Blog – Page 86

Warning About Fraudulent EDriven Concepts Calls

Last Updated: August 1, 2011

It has come to our attention that a company called EDriven Concepts has been calling our clients and leading them to believe that they represent Prospect Genius. We would like to clarify that those individuals, along with EDriven Concepts as a whole, are NOT associated with Prospect Genius in any way.
The rest of this post will provide you with a few audio samples of calls placed by representatives from EDriven Concepts so that you will be able to recognize them. We will not make any recommendations about whether you should do business with this company; rather, we intend to provide you with all of the relevant facts so that you can make an informed decision on your own.
As you can hear from the audio clips below, which were taken directly from the aforementioned phone calls, the sales approach is always the same. First, the sales representatives try to confuse the business owner by referencing a “previous” conversation that never actually took place. Then, they continue the present conversation and allow the client to believe that he or she is speaking with Prospect Genius, not EDriven Concepts.

In these additional audio clips, you’ll also hear how EDriven Concepts further attempts to mislead business owners. Given that these phone calls took place on our metered lines, which are designed to record every single incoming call, Prospect Genius can say with absolute certainty that the purportedly “previous” conversations between EDriven Concepts and these business owners never actually occurred. Below, numbers 1 and 2 are portions of the same phone call.

In the following audio clip, you’ll hear Josh Murlin, a sales representative from EDriven Concepts, claim to be a former employee of Prospect Genius. This is completely FALSE.

These amusing clips below show the sales rep attempting to locate a handful of random towns in which the business owner has a poor search engine ranking. Unfortunately for him, it turns out on both occasions that the business owner is already ranked on Page 1 of Google thanks to the work done by Prospect Genius.

Repeatedly, the strategy of Mr. Murlin and EDriven Concepts is to mislead the business owners and let them believe that they are speaking with a representative from Prospect Genius. In Clip 1 below, Mr. Murlin does not admit to being separate from Prospect Genius until three minutes and 43 seconds have passed in a phone call that only lasts five minutes in total. In Clip 2, it takes eight minutes and 44 seconds for him to admit that he is not affiliated with Prospect Genius. But the most shocking part is not that nearly nine minutes go by before he admits this—it’s that the confession occurs AFTER he has already instructed the business owner to stop payment on a check for Prospect Genius and to instead fax the check to him!

These next two clips offer some insight into the “SEO” that EDriven Concepts will provide. In actuality, the company plans to utilize several different local numbers on Google Places in an act that is, quite clearly, spamming. Why is that a problem? Well, as we all know, spamming goes against the rules established by Google. One rule in particular clearly states, “Do not create listings at locations where the business does not physically exist.” In other words, the practice of creating multiple listings—which EDriven Concepts promises to do—is strictly forbidden. Unfortunately, going against Google’s published guidelines is a lot like playing Russian Roulette: while there’s no guarantee that you will get caught, the consequences are dire if you do.

During this final audio clip, you’ll hear Mr. Murlin from EDriven Concepts promise to list the business owner in 150 directories each month. There are two problems with this. First, while there may be hundreds of online directories in existence, the majority of them are not useful or effective in the slightest. In fact, the latest Google algorithm update called “Panda” targeted exactly these kinds of low-quality sites. (You can learn all about Panda here.) This means that since the Panda update, there is little to no chance that any value whatsoever will be provided by links from those directories. Furthermore, as a team of SEO specialists and industry insiders, we can tell you that those directory submissions are almost always done by a piece of software, which means that no human thought or effort goes into the submission process. In short, it’s a very spam-like tactic that no longer works. The second problem with this approach is that many of those hundreds of links will likely end up being relegated to one of Google’s “bad neighborhoods,” a classification saved for directories of poor quality that contain spam-like activity. If that happens, you won’t just receive zero value from the directories—you’ll actually be penalized.

If you would like to research EDriven Concepts even further on your own, here is some contact information that we’ve collected:
EDriven Concepts
41951 Remington Ave Ste 100
Temecula, CA 92590
Miranda (customer service): 951-296-2041
Josh Murlin (sales): 951-296-2245
Please be very careful not to give representatives from EDriven Concepts any sensitive or personal information, as we cannot guarantee its security. If you have any doubts regarding the legitimacy of a phone call, simply hang up, dial our main line (1-800-689-1273), and ask for your account manager.

Wishing you pleasant, honest dealings and continued success,
Prospect Genius

Don’t Get Banned From Google

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Spam: It’s Bad for Business

In past blog posts, we’ve talked about how Google works: the changes to Google Maps that display search results as a combination of organic rankings and map placement; the Google Spam Department, led by Matt Cutts; etc.
But we wanted to talk about all this again because Google’s Spam Department has been stepping up enforcement. They’re taking spam activity on Google Places so seriously that your business may even be banned if caught!
The most important thing to understand is that Google will attach any spamming penalties that they dole out to any available pieces of information, including:

Your business name
Your URL (http://www.bobsbusiness.com)
Your phone number
Your address

In their quest to deter spam activity on Google Places, Google looks for business listings that appear to be for the same business yet contain slight discrepancies in information.
For example: Bob wants his appliance company to have a higher ranking in all of the smaller towns surrounding the metropolitan area he serves. So he starts by creating a map listing for his company, including all of the relevant data:

“Bob’s Appliance” in New York, NY; phone number: 212-555-5555; address: 1234 W Main Street; website: www.bobsappliance.com

However, then he creates more listings, each one with slightly differing information:

“Bob’s Appliance” in Queens, NY; phone number: 212-555-5555; address: 567 Broadway Ave; website: www.bobsappliance.com
“Michael’s Appliance” in Bronx, NY; phone number: 212-555-5555; address: 1234 W Main St; website: www.bobsappliance.com
“Bob’s Appliance” in Brooklyn, NY; phone number: 212-111-1111; address: 1234 W Main St; website: www.bobsappliance.com

If he gets caught, what could happen? The short answer is that all of his information could be flagged and banned. That means any new listing containing a SINGLE piece of the flagged information would be rejected from Google Places. In some extreme cases, that information could be entirely banned from all of Google, in which case your website—and by extension, your company—would essentially cease to exist online. If you get to this point, and all of your information is banned on Google, you really only have two options: grovel at the feet of Google and beg for a reprieve or completely change not only your address, phone number, and website URL, but also your business’s name!

Staying Safe with Google Places

Surprisingly enough, remaining in the good graces of Google is actually a lot easier than it may sound. If you don’t want to get blacklisted or banned from Google, just tell the truth!
Follow Google’s guidelines by accurately representing the physical world in your online profiles, and you won’t have to worry about penalties or blacklisting. If your company really has two physical addresses in the real world, feel free to make two listings online, one for each location. If you only have one real location, don’t just make up a second one! And so on and so forth. You can even list your home address if it’s your only place of business.
What you don’t want to do is list the address of your auto body shop, your cousin Larry’s house, and then go on to make half a dozen more listings for an empty lot, abandoned church, etc. If you do that, Google will catch you and they will punish you. It could take days, months, or even a year, but Google will eventually catch you and subsequently ban or blacklist all of the addresses—and other information—associated with the spammed business listings.
Remember, having an effectively optimized Google Places listing connected with an equally well optimized website is crucial. Together they will work to get you the best overall placement in Google search results.

Prospect Genius Reports Continued Upward Performance for Appliance Repair Clients in June

Last Updated: July 2, 2011

Prospect Genius, an online advertising firm based in upstate New York, announces continued upward growth and enhanced performance for appliance repair clients during the month of June. Providing long-term growth in total leads generated (both phone and e-mail) for local appliance repair companies across the nation, Prospect Genius reports sustained performance for both this specific category of business and across their entire client base.
Prospect Genius’s innovative SEO-based lead generation program generated 3,110 leads for their appliance repair clients in June alone. These statistics are simply representative of the latest month’s continuing trend. In February, prior to Google’s Panda update, PG supplied 1,124 leads to their appliance repair client companies. Immediately following this update, PG’s lead delivery jumped 50% to 1,723 leads.
Since Google implemented their Panda algorithm update (also called the Farmer update in the mass media) in February, many online advertising companies have been affected by the content farming penalties and exclusions. However, over that same time span, Prospect Genius has only continued to grow. In the four months following the Panda update, PG has expanded their lead generation performance for appliance companies by an average increase of nearly 30% more leads per client per month.
As Prospect Genius President Alex Pelli comments, “Integrity is what sets Prospect Genius apart. Because we’ve always played by the rules, changes like Google algorithm updates—even the major Panda changes—don’t majorly affect our lead generation results. We’re pleased to be able to provide our customers with continued success and the continued growth of their lead generation campaigns.”
Prospect Genius is an Internet marketing company based in Troy, New York. Serving local companies nationwide, PG utilizes SEO strategies for effective lead generation.

Making SEO Work for You

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Double Trouble

When your sink is leaking, would you call in two different plumbers to fix the leak at the same time? Would you have two different dentists fill one cavity? Having two pros in to do the same job, at the same time, just doesn’t make much sense.
Of course, these are rather ridiculous examples, and you certainly wouldn’t follow through with either of these scenarios. However, many small companies do work with two separate SEO companies at the same time, hiring both to market the same business… The perception is that this commonplace tactic will help the company get ahead: Two is better than one, right? The truth is that working with two different SEO companies at the same time can be quite damaging. That’s because instead of helping each other out, the two companies are struggling for control of the SEO campaign, and your business ends up caught in between their tug-of-war. The end result is more often a penalty from Google or Bing for activity that looks like spam than it is successful SEO for your company.

The Tortoise Is Better Than the Hare

The reality is that slow and steady wins the race. If you choose to use SEO for your web marketing campaign, the smartest choice is to carefully select a single company to work with. Let them focus on optimization for three to six months, and THEN consider whether you’d like to try a different company.
During that first three to six months, do be involved in and aware of what’s going on with your SEO campaign, but don’t be obstructive or intrusive. SEO doesn’t happen overnight! Contrary to what your high-speed connection might have you believing, the Internet is actually a very slow entity. It reacts and adapts very slowly due to its sheer size and immensity. Google and Bing have to constantly sort through and analyze billions of pages of information to do their jobs effectively, so they may only get to your site every other month or so. Essentially, this means a change on your site that’s implemented today might not be seen for 30 or 60 days.
Because the Internet reacts slowly, SEO can also be a slow process. In order to do it right, small business owners need to realize that Google owns the ball, the bat, the gloves, and the ballpark: if the Internet is like a baseball league, you’ll have to play by Google’s rules if you ever want to see a good ranking for your site.

So, That Means I’m Stuck, Right?

Just because you need to give SEO time to work doesn’t mean you’re stuck with whatever company you choose from the get-go! If they’ve provided zero return on your investment over a six- to nine-month period, and you’ve provided all of the information and resources requested, it’s time to start looking for a replacement. After that much time, a lack of results means you may want to switch to a second SEO company.

Okay, What Should My Business Do?

If you want more than your current SEO campaign is providing, there are still a number of options that don’t include sabotaging yourself by bringing a competing SEO company on board. While you’re waiting those three to six months for your SEO program to develop more fully, you can also promote your business online by:

Using a pay-per-click campaign. PPC can be implemented on your own or with the help of a professional.
Hiring a lead generation program that works differently from an SEO provider. This might include companies similar to Service Magic or Yodle (this is not an endorsement). Each of these drives leads to your company in a way that may complement, not compete with, your SEO campaign.
Expanding your Facebook page and Twitter profile. Putting time and resources into these pages can help your Internet exposure. This type of work can be handled either by a professional or by business owners themselves.
Posting ads on Craigslist. This service is free and will take you just a few minutes.
Exploring the possibility of a radio ad that would promote your business name or website. This can set the stage for more web traffic and be a complement to the SEO work.
Putting a sign on your fleet truck(s) or other vehicles. Not having signs means you’re missing out on an important branding opportunity.

Giving your SEO campaign time to develop fully doesn’t mean you have to sit by the sidelines for months. However, trying the aforementioned options will almost always end better than trying to stack the deck by working with two different SEO companies at the same time–which nearly always backfires!
Have questions? The PG team would love to help. Feel free to contact our customer service professionals for more information.

Stand Out From the Crowd With Pictures and Reviews

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Pictures: Why Your Website May Be Dead in the Water Without Them

Online advertising has one goal, right? To get your website ranking as well as possible with search engines like Google and Bing.
However, using the right keywords, linking strategies, and off-page work to make your site rank highly isn’t always enough. That’s because the ultimate goal of Internet marketing is actually not just to make your site number 1 on Google or Yahoo! It’s to generate more business for your company. To do that, it’s PEOPLE who need to pick up the phone and call after clicking on your well-ranked website. If they don’t contact you, all you end up with is a highly placed website that does nothing at all to generate business or help your company succeed!
It’s hard to believe, but something as little as the right images can have a huge impact on whether or not people call after visiting your site. Pictures make folks feel more comfortable with your company and help put them at ease, which can be especially important if your business performs services that require you to enter customers’ homes or vehicles. And, ultimately, comfort with your business has a LOT to do with whether a prospective customer picks your company or goes with a competitor.
Don’t just take our word for it: here’s a great example. Safelite, the national auto glass company, is now e-mailing each customer a photo of the actual technician who will be coming to work on their vehicle. Obviously, Safelite understands this puts their clients at ease and makes them more likely to use Safelite’s services rather than the competition’s.

Why Your OWN Pictures Matter

The simple truth is that not all images are created equal. Your own photos of your own team at work are, quite frankly, worth a lot more than stock photos of some model posing as a plumber, roofer, or other professional.
That’s because there are loads of duplicate stock photos out there. Everyone has seen that gal or this guy on numerous sites… And people aren’t dumb. They begin to recognize these pictures and realize that the photos are of models and actors, not your actual employees. Then they may begin to subconsciously wonder why you aren’t willing to put images of your actual staff on your site… In short, having your own photos of your employees performing services will get you more phone calls than stock photos will. Hands down.
You’ve probably seen images like some of these highly over-used pictures below:

Yup: they’re all stock art (from istockphoto.com). If you’re honest with yourself, it’s pretty easy to tell that these people aren’t your actual staff. While stock photos are better than having an imageless website, they don’t provide the same benefits as real photos of you or your team doing the work that you do.

Reviews: Why Your Website May Be Dead in the Water Without Them

Your company has hundreds of competitors: You probably already know this, because if you’re the only game in town, then there’s no use spending money on advertising… But since the make-believe world in which your business has no competition doesn’t exist, you need to make your company stand out from the crowd. Putting pictures of you and your team on your website is a great way to differentiate yourself from the other guys, and so is having sufficient customer reviews available.
Remember: it’s important not to just have reviews on your site, but it’s vital to keep those testimonials current. That way, prospective customers can see that your company not only did a great job for a client back in 1999 but that you’re also providing great service today and into the future.
New reviews can be posted in a number of places from Google Maps to your website. Here’s why you need to put your reviews in a variety of different locations online:

Google Maps: Adding reviews to your listing will help you get better placement in Google Maps.
Facebook: The better your Facebook popularity, the better your site will perform on Bing.
Your website: Reviews play a big role in converting site visitors into paying customers, so don’t forget to make sure your glowing testimonials make it onto your website as well. If you’re a PG customer, just send your new reviews to our team, and we’ll make sure to keep your microsite up to date.

Prospect Genius

Warning About Fraudulent EDriven Concepts Calls

Prospect Genius Reports Continued Upward Performance for Appliance Repair Clients in June

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