Is this a real offer?

[ray valentine]

A lot of us are familiar with the people who offer to get your web site to no1 on Google. To night i had a call from some nice sounding lady who offered a free course, free because the government pay, this course shows you how to get the best from your website, and getting it to No1 on Google.
The only thing is i have to pay £500 up front, but i am guaranteed to get all that back. I did not believe it and hung up. But was that a real offer? any one had this call?

[Jeff Hardwick]

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, I have lots of these calls over the last week or so............

[ian]

best £500 you ever never spent theirs a scam going around at the minute trying to get you to be in the Police magazine and get all the work moving them around the country. EVEN FAKE POLICE EMAIL.... i had one the other day........err sorry, 4 in an hour sent them a nice email telling them to fkoff n dont contact me again, i did get an apology though. it went straight into the spam folder

[Jeff Hardwick]

The best offer I had was off Google themselves but even that cost to me was prohibitive............

[bramble43]

[Jeff Hardwick]

Do you mean they were telling porkies Well I'll be blowed...

[Noble Express Couriers]

I would never use one of these companies. Almost all are companies selling a service whilst using the Google brand and name.

The fact is that how can they get your site to number one on google or where ever....just think.....

Caller calls you and does her sales pitch and the guy goes for it...brilliant you think il get to number one on google...but then what happens when he/she rings the next gullible customer on their list...that person will be thinking they have got to number one aswel.....Not everyone can be number one, its simple.

Your site is ranked by google...hence the google rankings...you cant just build a site and get one of these numpties to get you to number one it doesnt work like that.

The ranking system is based on referrals and how people find your site, all they would do is probably put your site on a load of free registering sites and charge you for the privilage!

Just go to all of the free registration sites on the net and register your company and youkl find your ranking improves and people are finding your site....sure its hard work but its free....why pay these parasites anything when you can do it yourself!!

[Jeff Hardwick]

It would be worth a small fee to get some one else to do that...

[steve hodgson]

Just to add to this discussion a little as I used one of these companies in my previous company.
They usually sell the service as "getting to number 1" which is of course not acievable because not everyone can be numbr 1, they really mean number 1 page. They work hard to achieve this if you get the right company as the way it works relates to words in your web site. So for example if a punter is looking for a courier, and types in courier, google lookes for all the web sites that has courier in its title and how often it is mentioned in its site. However its no good just typing courier 1000 times and adding it to the site. If the punter adds express courier that reduces the number, and if its express overnight or sameday courier that reduces it again. Depending on how much activity goes on with your website, so if its being updated every day, that adds points and so on. So these companies use a load of different criteria to apply to your site which moves it up the goole search pages. The process usually takes about six months to see real progress.
They may not get you to page one of "courier" but they will probably get you to page one or even position one of "couriers in your town".
They certainly got my company to position 1 on relevant pages. They are worth the money if thats the way you want to attract business. It's like a lot of these things, if you want a proper job done employ a professional.

[cid_couriers]

[Rapid Dave]

The one thing that Google does like is fresh, regularly updated content. So the guys who build their own sites can actually do quite well as they can access when they like to update instead of contacting web designers / hosts etc. You can do your own search engine optimisation at no cost other than a few regular nights on your pc. As mentioned, join all the free sites etc but be prepared for people ringing you up, trying to get you to 'upgrade' to a paid ad (don't). Don't know if any of you go uk business forums - I find it a useful site. Anyway, a guy there has put a 'sticky' on there called '101 ways to improve your web presence'. I'll try and find a link http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?=32162 makes quite interesting reading.

[Rapid Dave]

Hmmm just tried to follow my link that I put & it didn't work so I ain't learnt much then Anyways, go to UKBF and go to ' SEO, PPC and Online Marketing' &it's there as a sticky.

[Jeff Hardwick]

Useful information Dave, I had a read last week. I know my way round a computer but when it comes to websites I am completely out of my depth................