The email quoted below was forwarded to me by a client wondering if it was legitimate. He asked how a company could guarantee front page search page results placement.

There are some ways it can be done, and you can do any of them yourself if you want to.

1) Bid high enough on the Adwords keywords that you will be in the top five. For some businesses and keywords this is an affordable (based on probable return on investment). But for many, if not most, businesses the cost is prohibitive. Some keywords cost $5 or more per click through and the typical good or service converts less than 5%.

2) Put yourself on the Google business map listing. This is free and only takes a few minutes. To do this, just go to Google Local Business (www.google.com/local/add) and go through the steps. Some of the offerings like the one below charge up to $50 a month for this … at least until the website owner get smart.

3) Another way they can promise front page search results placement is to convince you that a particular three or more word search term is valuable and/or use your business name or proper name. Using business or personal names is what I call the white pages technique. If someone is going to search on your name … is that really a search or just a look-up, and how many of you are there in the white pages. If it is a look-up you already reached them.

Relatedly, three or more word search phrases become so specific that they are not really very search marketing productive. Plus with three or more words, the exact word order can make a big difference in search results.

Rather than pay, do the steps above for yourself and even better … base your website on a very semantically correct structure (for search engines) and then regularly add new content about your business and services.

Regardless just beware of scams like this -

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* Our Company GUARANTEES to put your website on the front page of GOOGL*
*YAHOO, AND MSN as well as drive targeted traffic your site evey month.*
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{{{{{{ ATTENTION WEDDIING PHOTOGRAPHERS,LIMOUSINES COMPANIES AND WEDDING PLANNERS }}}}}}

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{{{We GUARANTEE you FRONT PAGE placement on GOOGLE, Yahoo and MSN and 100 new qualified prospects each month}}}
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Aggressive search engine marketing is critical for the success of your website and ultimately your business. We have a fixed price performance based model that guarantees new business sent directly to your company.

* If someone Google’s “Wedding Photographer, lIMOUSINE COMPANY OR WEDDING PLANNER” in your area and you do not come up on the first page then you need our help fast.

* Marketing Sherpa— An independent online survey organization shows that 76% of couples throughout the United States found their wedding photographer on one of the three major search engines GOOGLE, YAHOO, AND and MSN.

* Aggressive search engine marketing is critical for the success of your website and ultimately your business. Without it, you are losing money to your competitors that have already realized the importance of being on the FRONT PAGE OF page of GOOGLE, YAHOO, AND MSN.

* Strategically placing your marketing message in front of your target market at the exact moment they are looking for your service is something businesses have been trying to accomplish since the beginning of commerce.

* Keyword Marketing places your business in front of your customers at the exact moment they are looking to do business with you.

Our company:

1. Has formed a strategic alliance and partnership with Google.

2. Is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Exchange.

3. Has been in business since 1995.

4. Has been significantly more profitable each month for the last two years in a down economy.

Our packages include:

1. THE MOST AGGRESSIVE SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING SYSTEM IN THE WORLD WITH GUARANTEED FRONT PAGE PLACEMENT ON GOOGLE, YAHOO AND MSN.

2. We GUARANTEE you DOUBLE the amount of new qualified customers that are looking for your
product or service at the moment they need it most.

3. Website development.

4. Monthly visitor tracking and anylitics systems.

5. Free online Yellow Pages listing.

Q. What is the only reason a business owner repeatedly buys the same advertising package?

A. Because it works.

“Google.com’s only source of revenue is business owners just like yourself reading this email. And once again the only reason they CONTINUE TO PAY GOOGLE IS BECAUSE IT WORKS!”

*****Google has contracted with us and made us a complete partner and authorized reseller of Adwords.