Have you ever received an email out of the blue that looked something like this?
“It’s important that your site is listed on the first page of Google if you’re looking to gain customers. This is just within your reach. If you’re interested in a no-cost audit on your site, I’d love to send one over. This audit can provide you with vital insight into why you’re not currently on the first page of search engines. We’ll provide this service for free.”
Sound familiar? Cold search engine optimization (SEO) email solicitations can be frustrating – that’s no secret. On one hand, the SEO company seems to be overstepping a boundary. However, on the other hand, it’s easy to find yourself affected by the scare tactics they use. After all, what if they have a point? What if your business truly does need assistance in order to improve your search rankings?
Looking for a straightforward answer to the question, “Should I ever respond to SEO email solicitations?” In that case, it’s actually quite simple. No, you shouldn’t be giving these sorts of cold emails the time of day. Don’t take them too personally, either. More often than not, the sender is only giving you a generic message, probably identical to a slew of other businesses they have contacted.
Try thinking of it this way. The marketers sending these emails are trying to create business for their own SEO company. In order to take in profits, they’re going to need to gather as many potential clients as possible. That’s the primary motivator behind these emails, rather than a genuine concern for your site or a belief that they can actually help you improve your SEO in any way. In essence, these are just messages from eager salespeople.
However, if an SEO company is reputable, they probably aren’t going to send out this type of cold email. More likely than not, the SEO company emailing you is probably reaching out to hundreds of other businesses or sites, also offering them unsolicited advice or feedback on SEO strategy. There’s nothing personal about SEO email solicitations – these marketers are never as eager to help you out (or as capable) as they seem.
Usually, these unsolicited emails are going to make vague claims about your site or business. For instance, they might say that they’ve somehow “identified issues” with your site’s SEO or that they’ve “performed an analysis” on your site and “found some errors.”
Even if they claim to have run your site through their tools or tell you that they have analyzed anything, they’re almost certainly lying. For one, it isn’t an extravagant claim that a site has quantitative or qualitative issues with its SEO at the present time – no one’s perfect. It also isn’t a grand revelation to find the problems with a site’s SEO, and the senders aren’t the only ones available to help you correct these problems.
Sometimes, unsolicited marketers may find genuine issues with your site. Other times, you’ll only be receiving generic feedback. In either case, it’s best not to respond. If any SEO marketer insinuates that they hold the key to your SEO success, it’s best to run the other way – this is an enormous red flag.
Unfortunately, improving SEO is never so simple. There are no quick, magic tweaks you can make to your site to see dramatically improved traffic and search rankings overnight. In actuality, SEO is a long-term process, not just a series of simple adjustments or whatever the unsolicited sender is promising you.
If you’d like to thrive in the realm of SEO, you’re going to need to strategize. As part of this strategy, you should be producing strong, regular content and taking an integrated approach. Don’t give in to scare tactics or too-good-to-be-true promises – that’s just not how you improve your site’s SEO.
If a marketer is looking to sell SEO services, there are appropriate ways to do it. Even if they’re reaching out to prospective clients, there are skillful, professional approaches they can take in a message.
However, vague threats aren’t the way to go about it. They shouldn’t be approaching you out of nowhere, claiming that there are issues with your site. Don’t bother responding to cold emails that are set up this way. They aren’t going to provide you with the SEO miracle they’re promising.
Are you searching for a team of SEO experts willing to help you formulate a strong, holistic strategy – who won’t send you unsolicited, slightly threatening emails? If that’s the case, consider getting in touch with our team of professionals at Zero Gravity Marketing today!