It’s become almost impossible for businesses looking to outsource their internet marketing to identify the good companies from the bad, and I feel for them.

A lot of the blame can be attributed to the unprincipled and aggressive SEO and link building companies that are bombarding ordinary businesses (including ours!) every day with unsolicited calls and emails. Without doubt these dubious practices have given the internet marketing industry a serious shot in the foot.

If you’ve received unsolicited email about SEO – bin it!

My recommendation is that if you’ve been emailed or called by a company making wild promises about how they can boost your profits through SEO and link building, then either bin it immediately or report it as SPAM. We use a program called Spamarrest to filter out as many of these nuisance emails as possible.

Why? Well any professional internet marketing company worth its salt gets business through word of mouth from satisfied customers or from new customers who have been impressed by what they have seen online.

Any company that relies on sending out bulk emails or aggressive telemarketing campaigns to get SEO projects without taking time to find out a businesses actual requirements is, in my view, highly suspect!

Link building companies are missing the point

One of the emails I received today that offered bulk link building services was amazingly enough headed “Make your links appear Natural”.

I would acknowledge that inbound links to a website are one of the factors that affect ranking in Google. However, buying links in bulk is contrary to all best practices, it brings no usability benefits to your website users, and is likely to result in your site being blacklisted.

I urge any businesses that are looking for internet marketing support to check very carefully the background, experience, track record, and approach of potential providers before appointing them.