Kill and Rape = Big Online Money

I simply had to come out and say this.

I do a lot of work for online marketers who put out those “get rich quick” online marketing ebooks and such.  And, while it must be said that none of my clients even engage in the practice outlined below (wink, wink), why must all of these programs invoke visions of violent sex and death?

SEXUAL INNUENDO / PORN AESTHETIC

• Profit Lance
• Xtreme Wealth
• Roulette Raper
• [Any name] Exposed
• Google Snatch

MURDER

• Profit Lance
• DayJob Killer
• Google Assassin
• Bill Killer
• Roulette Sniper
• Yahoo Answer Sniper
• Samurai Stealth Cloaker
• AmazonHunter
• Forex Assassin

 

Numbskull PPC Company Draining Client’s Money

Oh, this one really twists my niblets.  Imagine idiot PPC companies draining the coffers of big-ass companies like Kodak - sure, that’s bad enough.  Now imagine a PPC management company blowing the money of a small-time Scottsdale Arizona based dentist Artemiz Adkins…and it’s downright sinful.

Names of the guilty shall remain anonymous.  But look - you search for a real competitive niche like “teeth whitening” and up comes this:

With teeth whitening, you can either:  a.)  get some home kit like Crest Whitening Strips; or, b.)  go to your local dentist.  Problem here is that I am located in Seattle, WA…and Dr. Adkins is located 1,500 miles away in Arizona.

Hello, PPC Management Company, it’s called geo-targeting.  You don’t market local services to 257 countries around the world. 

Rich Jerk is an AdWords Jerk

The Advice

Lay off the Google AdWords fraud, please.

Why?

What an idiot.  First, I was mortified at the ad copy here.  I won’t even waste the time checking Google AdWords Terms and Conditions, but I’ll wager that “Clickbank Got Me Laid” and “hookers” are not allowable. 

But that’s not all — as we advertisers like to say.

I clicked on the damn thing.  It landed me on the Rich Jerk landing page for about five seconds.  Then a pop up asking if I wanted to run some spyware killer.  No, of course not.  Then the whole fricking thing redirected to a new site that began “checking” my computer for spyware and adware.

 And all because I only wanted to do something as innocent and guileless as check out this ad…  Can you imagine.

Butthead Advertiser “Calls Out” Potential Customers? I Think Not.

The Advice

Do not patronize or “call out” your visitors like this butthead advertiser did.

Why?

Oh brother.  This one scrapes the bottom.  Just when I think I’ve seen the worst, it’s gets even worse.  That’s why Online Marketing Hell can never go out of business.  Too much subject matter out there.

So I was engaged in one of my favorite pastimes, finding out how much the ad network Kontera sucks (#1).  Up comes this shitty Google AdWords ad reading “Targeted WAP Advertising.” (#2)

WAP?  Mobile web banners, it turns out.  But that’s not the problem.  Problem is their landing page identifies my search and me through my IP.

They tell me (#3) that:

• I searched for “kontera sucks”
• I’m from the US
• I did so on Google
• From Internet Explorer
• And it’s afternoon

Nice way to treat your customers.  I say:  Go to Hell.

Autoresponder Stalking

The Advice

Choose your autoresponder e-mails carefully:  the patience of readers is extremely limited.

Why?

Even though it’s the policy here at OMH not to attack people but campaigns, it’s a bit hard to show this example without showing who (#1) initiated it.  Thus the caveat that the following is a hellacious autoresponder procedure I see perpetuated day in, day out.  I call it:  Autoresponder Stalking.

The Autoresponder Manifesto

I have entrusted you (Mr., Ms. Online Marketer) not just with my name, e-mail address, and other personal information.  But I have also entrusted you with the sanctity of my e-mail in-box.  I hate my e-mail in-box even in the best of times, and I certainly hate it more in the worst of times.  So:  do not bombard me with e-mails every single day about non-important matters, and please keep your shilling of other guru’s products down to a bare minimum.

Perry Marshall is good at providing 95% free information, 4% shilling himself, and maybe 1% shilling another guru.  Good ratio there.   Otherwise, we decide to “Unsubscribe Forever.” (#2)  Sorry, Mike.

SEO Gone Wild - Text in a .Jpeg?

The Advice

Text should be html; never in an image.

Why?

Reseaching dipsh*t domains this afternoon, I ran into one, Esolutions.com.  Let’s leave the domain lunacy aside for today.  Instead, look at what I saw. 

The content looked…fuzzy.  I thought, “What’s going on here?  Is my monitor going bad?

No, I hover the text and see…

All Text is in the Image

Yes, they have put all their content into a .jpeg image.  Yes, everything in the orange square (#1) is an image:  700x 546 pixels, to be exact.

Great Hammer of Thor!  What on earth were they thinking?  This is basic SEO. 

Sure, the alt text does mirror the text in the image, so at least the search engines can read something.  But, but, but… 

It looks terrible, it takes longer for pages to load, and it’s less SEO-friendly.  And they’re supposed to be some kind of e-something.  Oh, brother…

Half a Million Pageviews - And Not a Clue

The Advice

Bloggers and site owners with traffic:  realize your potential.

Why?

Whenever I see a site owner or blogger who is clueless about the potential of his/her property, I feel like fallling down and weeping.  Not for them!  For me - I wish I were them.  Unlike you or I, people who don’t spend all their waking hours thinking about online marketing, have absolutely zero idea that their dumbass, million-hits-per-month blog about tropical parakeets receives astounding traffic that the rest of us would kill our eldest children for.

Can Cobwebs Grow on a Website?

Yesterland (#1) is just such a site.  It’s old, old…old.  Been around forever.  I remember reading this thing way back “in the day” and loving it for its astute coverage of discontinued Disney attractions.

And for years and years, Yesterland got decent traffic and…barely changed.  I remember one dry spell back in the early 2000’s when the thing never ever ever ever ever ever updated, and I figured the owner had kicked the bucket and I removed it from Favorites.

Lo and behold, its pages have been slightly updated and cleaned up (#2), with the ever-present “AdSense skid mark” down the left.

Nice Traffic, Yesterland

Quantcast tells us that Yesterland gets just under half a million page views per month (#3), and 58,000 unique.  No, not Engadget, with its 1.4 million uniques per month - but nice for a hobbyist site.  Gosh, maybe some better advertising?  Update your site more often than every 3 years?

AdWords Keyword Bracket Insanity for Google Payload Affiliate

The Advice

In AdWords, square brackets [ …] mean exact match and do not go in the title.

Why?

Google Payload is a piece of sh*t 97 page e-book that purportedly tells you how to conduct traffic arbitrage on third-tier PPCs.  But that’s for another day.

Keyword Brackets (#1)

What’s this all about?  Whenever I see this I can only surmise:  a.)  They thought they were exact-matching (square brackets around a keyword is an exact match); 2.)  They wanted it to stand it more; 3.)  they thought they were doing dynamic keyword insertion.

And why are they using the GooglePayLoad.com domain when they are an affiliate?  Go get your own domain and page.

Corporate Meatheads (#2)

And of course, our poster-child for Corporate AdWords meatheads:  Ebay.  No more said about these idiots.

SEO Totally Ignored by Top Domain - Why?

The Advice

Remember basic SEO - title tags, descriptive URLs, and content.

Why?

It is  surprising to find an awesomely cool domain like Knife.com (#1) with less-than-awesome SEO/SEM practices.  Located in Woodinville, WA, just down the road “a piece” from me, Knife.com is plagued with problems that are so easily fixable.

No Titles

The most shocking thing:  click on any product, whether it’s a Gerber PR 3.0 or a Kershaw something-or-other, and look at the title tag (#2).  Nothing, nada.  Cycle through every page in the site, and the title tag remains the same. 

Need Better URLs

But also look at the URLs.  He’s wasting great opportunities to have descriptive  URLS.  Instead of “knife.com/gerberpr3,” it’s a purely anonymous name, “product_p/301.htm.” (#2).  And one that wouldn’t help him if he were to do pay per click advertising, where you want descriptive file names.

Product Descriptions Are Not Content

Finally - click on a product description (#3).  You expect to arrive at a page all about Gerber PR 3.0.  Yeah, it’s a page devoted to this knife - but the short descriptions are just repeated - no content (#4).  Chance lost to lay down a nice thick slab on content about this Gerber knife…and attract the search engines and readers.

Build a Niche Store - No, BANS Itself is Down

The Advice

Do your homework before slamming someone.

Why?

Previously, I posted that a braindead affiliate promoting Build a Niche Store has mistakenly sent traffic to a dead domain of her or hers.

Turns out I should have done my homework a little better…

If I have investigated just a bit further, I would have found that Build a Niche Store’s site itself is down, as noted in this DigitalPoint forum thread about BANS’ difficulties.  Either BANS has 1.) Not paid its bills (unlikely); 2.) Clickbank has banned them (unlikely; BANS is one of the better products offered there); or 3.)  Been hijacked.

Apologies to affiliate whose campaign I excortiated.