I’m sure you, like many of your clients, get one of these spam/scam emails periodically. A few are legit, but most are not. Some of them, like this one (after the break) are subtle and claim to have looked or analyzed your site. Others proclaim blatantly that there is something egregiously wrong with your site and ‘they’ have a fix. Almost ALL of them are unsolicited and annoying, as in this case, where I’ve received no less than 5 duplicates of this particular email in less than 20 days AND apparently I must take time out of my day and away from my clients to actively respond to stop them.
So, let’s look at Peter and his email(s) to us…
Hi,
I’m looking at your current website: www.what-if.com and I’m wondering if you’ve thought about updating the design?
My name is Peter Redpath and I am a website designer and search engine optimisation specialist.
We work with clients all over Australia and every single client that we’ve worked with have seen a positive increase in their search engine rankings. In fact, most of our clients are ranked on the top half of the first page of Google for most of their keywords.
I am confident that I can design you a great looking website that will not only give you a fresh look, but is also focused on generating more visitors, leads & revenue for your business.
Our websites are mobile responsive, load quickly and come optimised around your keywords at no extra cost, although we do recommend on-going search engine optimisation in most cases.
Obviously just having a website isn’t enough and you need it to be ranking well in Google to drive business to you. This can be achieved by using on-going SEO services. Results are generally seen within 2 – 6 months.
If this sounds of interest to you, let’s have a chat! What is the best number to reach you on?
Kind Regards,
Peter Redpath
1) Its doubtful that he EVER looked at our site – either that or he has a pair of elephant-sized brass balls to solicit work from a competing design firm. That said, he hasn’t done a lot of research into us and it should make you question what kind of research he’ll put into search optimisation on your behalf.
2) While there appear to be numerous Peter Redpaths on the web (linked in, facebook, etc.), the email is coming from peter@leadingdigitalmarketing.online – a domain of which does NOT lead you to an actual site, it’s only for email apparently.
3) Peter’s ‘REPLY TO’ is really a GMAIL address (peterredpath754@gmail.com) and while there’s nothing wrong w/ gmail, it seems odd that we can’t pin down a company name or website. One might think he’s expecting a large number of rejections and/or angry responses.
4) Businesses generally are more interested in what the designer can do for them, NOT what they’ve done for someone else. Sure, there IS a benefit to case studies, but being in the US, I especially have even less interest in what he’s done for a vague number of hypothetical clients in Australia. Moreover, without a website of his own, there is no way to SEE his designs, SEE his clients or VERIFY that his designs are as he purports and/or that he even exists as anything other than an email and perhaps a paypal account.
5) Likewise, while we probably do NOT rank high in Google for Australian web designers, we DO rank generally on page one (1) in Google for web design, graphic design, digital marketing in Grand Rapids and/or Michigan – ORGANICALLY. So again, besides wasting time selling to an EXTREMELY unlikely candidate, how much research did he really do OR would he do for you?
6) Of course, he’s going to recommend post-design ongoing SEO efforts. That’s his long-term revenue stream, especially IF he doesn’t develop a website that is designed to grow your ORGANIC (natural) search ranking without resorting to buying adwords.
All-in-all, bad actors such as these are likely to more harm than good and give the rest of us a bad name. Many will simply bleed your wallet of funds that really could have been better spent. We do NOT send out canvassing emails for work – we’re plenty busy with new clients referred to us by satisfied and happy previous, repeat and retainer clients. If you are looking for a mobile-responsive, search optimized, revenue-generating web presence designed (or re-designed) by designers/developers with over 20 years of web experience, then you’re reading the right blog on the right site of the right people.
