scares me. It makes me realize that there are people in my industry who manipulate our clients to make a quick buck. They are quite happy to modify a website to attract irrelevant traffic in order to make some money, with little care of the damage this does to the customer’s business. To embellish, if I had have listened to these hard selling con men, my website would either be attracting lots of people who needed surfboard wax or fins, or in the Holiday Rentals case, people who are looking for hire cars or accommodation at goodness knows which destination. One thing is for certain, people visiting the Gold Coast would not be hiring my surfboards.

If you are under pressure from an internet salesman to sign up for their optimization services, my advice is to first get a really good understanding from you clients, as to which search phrases they use on the internet when they are looking for your product. If the salesmen are trying to get you to optimize other phrases, don’t do business with them. At the very least they have not researched your market enough to work on your website. At its worse, they are just manipulating you in an attempt to wring some money out of you. Either way, it will damage your business.

If on the other hand you are not being hassled by these salesmen, yet understand the potential the internet has for your business but don’t know where to start, I recommend you start asking around your circle of friends. Try and find an operator that someone will recommend first hand. Just make it clear to them though you are looking for an internet marketer, not a designer. There are plenty of students or graphic artists out there who will be happy to take your cash and build you a masterpiece. It will be such a pity no-one will be able to find it.

Finally, if you are one of those internet marketers who abuses our great industry by running around, trying to extract a pound of flesh from every business you come by regardless of the value you add, change your ways. This industry is big enough for everyone so there is a place for you. But skill yourself up and don’t sell your services to businesses that don’t need them. Only sell your services where the person paying for them will benefit from them. Your reputation, your business and our industry will flourish if you follow this code. (By the way, its called being ethical)

Damian Papworth, concerned with the lack of ethics displayed by todays internet professionals, promotes ethics over greed You are welcome to reprint this article – but get your own unique content version here.


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This post was written by Damian Papworth on May 10, 2010

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