Ironhide Facepalm by Tenthousandleaves
I’ve had a bit of a debate with an SEO specialist called Bikash. I was going to turn it into an informative post outlining the mistakes he made when he pitched me by email. Having a webmail address, not looking at my site, contradicting himself. That sort of thing.
Then he finished off with something so stunning, so moronic that I can’t bring myself to critique it. I’m going to regurgitate his “pitch” to you all, and you can take from it what you will. Hell, let me know what you think his biggest mistake was in the comments section.
Now brace yourselves, and read on.
How Not to Pitch an SEO Client By Email – a Tragedy by Bikash of SEO by Spark
Bikash to Me
Dear Sir/Madam
How are you today? I hope that every thing is ok with you as it is my great pleasure to contact you in having communication with you.
Being based in India, we are able to provide our services within your affordability. We are handling offshore clients and providing them low cost link building services, organic SEO, Social Bookmaking, Directory and Article submission, web designing & web development services etc…..
We have a proven track record and are quite capable of ranking sites higher in search engines. For our success stories mail us and we will provide you a list of clients divided into industrial segments where we have delivered high quality SEO services.
Looking forward to hearing you.
Thank you & Best Regards
Bikash
OK, I’ll bite. Should be good for the blog if nothing else.
Me to Bikash
Bearing in mind that Unmemorable Title is ranking on “Copywriting Blog” in the major search engines, could you advise me on the key phrases you’d want to target to get my SEO and Copywriting Blog higher up on the search engines?
Andrew Nattan
Bikash to Me
Dear Andrew Nattan,
Hope you are doing Great and business is good. Yes Ofcourse we will give you top rank on Google, Yahoo,MSN, Bing for “Copywriting Blog” URL: http://www.unmemorabletitle.co.uk/
Guaranteed services i am providing to my all clients. If interested kindly let me know.
Regards
Bikash
At this point, I don’t reply. This doesn’t put off dear Bikash. He’s not one for the subtle!
Bikash to Me, AGAIN
Dear Andrew,
I hope you are doing Great. Can i start work for this info: Title: Copywriting Blog & URL: http://www.unmemorabletitle.co.uk/ ?
If interested kindly let me know.
Regards
Bikash
No, he’s definitely not one for subtle hints. Best be blunt
Me to Bikash
Ok, the subtle hint didn’t work.
Have you looked at my blog? Have you noticed it’s a copywriting and SEO blog?
Have you seen the bit saying I’m an SEO consultant who does SEO for a living?
Have you seen its already ranking on Google UK, Yahoo UK and Bing UK?
In all honesty, do you think I’d pay you to do my job?
Surely Bikash can’t ride roughshod over this evidence that I don’t need any SEO services?
Bikash to Me
Hi,
Q– Have you looked at my blog? Have you noticed its a copywriting and SEO blog?
Ans: Yes I have been looked at your blog www.unmemorabletitle.co.uk and Of Course its an seo and copywriting Blog.
Q– Have you seen the bit saying I’m an SEO consultant who does SEO for a living?
Ans: No, I did’nt find so
Q– Have you seen its already ranking on Google UK, Yahoo UK and Bing UK?
Ans: Yes its between 100 on Google UK, Yahoo UK and Bing UK
Q– In all honesty, do you think I’d pay you to do my job?
Ans: I don’t know exactly. If you will not pay me then I’ll not do work.
Regards
Bikash
No. Bluntness doesn’t work either. He’s now lying about my results too. And a threat that he won’t do any work for me? He’s raised his game.
Me to Bikash
Are you logged into Google? I see my site in position 6 on Google UK, and position 14 on Yahoo UK. As you know, Google is the important one.
You’ve still not explained the techniques you’ll be using either. I’m not feeling the love here.
Andy x
Surely, he must understand that I’m toying with him now
Bikash to Me
Aha, I was looking result on google.com, Yahoo.com and bing.com . I know Google is the Important.
Bikash
No? Fine. Let’s go for broke with the “I do SEO for a living”
Me to Bikash
But you definitely mentioned me being “around 100 on Google UK” before. Are you being honest with me?
Also, can you just give me an outline of the tactics you intend to use? My boss would be mad if I used black hat SEO as we’re committed to ethical white hat SEO where I work.
He’s got to get it. He must. Nobody can be this pig-headed
Bikash to Me
HI,
Yes I am very Honest with you and I only provide whitehat SEO, You will get only ethical links from me. After work with me you can understand.
I’ll give you 10% genuine services. Can I have your Messengers ID ?
Regards
Bikash
OK, he’s not ever going to stop. Time for my out.
Me to Bikash
No thankyou.
Unfortunately 10% genuine service isn’t quite enough for me. I insist on no less than 97.4% genuine service from anyone I work with.
Please do not contact me again.
Mr Nattan
So, I’ll throw this open to you, my dear readers. Just where did Bikash go wrong with his pitch? I’m hoping we can put together a proposal to write some new pitch emails for these guys. And of course, I’ll share my profits with my readers. I’m 10% serious.
If you’re worried about an SEO pitch you’ve received, you could do worse than reading up on the FirstFound Shady SEO Scam Guide.
6 comments
Craig says:
May 5, 2010
I think his first mistake was not proclaming to be the manager of the Forty-Third First National Bank of Nigeria.
Chris says:
May 7, 2010
I’ve had this same experience but it always felt like a waste of time. But you have put your experience to good use by creating a blog post that… wait, I just wasted more time reading this arrrhh! Sphunn though!
.-= Chris´s last blog ..Google’s Speech Recognition Algorithm Not Ready for Prime Time =-.
Mike Reed says:
May 12, 2010
I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Bikash. It’s pretty evident that he’s struggling with English, but obviously thinks there may be an opportunity here and manfully presses ahead.
“Between 100″, which I expect means “in the top 100″, isn’t the same as “around 100″, which sounds like an actual ranking of about 100. You don’t seem to have thought of that, unless I’m misunderstanding.
He clearly doesn’t grasp what you mean you ask if he expects to be paid for doing your job. And the 10% is just a silly typo.
So he’s got himself way out of his depth. No doubt about that. But why not give him a break? I can’t help but sense that this is someone trying hard in a second language, making rather a hash of it, and being aggressively lampooned and paraded as either an idiot or a semi-crook.
Maybe I’m just soft. But I would have spotted the (blindingly obvious) problem from that first email and sent a polite “No thank you,” instead of inviting the poor guy to tie himself up in knots for your amusement and scorn.
Andrew says:
May 12, 2010
@Mike
You’re probably right. This post was born out of frustration to be honest. I get lots of these emails every week, and it irritates me that people don’t even look at websites before they pitch the owners.
Would you randomly pitch copywriting services to someone who frequently mentions being a copywriter on their website?
Mike Reed says:
May 12, 2010
@Andrew: I know. It is daft, and frustrating. Obviously the answer to your question is no. (Although I haven’t yet had a copywriter pitch to me, so have been spared that special irritation.)
I probably sound a bit too aggressive in my comment. But it did seem a bit unfair on old Bikash!
Mike McCaffrey says:
May 25, 2010
Hi,
We’ve just taken Bikash on and we’re already Top of the Pops for ‘web copywriter Sussex’. We had him over to celebrate. Did bring quite a few family members but they all mucked in. He can drink us all under the table and he’s one Hell of a dancer. Much missed.
M.