There are increasing numbers of emails flooding the UK from web developers, SEO experts, Digital Marketeers and similar from India and to a lesser extent from Eastern Europe.

Some of these are reputable businesses offering a quality service, but many are just individuals offering a cheap service. That is fine if they market themselves as individuals but many claim to have wide ranging skills, be part of a large organisation and to have worked with businesses across the globe.

This is the problem – the lies.

If someone has to lie to market themselves then you cannot trust anything they claim.

A fake sales letter is likely to contain some of the following indicators:-

1. No mention of the name of the business, not even in the sign off
2. A personal rather than business email address. A Yahoo or Hotmail, Outlook or Gmail address or similar generally means the email is from an individual, not a company
3. A claim to have all encompassing skills i.e. a list of too many technologies for one business to specialise in.
4. Grammatical mistakes
5. The tone of someone desperate for business e.g. offering to beat any price.

Typical emails offering website design, SEO and promotions contain claims on what they can achieve for you

• Put you at the top of Google page 1 search for your selected keywords
• Double your customer numbers
• Bring in any amount of business you want

People will sometimes make these claims without any evidence to back them up, in the hope of getting business but cheats will do this all the more and have more exaggerated claims.

You may choose to take a chance on someone on the other side of the world with no proven skills, but a safer approach is to ignore all such emails and search on the Internet for established businesses  or consultants and look at the work they have done, check any online ratings  and if possible contact their previous customers.

Don’t waste your money.