Search Engine Optimization

SEO, Email Marketing, and Ethics: Part II

Yesterday I discussed some of the issues that plague email marketing, in terms of what is "ethical" or "unethical", and how some tactics are perceived both inside the industry and outside of it.

Although the term "spam" is most often associated (negatively) with email marketing, it's just as prevalent in search engine optimization (SEO). In one form or another, people have been spamming the search engines for almost as long as SEO has been in existence! Common spam techniques past and present include: Spammed domain names (www.spam-spam-spamspam-spam.com); spammed meta tags ("spam keyword spam keyword spam spam keyword); spammed text ("we offer spam, spam, spam, spam and spam"); doorway pages (spam site 1, spam site 2, spam site 3... spam site 3,742...); hidden text (if this background was black, you wouldn't see all the hidden spamspamspamspamspam!); and link farms ("here's a list of 831 totally unrelated and worthless websites we've linked to!"). The one thing they all have in common is that all of them exist solely to try to fool the search engines into giving top ranking to a website that might otherwise go unnoticed.

However, although many of those techniques are annoying, are they necessarily unethical? Granted, search engines punish you for them these days, and most visitors aren't thrilled by them either, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're "wrong". There is nothing technically unethical about buying a spammed domain name, provided the site actually offers that product or service. Spammed meta tags became so common that most spiders don't even read tags anymore, and after all they don't affect the visual appearance of a website. Spammed text content probably does more harm than good, because with a large number of quality sites available, most web surfers aren't going to waste their time digging through poorly written, obviously spammed content to find what they want. Hidden text doesn't hurt the visitor because by definition, most will never even know it exists. Link farms? Worthless, in a way, but harmless basically. Three pages of links you don't care about doesn't really harm the rest of the site. One could even argue the same for doorway pages: Who cares if multiple versions of a website exist, as long as they really do offer the product or service?

The problems arose because some of these sites did NOT really offer the products or services, or did not offer good quality compared to others. However, they choked those worthier sites out of the top rankings by employing every trick in the book to grab 7 of the top 10 placements on any given search engine. Search engines did not appreciate being exploited, and web surfers howled. The spam techniques were considered unethical at that point, because they were actively working against the stated purpose of the search engines (to provide useful and relevant search results) and the stated desire of web surfers (again, useful and relevant search results).

Enter the infamous "re-indexing", where search engines not only shake up their search results, but frequently tweak their ranking algorithms as well, in their ongoing effort to keep one step ahead of (or behind?) the exploits. Spammed meta tags were one of the first to go, along with spammed text content and spammed domain names. Hidden text was next on the block. Link farms are currently receiving the same treatment. Far from being beneficial, these tactics will now, at best, do nothing to help your site, and at worst can get your website(s) blacklisted.

However, many techniques still exist that exploit various aspects of search engine technology, one of the best-known being cloaking. Whether or not it is unethical can be difficult to say, although from the point of view of the search engine, it breaks their rules, and hence MUST be considered unethical. For the user, as long as they get relevant and useful results, that's a harder call to make. SEO professionals, by definition, try to get the best possible rankings for their clients, and the more they get, the better. Therefore, it could be argued that there's nothing unethical about just doing their jobs.

In my opinion, stated repeatedly in this blog, the best policy is to stick as close to the search engine guidelines as possible, and to offer a quality website. Don't break the rules, and don't encourage others to do so. The guidelines are in place for very sound reasons in most cases, and they have a great deal to do with site relevance and usability. Obviously, the soundest approach is to make sure that your website is, in fact, relevant and user-friendly! Otherwise, all the rankings in the world will not help you sell your product or sign up clients for your service. Your site needs to be informative, easy to navigate, and provide a good way for the visitor to contact you.

In SEO terms, the most ethical way to approach it is to make sure that the site you are sending visitors to is actually worthy of the rankings that you are attempting to gain. If you have to resort to tricks and subterfuge for ranking, then the odds are that the site itself doesn't deserve them. Instead, consider adding some quality text content to the site, trying to get some relevant backlinks, and cleaning up the meta tags so that they have some actual relevance. There are plenty of ways to help a site gain rankings that can only benefit the visitor and the business owner, so there can be no ethics questions involved!

SEO, Email Marketing, and Ethics: Part I

A topic which surfaces periodically in the industry newsletters is the question of "ethical marketing", particularly related to email marketing or search engine optimization (SEO). Some people say that there are "black hat" SEO techniques, the "bad" techniques done by "bad" people, some say that anything which is done to a site to try to raise ranking is bad, others feel that anything goes in the rankings wars. Similarly, there are some who believe only "spam" (bulk) email is wrong, some who believe ALL email advertising is wrong, and some who feel that they can and should do anything they want via email.

As an internet marketing professional, I can't agree with the purists who feel that no marketing should be done via email. I also cannot agree that websites should not be thought of as marketing tools and manipulated accordingly. On the other hand, I soundly denounce those who feel that internet marketing is a free-for-all.

In this article, we'll discuss email marketing. Is it a legitimate marketing technique, the root of all internet evil, or somewhere in between? Is there any way for legitimate email marketing to continue, but shut down the spammers?

"GOOD" EMAIL VS. "BAD" EMAIL

Good and bad are subjective terms, and it's not really possible to lay down clear boundaries of what is good or bad for marketing purposes. However, I think that all parties could agree that it is "bad" marketing if the end effect is to annoy a lot of people to the point of doing damage to the advertising client. Spam email annoys people. A LOT. If a marketer repeatedly sends out spam email blasts for a particular client, then people who hate spam will associate it with that company. This, then, is "bad" marketing, by almost any standards. You've annoyed millions of people, your client has gotten a bad name, and nobody wins.

Spam is also "bad" marketing because it harms the marketing community, and their clients, as a whole. The technique is so hated that it has launched an entire new industry devoted to stamping it out. This has led to spam filters, anti-spam software, anti-spam legislation, and endless complaints to ISP's to get websites shut down. If it really is annoying and totally unsolicited email, that's one thing, but innocent victims often get caught in the net. Many legitimate emails get blocked by overzealous spam filters, and many email campaigns generated through validated opt in lists generate complaints or threats under new laws. Spammers could care less as long as some of their email gets through, but those of us who play by the rules are finding that legitimate advertising options are being taken away, through no fault of our own.

Validated opt in, or permission-based, email wears the white hat in this battle, but it too has some problems. For starters, some people get signed up on opt-in lists by other people, as a joke or for more malicious reasons. They are understandably angry at receiving unwanted email. Other problems arise if legitimate subscribers opt out of a list, and continue to receive email for weeks or even months.

For ethical, "good" email marketing, good list management is absolutely essential! All opt in subscribers should be verified by sending a confirmation email. Opt outs should be honored as promptly as possible. The list should not be over used, to the point where legitimate email becomes spam by sheer volume. If you have an opt-in list for your customers, don't sell that information unless you want to risk losing a customer. Never release any of their information without their consent.

If you're a business owner who is considering an email marketing campaign, think seriously before you go with a bulk email marketer. The prices might look attractive, but the fallout could be deadly. Odds are, most of your email won't even reach its intended target, since it will be filtered out first. That which does will probably be deleted without being read -- if you're lucky. If you're not, they could complain to your hosting service and get your website shut down. Your company's good name will suffer.

The more people try to block spam, the smarter the spammers become. The only way to put an end to spam email on a permanent basis is to make sure that no one can make any money doing it. Don't pay someone to run bulk email campaigns, and don't purchase anything through spam offers. If it doesn't pay, they'll stop playing. One final thing: If you receive an email which offers something illegal, then report that company IMMEDIATELY. Examples include promising prescription drugs without any kind of doctor validation, or promising to repair someone's damaged credit.

Flash and SEO

One of the longest-standing issues between web designers and search engine marketers has been the question of Flash. Flash, an animation program from Macromedia, can be very versatile and exciting in the hands of a good programmer. Flash can be used to animate banners, create movies, or create an entire website. When done well, in an appropriate industry, a Flash site can really get a great response from its visitors.

Marketers, however, hate them, and with good reason. We search engine marketers don't have the luxury of looking at a site for aesthetic appeal; we are forced to look at it from the inside out, with the eye of a computer program wtih absolutely no appreciation for artistry. In order for a site to perform well across the broadest possible range of search engines, it needs to supply the kind of information that excites computer programs. This information includes text, text, and more text. With maybe a little extra text thrown in, just for good measure.

So the problem is, you've just spent several thousand dollars on your Flash site, it's beautiful, your test group raves over it, and your marketer tells you it's useless. Can't rank. Waste of money. Flash is a graphical programming language, and while the visitor sees exciting pictures that usually incorporate plenty of text content, the search engine sees a call to a Flash file, and that's about it. Flash sites, historically, rank poorly if at all.

Recently it was discovered that Google was finding a way to rank some Flash sites, apparently reading the actual program files and picking out text words (see our post on "Flash Websites, Internet Marketing, and Conversions"), giving hope to Flash programmers that their hard work would finally gain some recognition on the internet.

Now there's even more good news: Macromedia has announced that they have an entire division which is devoting itself to coming up with an SEO-friendly version of Flash. If they succeed, it will be a godsend to marketers and designers alike, and business owners won't be caught in the middle of the war anymore. It promises a new era of cooperation between Flash and the search engines.

Let's hope that they succeed, because there are no losers in that scenario!

Marketing Sherpa Weblog Survey

Marketing Sherpa is conducting a contest for the best blogs in various categories. The SharpNET weblog is one of only 6 in the category of "Blogs for online marketing". Out of more than 50 blogs originally nominated, only 29 made the cut to be in the contest. If you like our SharpNET blog, and you feel it's been informative to you, feel free to give us a vote! It's also a good chance to check out some of the other blogs out there, not just for internet marketing but also for small business marketing, business to business, public relations, and other marketing topics. The blogs all take slightly different approaches and have different specialties. If you've got the time to check a few out, it's not only fun but very informative as well (and of course if you should choose to give our blog a good review, we'd be very grateful). I have bookmarked a couple of the other blogs for my personal reference, in those areas that I don't feel very informed about.

There is a wealth of information available online for almost any specialty, and good weblogs are one of the newest and most convenient ways to get up-to-date information. A blog that is updated regularly will reflect the current trends and tides of the business world, and provide helpful, inside information on how to deal with some of the changes that are taking place.

Therefore I'd also like to encourage anyone out there who has a specialty area of their own to create their own blog! It's easy, it's fun, and it's a great way to share information. There are a number of free blogs available, as well as paid services that offer more options. If you could invest an hour or two a week into creating an online resource for your specialty, there will be people who will appreciate your efforts!

TIPS ON CREATING A USEFUL BLOG:

1. Keep to the point. If you're creating a blog for your business, discuss things relevant to your business and your company.

2. Decide what "voice" to use. Do you want to be friendly? Professional? Analytical? This will depend on who your target audience is. If your target audience is stay-at-home moms who do crafting and scrapbooks, your tone should probably be very warm and friendly, spoken in first person and using your own voice. On the other hand, a blog on industry trends aimed at engineers should be impersonal, analytical, and up-to-the-minute.

3. To advertise or not to advertise, that is the question. Where to advertise is another question. Personally, I find ads placed in the text body of newsletters and blogs to be very annoying. If you're going to do banner advertising, consider placing it off to the side so that your readers can get through your entire post uninterrupted.

4. Listen to your readers. Blog readers will make comments on the blog and will frequently send you email. You'd be well-advised to pay heed to their words -- often you can get some good advice and feedback, to keep your blog as useful and up-to-date as possible!

Viruses, Worms, and Bad Decisions

The good news is, they have caught the author of the Sasser worm. The bad news is, that internet worm successfully crippled several large international organizations, and hundreds or thousands of smaller companies and banks and personal computers. This wasn't one of the email worms that savvy computer users can easily avoid; Sasser snuck in through backdoors of computers without adequate firewalls, or with no firewalls at all, and spread like wildfire.

More good news: They believe the suspect may be the one who authored all 28 variants of the Netsky virus. I get on average about 100 versions of Netsky every day in my email (all blocked by anti-virus software). Having that virus shut down will be a personal blessing, and with any luck, the infected computers will slowly get cleaned up, and that one will disappear into the sunset.

The bad news is, shutting down one 18-year-old computer whiz from Germany will not solve the problem. As software and security grows ever more advanced, so do the authors of the worms, viruses, and Trojans that plague us on the internet. Many of these authors are in their teens or barely out of them, and one thing heard almost universally is, "I didn't think it would do this much damage." Almost all of them insist that they didn't mean to harm anyone. Maybe they really didn't. People do a lot of things they shouldn't out of a sense of curiosity. "I wonder if I could write one of those worms," the computer whiz thinks, and decides to try it, feeling pride and excitement when it works -- which changes to horror as it spreads across the world and shuts down major corporations, and suddenly they're looking at a Federal jail sentence. I can actually believe in this scenario. I could see myself at age 18 thinking it was kind of fun and dangerous, a cool challenge, and never in a million years imagining how out of hand it could get (I would never have gotten to the point of actually launching it, though, fearing repercussions on even a minor scale).

So what can we do to protect ourselves, at home and at work? The advice remains the same: Install anti-virus software and keep it updated; install a good firewall; keep your internet security settings high; keep your Windows updated; avoid questionable websites; don't open email attachments from anybody you don't know; scan your computer regularly with anti-virus, anti-Trojan, and anti-spyware software, in case something got past your barriers. The Netsky virus is carried via email, with a standard set of subject lines, and is easily blocked with anti-virus software. The Sasser worm was stopped by patches from both Symantec and Microsoft. None of my computers have been infected by these common threats.

The warning: Take the threat seriously. Stop thinking that you can avoid computer trouble by simply not opening email from unknown senders. The viruses, worms and Trojans get more sophisticated every day, in response to the ever-increasing efforts to block them. Taking routine precautions won't stop everything, but not taking them could be a nightmare.

There's a deeper level which is perhaps more philosophical, but here's the dilemma: How can we channel the creativity and intelligence of these worm authors in a more positive direction? With their obvious skills, they are probably capable of creating great software programs that could be useful and innovative. They'd be great in tech support. They'd be great internet detectives, helping track down other authors of harmful internet bugs. They'd be great for product testing, to identify these potential weaknesses and plug the holes before the product ever goes on the market. How do we convince them that putting their talents to good use will ultimately be more fun than testing a computer worm that wreaks havoc across international borders in a matter of hours, maybe costing them years of freedom?

18-year-old Sven Jaschan is almost certainly facing jail time. I wonder if he thinks it was worth it.

Privacy on the Internet

The outcry over aspects of Google's proposed new "Gmail" has brought an old argument back to life. Privacy advocates are opposed not only to the ads that Google proposes to place in personal emails, but also by the fact that these same personal emails will not be deleted -- even if the user attempts to delete them.

What does this mean, in practice? It means that: A) Your personal emails will be available to someone, somewhere, for an essentially indefinite time period; and B) Your personal emails will be put through a spider and altered by the addition of ad content, based on your personal communications. In practice, it means that if you're writing something confidential, self-incriminating, or inflammatory, you'd be well-advised to pick a different email service (or of course reconsider writing it in the first place). It also means that you could be sending emails back and forth with a friend, perhaps discussing a visit to the dentist, and suddenly find a paid advertisement for toothpaste showing up in them. If you'd find this unnerving, annoying, intrusive, or all of the above, this is not the email service for you. So in the small picture, people can avoid potential privacy issues by simply not using Gmail, or corresponding with those who do.

What is the bigger picture? The very strengths of the internet become weaknesses where privacy is concerned. You can easily share information with literally millions of people with just a mouse-click, but the down side is, that information is now available to any number of people. Those other people might copy it, steal it, or use it for malicious purposes, and most of the time, you wouldn't even know.

Free and open email communication, sending information across the world in seconds, also carries risks. Spam permeates email inboxes everywhere, pounding recipients with useless and unwanted information. All of it carries the risk of a hidden virus bomb which will detonate on your computer, doing everything from sending out spam to your friends, to hijacking your browser and implanting spyware on your computer. Some of that spyware can be put to malicious use, stealing passwords, PIN numbers, and personal information, leaving you at serious risk of being stolen from or defrauded.

Privacy issues are dominating many discussion forums and articles, both in the internet industry and in the general public. Identity theft is becoming a serious problem, along with the other less dangerous but still annoying hassles.

But is privacy really even possible on the internet? Is there really any way to patch all the holes, and protect yourself from every potential risk? The unfortunate truth is, probably not. An intelligent and malicious hacker will almost always manage to penetrate your defenses, particularly if you are a private citizen, whose computer is not protected behind the massive firewalls of the major corporations (which are by no means impenetrable). Almost everyone has been on the receiving end of virus attacks, and many people have found spyware on their computers when a more-knowledgeable friend suggested they run a check. Most of the spyware is neither harmful nor malicious, but it sill comes as a shock if you don't know it's there. I am an internet professional, and my home computer is guarded by several layers of firewalls and protection software -- yet last night, with one careless mouse-click, I got my browser hijacked, my anti-virus shut down, and bought myself almost 3 hours of computer cleansing before I got rid of it all.

In an imperfect world, the solution is to protect yourself as best you can by being proactive. Just as those who don't want their emails saved indefinitely should probably not use Gmail, there are other things you can do to protect yourself:

1. Don't have your passwords and PIN numbers saved on your computer, no matter how well-protected you think it is. It's better to take the time to type in the password every time than to have some stranger with bad intentions getting into your bank account (besides, that way you won't forget it!).

2. Don't use the same password for everything either, and don't write them down where they can be found.

3. Make sure any site you are going to purchase from has clearly posted privacy policies, and read them. Otherwise, you might find yourself on an unwanted mailing list faster than you can hit "send".

4. Don't save personal financial information or credit card information on your computer.

5. Never, ever, place orders through unsecured websites, from companies that you have not heard of.

6. If you have any reason to believe that your computer has been compromised, immediately change any and all passwords, both locally, and online. Do it IMMEDIATELY. Don't wait. And keep a close eye on all of your credit cards and bank accounts for the next few weeks.

7. If you're a business, make your site as secure as possible, including using secure servers and certificates, and encryption. If you are made aware of a violation, take immediate and aggressive action to combat it.

Protect yourself and your customers as best you can, but be aware that at some point, you too will probably be a victim of some sort of internet privacy violation.

How To Avoid Internet Scams

Yesterday's incidents reminded me of how easy it is for people to be taken in by apparently legitimate offers. The scam which was brought to my attention was relatively easy for me to see through, but that's because I am familiar with how businesses operate on the internet, and that includes some of the behind-the-scenes details that are definitely not common knowledge. People with less internet knowledge might not be so lucky.

The scams are out there everywhere, and they hide behind different faces. Instead of debunking them one at a time, I've compiled a 2-part list of things to do when investigating a new business opportunity. The first part is standard precautionary measures, the second part is aimed specifically at internet businesses, and includes some information that those who don't work in the tech sector might not know.

BASIC BACKGROUND CHECKS

1. Check out the business with the Better Business Bureau. See if there are any complaints against that business, or the principals of that business. If you can't find out who owns it, beware: Legitimate businesses do not hide their owners, presidents, CEO's, etc. Remember: A clean record with the BBB is a good place to start, but it does not guarantee that the company is clean.

2. Check out the business credentials. Where is it located? Is that a valid address? Who owns it? Who runs it? If they won't give you a physical address, that's another red flag.

3. Check out the offer. If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Do your research carefully. Be particularly cautious with any "opportunity" that wants you to pay money up front, or asks for detailed information about your bank accounts (the Nigerian scam is infamous on that score)!

INTERNET INVESTIGATIONS

1. Check out the behind-the-scenes details of the website. Who owns the URL? Who is the administrative contact (should be someone in a position of authority at the same company)? Who is the technical contact? Where are all these people located? Does this information fit with what is given on the website itself? To find this information, go to one of the sites where you can research domain ownership. Network Solutions or GeekTools both offer "whois" tools. Type in the website name (for example, insyncsoft.com), and the information should pull up. Watch for red flags. In the case of the scam I learned about yesterday, the website claims they are in Czechoslovakia, the offer claims that they arein Ukraine, the admin contact is in Ohio (that street address turned out to be for a garbage facility -- nice touch, eh?) and the technical contact is in Canada. Red flags all over the place. If that information is protected or not given, that is another red flag. Again, legitimate businesses do not hide, and do not discourage people from contacting them.

2. Check out the offer. In this case, they wanted people to "process PayPal payments". First of all, no company needs a middle man to do this; PayPal payments can be made in multiple currencies to anyone with an email address! Second, no company is going to limit themselves by using only one method of payment, which requires them to pay out 10% - 20% of their profits to a middleman right away. Legitimate businesses have merchant accounts, and can process orders through a secure online shopping cart. It doesn't matter what country you're in. If your business has the right financial credentials, you can get a merchant account.

3. Check out the company. If you have the company name, do a search for it on Google, MSN, or whatever your favorite search engine is. See what else comes up. In this case, you would have quickly discovered that the domain name (www.insyncsoft.com) was for sale in 2002 -- which doesn't fit if the company has supposedly been in business since 1999. Check out their products too. This bogus company claimed to have created "successful software products" including Atrides, RelaniumPost, and X-draw. Personally, I'd never heard of any of them, and I'm not impressed by fancy names. A search for "Atrides" pulls up a site in Russian about a cat. X-draw is free software created by Riku Saikkonen. RelaniumPost gets no matches at all. These are fakes.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU UNCOVER A SCAM

1. Contact the ISP for the website. This is the company hosting the website. By hosting them, they are abetting illegal activities. Lay out the facts, and try to get the website shut down.

2. Contact the people listed as owners or contacts. Odds are, these are fake addresses, but you might get through. Make it clear that you know this is a scam and are pursuing action against them.

3. If you've been scammed, contact the authorities. Give them every bit of information you possess, and help them catch the scam artists in question.

4. If you've seen the site/scam advertised anywhere, notify the sponsor that this is a scam. In this case, the scam was posted on both Monster.com and jobseeker. They have been notified, and asked to pull the ads.

Scams exploit ignorance. Educate yourself, your co-workers, your family and your friends, and you can protect them from being taken for a very expensive ride. The half hour you spend doing background research could save you from a nightmare experience. Just ask Tina, the stay-at-home mom who lost $3000 in one month to a fake company called Insyncsoft.

SCAM ALERT!!!!! Beware of InsyncSoft.com

SCAM ALERT!!!!!

Apparently, there are people out there who like the content on some of the websites for SharpNET Solutions and our various divisions. Unfortunately, they have chosen to show their approval by stealing our content, word for word, and in one case, content was placed on a website which is a SCAM.

Accordingly, SharpNET Solutions would like to issue the following warning:

IF YOU SEE ANY POSTING FOR JOBS THROUGH INSYNCSOFT.COM, IF YOU ARE DOING BUSINESS WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, OR IF YOU ARE IN CONTACT WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, BE AWARE THAT THEY HAVE STOLEN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM SHARPNET SOLUTIONS. THREE PAGES OF THEIR WEBSITE ARE WORD-FOR-WORD COPIES OF OUR SHARPSOFT WEBSITE. FURTHER, KNOW THAT THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN USED IN A SCAM OPERATION, IN WHICH AT LEAST ONE WOMAN HAS LOST $3000.00 TO DATE. IF YOU, OR ANYONE YOU KNOW, HAS ANY DEALINGS WITH INSYNCSOFT.COM, YOU SHOULD CONTACT THE FBI, TO AID THEM IN APPREHENDING THESE FELONS. SharpNET Solutions is taking immediate legal action against the plagiarism of our website copy, and the scam victim has contacted the FBI. In addition, Monster.com, who posted the bogus job offer from this company, has also been contacted.

We would also like to point out that, to date, we have found word-for-word copies of our content on 3 other URL's, all of which had ripped off this copyright-protected material in an attempt to improve their own website rankings -- in at least one case, on the website of one of our competitors.

We strongly encourage every reader of this blog to check Google to see if you have been plagiarism victims. It's very easy to do: Just cut and paste a unique sentence of your content into the Google search bar, and see what comes up. If you find that other people have used your content without your permission, we encourage you to follow up on in immediately by contacting the administrative contact, the technical contact, and also the hosting service.

Make sure that your honest, accurate content is not being used by unethical people, for unethical purposes!

The Unhappy Client

We've all had them. The clients, the projects, that no matter what you do, it just doesn't work. Maybe it's an SEO campaign that simply doesn't perform, no matter how many angles you approach it from. All the things that work for every other client seem to produce nothing at all for this one. Maybe it's a web design that the client is never happy with, despite your attempts to do everything that they ask for. Maybe it's an email campaign that fell flat on its face, or a custom software application that takes twice as long to debug as it should. Sooner or later, your one-happy client relationship turns ugly. It happens to everybody, because that's the nature of the beast.

So what do you do in these cases? To an extent, that depends on the job, on the client, and on your company's philosophy. Our company will do our best to save the client relationship in almost all cases, by offering them a few months of free SEO, a make-good email campaign, etc. Mostly, we try very hard to open the lines of communication with the client.

STRATEGIES FOR HANDLING THE UNHAPPY CLIENT:

1. TALK TO THEM. Nothing takes a client from "unhappy" to "furious" faster than feeling as though they are being ignored. If a client has expressed their dissatisfaction to you, then someone needs to get back to them as soon as possible and assure them that their concerns are being looked into. Even if the first call is just to tell them that you've got someone looking into the situation, and you'll call them back as soon as you have more information, that can go a long way toward calming the client down.

2. Research the concerns. When you do call the client back for the in-depth discussion, make sure you've got all your facts straight, and have them at your fingertips. Know the terms of the contract, know exactly what was promised and when, know if they are current on payment or not. Read through past correspondence, paying particular attention to any concerns they have expressed, and whether or not those were addressed properly. And always, always make sure that you are willing to accept responsibility for any problems on your end. Don't make a bad situation worse by not really knowing what's going on; the client will feel that you're lying to them, or that they've been passed off to someone whose job is just to shut them up.

3. Know what your options are. This comes directly from #2 above. If you know exactly what was promised and what's been done, you'll know what you can do from here. If you've more than fulfilled the contract, and the work is satisfactory from that perspective, then there might not be much more that you can do. If you've fulfilled the basic terms of the contract but the outcome was NOT satisfactory, then you should be ready to offer them a solution which will lead to the result that was promised. Know if you can offer them some "freebies", and if so, how many, and how long it will take to set things right.

4. Know when to get out. You've done everything you can, and the client is still not happy. You gave them free design work, but they're never happy, or they keep changing their minds. You've created a neat little software application that does precisely what they requested, but now they want more, or different. You've revisited their website(s) once a month for 6 months, trying to find a better way to optimize, they've got great rankings, but no traffic. Maybe they have great rankings AND traffic, but no sales. Whatever the case, there comes a time with some clients when you just have to admit that it isn't going to work out. Hopefully it doesn't happen very often, but it will happen sometimes. When that time comes, get out. Do it as gracefully as possible, be tactful, be apologetic that things could not work out, but get out before you lose more time and money on a project that is doomed to failure.

Sometimes the unhappy client has good cause, sometimes they don't. Both types of clients need to be treated the same way though, whenever possible. Be attentive, be concerned, be responsive, and be helpful. Don't burn any bridges, you never know what might happen in the future. Yesterday's unhappy client just might be tomorrow's referral. It's happened to me!

Internet Business: Not For Everyone?

Instead of approaching this from a purely business standpoint today, I'm going to take a slightly philosophical look at the internet marketplace, and who can succeed there.

Anyone who's spent time on the internet knows that certain businesses thrive and flourish there, and theoretically, anyone with a good real estate, mortgage, insurance, debt consolidation, etc., business could find solid success with a good website and some savvy marketing. Similarly, the internet has opened a number of niche markets for people who have found unexpectedly dazzling success selling fairly unglamorous products, such as tires.

But pure business aside, is the internet for everyone? It could be argued that it is not, because not everyone is up to the daily challenges presented by the world wide web. The web is a dynamic, evolving organism, which is touched daily by millions of people all over the globe. It does not sit static and grow old, and anyone who works on the internet or hopes for business success there needs to be ready to change pace with little or no warning. It's the nature of the beast. The internet offers the most advanced, most current, most "cutting edge" opportunities -- but, in order to take advantage of them, you need to be prepared to live on the edge. If you live on the edge, you need to understand that sometimes, you fall off. And you don't always land on your feet.

So is this risk for everyone? Perhaps not. That doesn't mean that people who prefer a more stable business (or life, for that matter) can't explore internet opportunities. It just means that they probably won't find themselves at the forefront of the evolution, except by accident. It means they could achieve modest success, but probably won't be one of the breakout thrill rides that have skyrocketed some people to the top. All things considered, they might be happier that way.

What does it take to stay on the forefront of the ever-changing internet? It takes a willingness to immerse yourself in it, day in and day out, so that you can be the one spotting the trends, instead of reading about them 6 months later. It takes a willingness to abandon your success formula overnight, and start again from the ground up when you see that yesterday's solution is today's problem. It takes a willingness to change your services, switch products, or revamp your website, on a routine basis. It means trying to out-guess the millions of faceless internet users worldwide, and give them what they want. For many people, that prospect is one giant headache.

For me, as of yesterday afternoon, it means trying to figure out how Yahoo!'s new search program fits into my SEO world, and that's not going to be easy. For the past few months, it has meant revisiting a lot of websites and examining the optimization used, seeing if I can tweak or improve it to please Google, who's been changing the rules constantly.

It means daily challenges and, yes, sometimes frustrations, but it's exciting, and it's a great feeling when it all comes together, and you have a website that offers the right thing, at the right time, is designed and optimized just right, and you get to see it fly to the top of the rankings and get sales through the roof. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's all worth it!