BEWARE of Latest Scams to Access Your Bank Account!!
Have you ever received an email from PayPal or your bank asking you to “verify your account information”? Well, it may be legitimate. On the other hand, it may also be a fraudulent attempt to get access to your personal and/or financial information. Today it is more important than ever to recognize and avoid getting trapped by these fake phishing emails and not disclose your personal information, bank account or credit card details to unknown fraud persons, who harvest private information via fake websites, links and emails.
This type of online scam is perpetuating on a continual basis. The risks seem to be multiplying. For example, with the majority of the population spending a large percentage of their time on computers and Smartphone’s this fraudulent activity is increasing in volume, frequency and sophistication with no slowdown in sight. . See video at bottom for Real Case demo
They may be the 21st century’s snake oil salesmen. The SEO (search engine optimization) Guy. If you own an online business, particularly an e-commerce retail business, you most likely get about 10-20 SPAM emails a week from someone trying to sell you his/her SEO services. AND, ironically they always come from one of the Free, anonymous emails like Yahoo or Gmail. I don’t think I have ever received one from a legitimate domain based email that is associated with a business.
But, before I get started, a disclaimer. I no longer do SEO for clients, only for my own ecommerce businesses. That said here we go….
The reasons to start an online business as either a new venture or to supplement an existing business are endless. But in this new video, a promo for the upcoming “How to Start a Successful Online Business” on July 26 in Canton, MA, I highlight the top five.
Ok, here we go again. Remember in the early 90’s when everyone was telling Mr. Nearsighted
he needed an email address to communicate with his customers? But, not until 1999 when he heard his #1 competitor Mr. GoodIntuition started writing a newsletter for his 1000 new online customers did he finally start using email. Too little too late. Than in 2001 a friend suggested Mr. Nearsighted get a website for his jewelry business. So he could extend his reach to the entire world instead of just his small town in Rhode Island. “Bahh”, he said “I don’t need No [bleeping] website. Not until 2005 when his sales plummeted 50%, due to everyone selling much less expensive custom jewelry on eBay did Mr. Nearsighted finally get a website and eBay account. However, his #1 competitor put his website up in 2000 and was ranked at the top of Google for consumer searches relating to his jewelry products. Mr. Nearsighted at that point found it too difficult to compete. Too little too late.
You may remember Mr. TooManyHats, a busy man who suffers subscriber fatigue. His wife, Mrs. TooManyHats, has the same problem. She has so many emails, she doesn’t know what to do. About 20 times a day they get an email offering some free webinar or report if they just Register. Ah, no problem its free, right?
I cannot help but use the Border’s recent bankruptcy to highlight a continuing mentality in the corporate and even small business world. Yesterday I was reading in my major news announcements the story of Border’s demise which has been almost entirely attributed to their “cluelessness” about the importance of a strong Online Presence. Yet when I visit Chamber of Commerce events, BNI group meetings, and speak to many business owners its bewildering how many business owners and managers also have “Border-itis” .
(Free Video). Whether you need customers, clients or patients, there is no more powerful and direct link to that goal then a well designed and implemented Lead Generation System. And today your focus MUST be ONLINE. Particularly when 97% of American internet users use the internet to shop of which 57% characterize their behavior as shop online, purchase offline (NDP Group).
SO the entire internet marketing community is fixated on search engine optimization, which for those who are unfamiliar with SEO, the prime real estate on the search engines (mostly Google since they have 85% of the search market). By “prime real estate” we are usually talking on the FIRST PAGE of Google search results for a business’s most valuable keywords. But, someone on a popular social forum recently gave me a slap on the side of the head. You see I was researching the Plastic Surgeon (PS) market and actually doing some online and offline marketing to the PS industry. To my dismay my offering “get on the first page of Google” was falling on deaf ears. So, I posted a discussion in this forum and an astute reader commented “Plastic Surgeons don’t care about Google ranking, they just want patients”.
So it dawned on me. I may be a search engine evangelist and intimately understand and experience the immense benefit of search engine optimization, but most business owners don’t have time to understand web marketing. They don’t have the time to “get” the value of high Google keyword ranking. They need to spend every minute servicing and hopefully acquiring new clients. What my new friend said was so obvious, but at the same time so oblivious. IN this day and age we are all so caught up in the hype of social media marketing, search engine marketing, blogging, and nw mobile marketing that we forget about the client. The client doesn’t care about the technology hype, he/she just wants more business.
Online marketing is critical to the cosmetic surgery industry in these days of mass marketing. As a matter of fact, a web marketing strategy is important to any business’s success and in some cases, survival.. You can be sure that consumers look online to reviews and blogs before using any elective surgery clinic. As a matter of fact 80-90% of consumers will research a health related issue online before ever even calling a doctor. And, if these prospects are not seeing your web site, the potential client/patient acquisition loss could be significant. In addition to consumers searching for plastic surgeon information online, they are also discussing their experiences in the social media space like Facebook and Twitter.
