Spammers Can Be Your Best Refferal!

LOL... but true - let me explain.

This happened about 6-7 months ago. I never had time to post it, but it's Friday and I'm taking it easy today.

I own a lot of random little sites, sites that make money with adsense, sites that are just lead generation, sites that just have a lot of content on them. Majority of them all run on Wordpress.

I typically never turn on Akismet when I start a blog (for those of you that don't know, it's a way to catch all spam comments). One of my blogs was getting spammed to hell - I mean like 100 spam comments a day.

I logged in to that account, to turn on Akismet and to delete the comments. As I'm going through them, I see a comment that looks like a real person was posting it in an effort gain a link. The website looks legit (not a spammy type domain with lots of dashes or from a different country).

I go to the website - looks good. I check out their rankings - it's lacking (especially for the keyword they were trying to comment link for).

I decide to check the WHOIS and see if I can get their content information. It was listed. I also go to their product pages (they sold an informational type of product) and got content information.

Next, I called and got the marketing directory. We talked a little bit - he was unaware that he was getting links the way I was telling him. He had hired an SEO firm to get links, but didn't want to get links by spamming, which I told him was going to be ineffective anyway. We chatted for about an hour and told me to put a proposal together.

I did, which was for about $1500/mo. and he got the owner on the phone. He agreed and it turned into a client.

My point is this: While going out and checking out the links the people are dropping on wordpress blogs to get links might be viable way to attract buyers who understand that SEO IS IMPORTANT, the real take-away here is:

RAPPORT.

I'm always telling my team to build rapport. Rapport isn't bad-mouthing another firm (I don't believe in doing that), but it is pointing out an ineffective marketing method to inflate organic rankings, which is what I did. If you build rapport with your prospective client out the gate, you can INSTANT TRUST, which is what you need to close the deal. Long gone are the days of business owners trusting you because you have a nice voice (not that I'm even old enough to remember such a time).

Face to face works easier for this type of rapport building, but when you're on the phone, you need to figure out ways to build rapport so that they don't need to "shake on it". In this instance, I showed the client other tactics that would be more effective in gaining rankings for their core keywords.

You can do this with any type of service you're offering. If it's SEO, show them that they're targeting the wrong keywords (non-buyers keywords or keyword with no search volume). If it's social media, show them that they need more activity or they're not engaging their clients and give clear-cut examples of competitors and non-competitors that "get it". If it's web design, show them the you not only understand web colors (blue = business...red = passion, etc...) but that you're designs increase conversions, which is what really matters.

Hope this helps you and grows your business... As I always say:

Educate: Build. Scale.