I have a small background studying information marketers.

If you aren’t aware of these people, they have techniques (often called secrets) that they have figured out that have made them millionaires. And now they want to share these “secrets” with you so that you can be a millionaire too.

They often get labeled as “get-rich-quick” people. However, most of them will deny that label. They will outwardly admit that what they are proposing takes work and commitment.

That said, there is a pretty standard formula for the story of these people:

They were dirt poor. Broke. Some were in incredible debt. They were out of work and everything was going wrong. They tried everything in the book. But then they stumbled across a hidden secret that no one else knew and then everything changed. They quickly became rich. All their dreams have been met. And now they want to share their knowledge with you.

You too can be this guy:

 

They will show you the fancy cars, fancy beach houses and vacations they are taking. They will show you bank statements with big numbers.

Here’s the thing: I have found that many of these people often have good advice and are genuinely trying to be helpful.

Probably my favorite information marketer is Jeff Walker. He invented something called the “Product Launch Formula.” The concept is that instead of just throwing a product on to the market you build it up… like a movie trailer. “Coming soon!”

He seems like a pretty down to earth guy and is genuinely a good marketer. But even he won’t leave the formula of consistently telling you how well he is doing, how important he is. This is the most recent picture of him on his site:

They do this for a very specific reason: Their target market are unhappy people. They are reaching out to people who hate their jobs, don’t have a job or are wildly in debt.

They are painting a picture of ease, luxury and happiness.

I also am captivated by the story of John Reese who got rid of all his stuff (which included “The Lamborghini, Ferrari, BMWs, a Rolex collection, an expensive wardrobe, amazing furniture, a massive home theater, a 1,000 gallon saltwater aquarium, the works.”) to travel the world. He boiled it all down to this:

While very often I find these people’s information interesting and useful, this is where I start to get irritated with them.

They are targeting the down and out of society.

They systematically tell a story of how they have figured out how to be rich and happy. They will tell you how to be rich and happy too. It’s just behind this last door that costs $2000 to open.

Again, the information can be interesting and useful. But it’s rarely a secret.

Most people who buy the information product will not make a dime off of it. That usually has more to do with the person buying the product than the actual product. A lot of these people, I believe, are hoping for a quick fix to their problems. Even the information marketers will readily admit that all this will take hard work. But at the same time they dangle a few “powerful secrets” in front of you. If you just find out these secrets everything is going to change.

There are no secrets like that.

I set all that up to talk directly to the search engine optimization information marketers.

I teach a lot at some local colleges and on a few different online marketing national circuits. I run into your students.

They tell me a lot of the strategies you are proposing. For years I’ve heard the power of Traffic Geyser  (a tool I haven’t subscribed to) Market Samurai (a tool I do own), AWeber (my primary email newsletter tool), Clickbank (a service I have tested and also am friends with the VP of Business Data Services) and Article Samurai (the worst idea to ever come to the search engine optimization world).

These are all fine (except Article Samurai. Seriously do not spin articles!) But you guys have to stop!

Do you know the saying: “If you’re a hammer, everything is a nail?”

It seems it is also true: “If you are a spammer, everything is an algorithm to be gamed.”

You must stop telling your students to buy cheap links from odesk. You must stop telling your students to produce tons of garbage content. You must stop telling your students to submit articles to content farms.

That shit is all over! It’s done.

I know that the fancy tools and complicated schemes are what currently sells your books, videos and membership sites.

But you are walking these people into a trap.

Google has enough processing power now to analyze the web and the connections across countless networks to readily determine who is implementing all these tactics.

Google is out to get people who are getting crap links and making junk content.

Do you really think Google cares if a few sites get caught up in a negative SEO attack by an aggressive competitor? While that might happen occasionally, it’s nowhere near the amount of people who are just creating crap. Call it collateral damage.

• Panda
• Penguin
• Knowledge Graph

Google is figuring out how to move past all these “tricks”.

But I am 100% confident you all can still make a ton of money in this new world… if not more money.

Here’s what I want you to do:

I want you to build squeeze pages that scare the shit out of people. Talk about all these changes at Google.

Show Google Analytics screen shots of people who got hit by Panda. Show screen shots of people who got hit by Penguin.

Tell the stories of all the people who got hit by these updates. Talk about how everything came to a screeching halt.

Then make the call to action: I will show you the secrets how to make Google work for you in this new era.

Do all the same stuff you do now.

• Squeeze pages
• Long form sales pages
• Videos
• AWeber auto-sending newsletters.

Keep all the tactics that work.

But then tell them the true secret.

Tell them that they have to be awesome.

Tell them that they have to build amazing content.

Tell them to write 5 articles a day, 5 days a week for a year.

Tell them to make informational videos on Youtube. Forget all the other places you would auto upload videos to using Traffic Geyser.

Tell them how to use HooteSuite. Tell them how to use Buffer.

Teach them how to be great.

Because here’s the thing: You are pretty great yourselves. 

You know how Google works. You know how to rank well. In fact, because you are so well versed in spam techniques, you understand what makes Google tick better than most.

Be consultants and coaches to these people like you currently are. But promote quality over quantity. They can create quality content. You can teach them how to do it. You can be their cheerleader to keep going.

But please stop telling people to get crappy links and make crappy articles. 

You don’t need 1000 junk links. You would do much better to have 100 industry-targeted links that point to legitimate content.

These people are relying on you to get them out of their current world of hurt. You can help them do that.

But your junk content and links are just leading them down a path of more hurt.

Please stop telling them these things.