Fun with spam, part 2

A few weeks back I poked fun at the hapless people who have plenty of advice on how to build my business through link sharing and SEO suggestions. They didn’t get the hint, so I decided to make this an occasional series and really ridicule them.

First off, someone’s Maryland site needs help:

Good day!

My name is Marie and I am the site administrator of the site (redacted). I’m emailing you because our site is quite new and we need help from our fellow Maryland blog.

Can you please let me guest post at your website’s blog with the link of our site at my bio at the end of the article. Since your blog is about Maryland news, I can write about that or I can write about any topic you would want me to write.

It would be a pleasure if you would allow me to guest post at your blog. Thank you and I’m hoping for your positive response.


If Content Is King, Then Keywords Is Queen…

Number one, who in Maryland uses the salutation “good day”? I think “marie felipe” is somewhere across an ocean.

Second of all, why would I mess up my brand by awarding guest posts willy-nilly? I have had guest posts in the past, but they are germane to the broad subject at hand. Moreover, if you could write about any subject I wanted, it would likely have nothing to do with the site you claim to represent.

But the postscript gives it away. To me, content IS the absolute king and keywords might be the royal taster. Or maybe it cleans out the royal stables. My keyword is integrity. And shouldn’t it be “keywords are queen”? Seems awful plural to me, although I suppose the analogy would have to be extended to “keywords are queens” and that may raise the ire of some special-interest group.

Speaking of keywords, these damn SEO experts still seem to think my Google page ranking isn’t high enough. By the way, aside from redacting the free advertisement I post these exactly as written.

Dear Website Owner,

While searching the web we found that your website does not rank page 1 on google. 85% of users searching the web will never find your website unless you’re ranked on first page of Google, MSN and other major search engines. On the top of this with all these google update animals around ( Penguin & Pandas ) Its not easy to get page 1 and stay there to keep getting business.

Would you be interested If we can help you rank your online business first page of major search engines ?

Our company is on the first page when you search on Google for our primary search term “SEO Company.” We would like to do the same for your web site so you can come up for your main keywords as well? All of our processes use the most ethical “white hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized.

Leave aside the fact this is poorly written and came from an e-mail address with “carolyn” in it but was signed “Billy S.” There is a conundrum they don’t address: how is it they found my e-mail address and website if it wasn’t on the first page of Google? (And yes, Billy/carolyn, Google is always capitalized. Proofreading is your friend, although being actually fluent in English would be a close second for you.) Obviously I have enough of a ranking they felt they had to address the issue.

So why does my website: monoblogue.us needs SEO? (Yes, that’s the way it was written in the subject line.) Hell if I know, so I think I’ll pass on the generous 15-day free trial they offer. So far I’ve done well enough with the 2,700+ day free trial of building my audience from scratch in an SEO-free manner. And by the way, my wager is that they are Page 1 because they sponsored a link. If I wanted to pay I could be on page 1 that way as well.

They didn’t even argue content was king.

Finally, we have this:

My name is Mike and I noticed you talked about sales success and CRM software so I thought you would be interested in this infographic resource on the Success of a Salesman.

The reason why you want to post this (besides the fact that people like visual resources) is because it has a lot of great statistics and information for those interested in sales. For example, searching for information takes up to 24% of a sales person’s time which costs approximately $2.6 billion a year in lost revenue for a Fortune 500 company. Having an infographic like this will bring traffic to your site for years to come.

If you want to post it, all you need to do is copy and paste the text above the graphic. If you have a piece of content that you are trying to get out there please let me know. Also, to return the favor, let me know the URL you post it on so I can build links to your page, increasing your traffic, rankings and authority for that page.

If you have any questions or comments please let me know. I look forward to hearing back from you.

I’m not sure I’ve talked all that much about sales success, but I can pretty much guarantee you I’ve been silent on the subject of CRM software, well, until today that is.

The one thing Mike failed to mention is just how “an infographic like this will bring traffic to your site for years to come.” Now I will admit this seems a lot more legitimate than most offers I receive in that Mike had contact information at the bottom of the e-mail and the company he represents has an internet presence selling – you guessed it – sales CRM software. But I have several pictures and cartoons on my site and all they seem to bring me are spam comments. Yes, they are there to tell a story so they are indispensable but the one he was marketing did not.

And I think I know how I attracted their attention. This is from the company’s PR release announcing its American operations:

At the foundation of the development of the company and the Pipeliner product is a business philosophy based on the Austrian School of Economics.

With my somewhat libertarian leanings I’m sure my site has devotees who favor the Austrian School. This one wasn’t so bad but I simply have no context in which to place their infographic. Now if they want to buy space, we can perhaps work something out.

Maybe the Google search for “libertarian-leaning sites which poke fun at spam e-mailers” struck gold with that one.

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