A client of mine recently received the following email entitled ‘professional analysis of kandtfootwear.co.uk’ and asked me to comment. I have seen an increase in these types of long SEO spam emails which contains inaccurate and false information misleading clients in to believing their web site is under-performing and need to pay a so called ‘expert’ to increase their visibility in the search engines. I have commented below on the email received.

Hi,

My name is [Removed name]. I’m a senior search consultant at Top 10 Guaranteed [A bit of research shows that they used to send exactly the same emails as a company called SEO Doctors and they are also known as The Web Clinic]. We are part of an IT Group that has been established for over 10 years as a leading specialist in all aspects of online sales and marketing.

Excuse the unusual approach, however I am writing to inform you that I recently visited your website, kandtfootwear.co.uk, during a routine survey of web sites which would be capable of achieving higher search engine performance. Obviously resulting in an increase in online sales or the generation of high volumes of additional sales leads. [hmmm.. debatable having looked at your own web site(s) top10guaranteed.co.uk has a page ranking of 0/10]

I am confident that this information will be of use to you, but if I have caused offence in any way through my approach I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. I’m hoping this will arouse your curiosity, since you are obviously attempting to gain new business through your website.

From my initial observations, your website is underperforming in at least one of the major search engines such as – Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You probably are aware that most people don’t look past the first page of search results. [The web site is actually no. 1 for targeted keywords. Try a search for ‘agricultural footwear‘] I struggled to find you in the first couple of pages for highly relevant keyphrases, which means that you could be losing out on a significant amount of business. As such I did a bit more digging… [You conveniently haven’t listed the highly relevant ‘keyphrases’ mentioned and you don’t know what is being targeted]

I ran a back-link check on kandtfootwear.co.uk first. Back-links are the number of times your site is linked to through another website. Your website has 5 back-links. [This is inaccurate – if you had researched this, you will find that the web site actually has 148 back-links!]

Back-links also contribute towards your Google Pagerank score. Pagerank is Google telling us how trustworthy your site is. A higher score = higher search rankings. Right now your website has a Google Pagerank score of 3/10, [3/10 is pretty reasonable for a small to medium sized business] which, when compared to other high ranking competitor websites, may be restricting your rankings. This can be down to many reasons which we can help resolve. The next check I applied on your website was page indexing. Search engines like Google scan the information on your website and feed it back to their database. The Google formula is then applied to the data to determine where your website should rank. As such the more pages your website has indexed with quality unique content, the higher you can rank with Google. Right now, your site has 14 pages indexed with Google [Google actually has 15 pages indexed – i’m not sure what methods you are using to gain this information or if you are even doing any research?], and Google is regarding some of that content as poor. This can be down to many reasons which we can help resolve. Finally I also identified that there could be a number of structural issues with your website which may be having a negative impact on your search rankings.

So, here’s a recap of my findings of gdock.co.uk [gdock.co.uk?!] :

– Your Google Pagerank is 3/10
– You have 5 back-links [Incorrect]
– Your website has 14 pages indexed [Incorrect]
– There are issues with content and site structure [Incorrect]

I have only scratched the surface of the factors impacting on your rankings [This is very true!!]. Unlike some of our competitors, I wanted to do some initial work to identify that it would be worthwhile for you to talk to us before contacting you with my proposal. The best way to deal with any problem is to first apply a thorough diagnosis. It would, therefore, be a sensible next step for us to apply a more thorough diagnosis of why your website may not be ranking well before discussing with you what could be done about it.

What we have to offer could prove to be the most value for money investment you could make for your business this year. In an economic climate that is difficult, to say the least, all businesses must invest in areas that will deliver maximum returns with minimal investment. [Again true ..but why would i invest in a company that sends spam emails with false information?] Only strong search engine listings offer real growth opportunities as consumer trends change.

So what do we have to offer? Many factors now impact on how and where you will appear on the search engines. Unfortunately, most business people overlook the things that prevent them from performing well in the search engines and throw good money behind advertising without understanding what their web site really needs.

Good SEO firms assess the needs of sites individually and address these by working on sites month on month. A one off fix just doesn’t work. As such we offer two approaches for you to consider.

We can produce a detailed 30-40 page Diagnostic Report for your site together with a personal telephone consultation with one of our SEO experts. Consultations explain the technicalities in our report in an easy to understand manner. Our normal price for this service is £499.00. If you are prepared to act this week we are prepared to offer this at a reduced one-off fee of £299.00. Following this consultation we can discuss how best to rectify the situation.

Alternatively we could provide this detailed Diagnostic Report for your site completely free [With accurate results?]. For this you would need to commit to take up our 12 month optimisation and consultancy service prior to our work commencing. The service is based around promotion of specific agreed keyphrases after discussing how to put right all issues highlighted in our report. We can deliver first page search results in the major search engines. For this we charge as little as £35 per keyphrase, per month, dependent upon the competitiveness of that keyphrase. Furthermore, we guarantee to refund your money should we fail to put you in the first page for the keyphrases once all changes have been implemented.

The reason why I’m so confident about our capabilities is because we have done it so many times before. To name a few examples: Maternity Clothes, Dubai Properties, Gravel, Health Store, Van Hire, Fire Extinguishers, Financial Advisers UK, Coffee Machines, Swimwear, Limo Hire, Mortgage Advisers UK, and more – all are on the first page of Google and all highly competitive keyphrases. We put them there. [There is no mention in your email about keyword analysis, this is extremely important as you may get the web site to no.1 but if nobody is searching for that keyword, there is absolutely no point in wasting your efforts]

Our own group website is in the first page of Google for Website Marketing Company and Internet marketing companies [You are currently on pg 3 for ‘Internet marketing companies’]. You will see our site listed as The Web Clinic [So are you The Web Clinic or Top 10 Guaranteed? – Confusing]. To satisfy you even further we can also provide you with comparative existing client’s contact details to serve as references for the quality of our work.

If you are genuinely serious about improving your online revenues and want professional website marketing for a low flat monthly fee or a one-off detailed report, please visit our service website at www.top10guaranteed.co.uk which provides more details about our excellent service and a call back form. See a selection of our excellent testimonials and example results achieved recently on behalf of our clients. Alternatively, if you prefer to discuss your requirements over the phone, then please don’t hesitate to contact me on 0844 7404951 and press Option 1 or simply reply to this mail with a convenient time to call you. [No, Thanks]

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[Name & phone no removed]
Senior Search Consultant
Top 10 Guaranteed