Almost every day, we at MPWR Design get cold emails from services claiming to help boost our SEO and improve our website’s search visibility. Maybe you get them too. If so, perhaps you’ve wondered if these services are legit, and if you should take advantage of what they offer. Let’s take a look at these unsolicited SEO service requests and what they mean for you.
The two-part offer
Typically, these emails include a problem and a solution. While some of the emails we receive recognize MPWR Design offers website design services and want to partner with us (for what it’s worth, we never respond to these and are not looking for partners to outsource our work), some of them don’t even take the time to dig that far. They go straight to the “problem” they present. Generally speaking, according to the email, your website is not easy to find on search engines like Google. The solution, of course, is to utilize their services. Many of these emails claim to offer “top rankings on Google” or a ranking “on the first page of Google.” But are either of these statements true?
Part 1: The scare
These emails often utilize scare tactics to make you think there’s something wrong with your website. But when you read these claims, you should ask yourself, “How did they find my website?” This email came from someone who doesn’t know you, and it’s very unlikely they were told about your site through word of mouth.
One email said exactly this: “I visited your website online and discovered that it was not showing up in any search results for the majority of keywords related to your company on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.” Doesn’t it make you wonder how they would even find a website if it truly didn’t show up in relevant search results on any of those sites?
The obvious answer is they discovered your site just like they found ours: through search results. The truth is, even if your website’s SEO in its current form is not the best it could be, it is at least good enough for these supposed SEO experts to find you. Ironic, isn’t it?
Part 2: The repair?
After attempting to convince you that your website needs help, next comes the sales pitch. It generally always offers the same end result: to place you on the first page of search results.
At this point, the next question you may wonder is if they can realistically deliver those types of results. Needless to say, since MPWR Design offers plenty of SEO tips of our own, we’re not looking to random email solicitors for help. We’re confident in our SEO results and are happy with the traffic we receive from search engines. These emails typically go straight to spam — in fact, while writing this article, I had to dig through spam messages to find quotes from the emails to share. But even if your SEO is not meeting your needs, are these claims trustworthy?
A few things jump off the screen at this point. First, these emails never reveal the company they represent. The return email is almost always a Gmail address, and if they offer another means of contact, it’s typically a WhatsApp number beginning with +91, the country code for India. So these solicitors are likely enterprising self-starters overseas who never present any type of credentials or business presence. A reputable person working in SEO or marketing would very likely have a business website and include it in any communication, and of course, it’s unlikely you’d receive cold emails from them. So based on that information alone, these solicitations are likely not coming from a reputable person who could help you best.
Beyond that, a claim to place you “on Google’s first page” is dubious. As we’ve detailed, many factors like location make search results inconsistent. If you offer local goods and services, it’s nearly impossible to rank “on Google’s first page” for a broad search term worldwide, and that’s because search engines like Google are not designed to work that way.
For additional reading: How does SEO work?
As we detail in the second point in this article, it’s important to have a realistic goals in your search results. A local taco shop will not show up as the #1 search result for “taco” worldwide, no matter what you do. If you offer the same type of product as a major brand, it will be very difficult to out-rank the large company, because Google tracks what people actually click on when they search and adjusts results accordingly.
It is, however, possible for a small business to rank in the first page of broad topics locally and niche topics globally. To be transparent, one of the reasons we offer dozens of WordPress tips is to enhance our search results. Some of our highest-ranking searches come from niche topics we offer advice on in these tips, and our goal in offering this information free of charge without ads is to build trust through sound advice in hopes that people will later utilize our services when they’re needed. And this strategy works for us. We’ve gained quite a few clients who originally found us through an online search.
The strategy you utilize for your SEO is ultimately up to you — but it wouldn’t be wise to entrust something so important to a random spam email solicitor.
