In this section I am going to make you aware of some of the things to look out for when coming across a bad "Guru" or a bad "Internet Marketer" - Otherwise known as a "Scammer" or one of those people/companies who spill out nonsense such as "Make $10,000 in 1 Month" and "10 Easy Ways To Building Traffic.....All For $97". These type of Gurus and Internet Marketers make money by preying on genuine, vulnerable/innocent, people who are just looking to find a way to make money online. Not all "Gurus" and "Internet Marketers" are bad though (only about 90+ percent!). By making yourself aware of their tactics and more precisely their approach the better you will be at spotting them. So never mind making money with them, you will be saving a fortune just by avoiding them.

This section only highlights the way these bad "Gurus" and bad "Internet Marketers" approach you with their programmes/courses/schemes. It is not meant as a reference to every scam going or a reference to any guru or internet marketer in particular. It is more of a "What To Avoid" section. A good website you might like to use for scam reference is www.scam.com.

The first question people ask, normally after being scammed, is "How did I get sucked in?". After scratching there heads they soon realise the chain of events that lead up to the scam, which usually involves many layers of deception.

The E-Mail Entrance

A traditional ploy of the Scammer ("Guru" / "Internet Marketer") is to send out an email titled "Just Saw Your Website...." or "How To Get Traffic The Easy Way" for example. It is normally worded as an appetizing introduction to Help YOU Solve Your Website Problem(s)/Need(s) and is one reason for wanting to open the email. You would have to be very strong willed not to open it - The title is challenging your curiosity, playing on the fact that at this point "What harm can it do to take a peek?" and most of all telling you there is a bitter taste to be had for not opening what could be your ultimate solution to making vast fortunes on the internet. It is this kind of wordsmith craftmanship (and it is an art form) that is applied 10 times over in the email message itself.

The email message elaborates on the message given out by the email title. This normally contains a short explanation on how this sender (person/company) can help you and your website traffic - The display of a "FREE Traffic E-Book" link, followed by a special offer to their "Blueprint" (Business Plan) and/or Specialist Software (costing Only $1 or Just $97), is the normal pattern of behaviour in the email message. On top of this reassuring, sincere, words are used to build up your trust.

The FREE E-Book

The FREE E-Book normally churns out information you could easily find on any good webmaster's website via a search engine. For example. Search google for "10 popular ways to get website traffic" (without the quotation marks) and you will get various websites/blogs giving out free advice and free ideas about getting website traffic. The scammer has done the same thing and then wrapped all that free information into one FREE Traffic E-Book titled "10 Secrets To Getting Website Traffic". Why? Because besides giving you so called "Traffic Secrets" it more importantly makes them look kind hearted.

You may think "Wow! This person/company is so genuine (in a kind hearted way)". "They are telling me all these Secrets for nothing". "I bet nobody else is doing this.....I bet others don't even know of these secrets". "This person is of Authority.....a Guru". Why would you think like this? Why? Because you have been programmed that way in life; Programmed to believe that if someone does you a good deed they are instantly nice. In other words. These scammers play on your emotions and conditional upbringing so that the bare facts are overlooked. Bare facts such as the information they are giving you is freely available on the internet and that their "Traffic Secrets" are not really secrets.

The Special Offer

Within the email message you normally get a download link for the FREE E-Book and a website/blog link to the "Blueprint" (Business Plan) offer and/or Specialist Software offer. The two might be separate offers or a combined offer. Either way. The Specialist Software is normally a Keyword Analytics tool (program) that can analyse your competition's keywords, key phrases, rankings and statistics amongst other things. The "Blueprint" on the other hand is normally a step-by-step programme/course that teaches you how to; Pick a domain name, Create a blog, Build up your website traffic and so on.

So far you may be thinking "This is just normal business practise" and "They are only collecting up all the information for me so that I do not have to". And this would be fine if they were helping you in this way, but many of them will not be. A good percentage of their blueprint is just waffle that teaches you nothing. They promise "Secrets" and "How Tos" but do not deliver. You can find out tons more, FREE, information online by using google tools, viewing subject related forum/blog posts and so on. Yes it will take longer, but not much longer. With the scammer you can watch hours of video for example and be taught nothing whereas you can use the same time to watch relevant youtube videos on e-marketing for example that teach you something. It is that simple. At the end of the day, the scammers "Blueprint" boils down to freely available information that has been wrapped into a website or blog.

The Sale Letter - Newsletter Subscription

Clicking on the link that offers you the FREE "Traffic Secrets" E-Book normally takes you to a Sales Letter first. A sales letter is one huge web page (letter) that has been made up of ten or so smaller web pages. The idea is to keep all of those web pages together (content-wise), as opposed to splitting them up and therefore losing the customer's attention to the About Us web page for example. By keeping the web pages together, on one huge Sales Letter web page, they can market their campaign with no distractions such as you going to an About Us web page or a Prices web page for example. They want to work on you slowly. They do not want to give you the price outright because they know more than likely you will not buy. So they manipulate you using Testimonials (from successful customers who are supposedly like you and me), Special Offers and other marketing tactics and sales talk. You will get your FREE E-Book but at a cost! For example. They usually ask you for your email address, and maybe other details down the line, before giving you the free e-book and so on. And when you submit your email address, in return for the free e-book, you will normally be spammed (be sent frequent Junk Email). Why? Because they signed you up to their Daily Newsletter (always read the small print).....so technically they are not spamming you now.

At this point you may be thinking "But that is what a Sales Letter should be doing" and "They are only trying to make a living". And you would be quite right too, if it wasn't for the fact that they are selling you useless offers (as mentioned above) and empty promises. They are just hyping up their products whilst playing on the potential customer's desperations and misguided needs.

The $1 CD/DVD Offer

The $1 offer is a marketing tactic (scam) whereby you only have to pay $1 for the blueprint, initially. The blueprint programme/course is offered as a one month trial that is either sent to you on a cd/dvd or shown to you via an online website/blog that has a Private Members area. To pay for the one month trial you must submit your credit card details as opposed to sending them a cheque for $1. This is so that they can charge you for continued membership - If you order the cd/dvd and do not like the programme/course on it you must return the cd/dvd within a specified time; otherwise it is acknowledged that you want to continue with the programme/course and therefore want to pay for the cd/dvd in full (i.e. $97). The online blueprint, membership area, is the same. You will be charged $97 if you do not cancel your membership within the specified time. So always read the small print before paying the $1 and signing up for something you might regret.

The above described a one-off fee, but another marketing tactic (scam) is one whereby you are duped into paying an ongoing monthly fee for a programme/scheme you did not realise you signed up for; simply because it was hidden in the advertising. So always read the article, advertising, small print and whatever else before even contemplating signing up for a $1 offer that sounds too good to be true.

Old Material

A good blueprint's material should always be up-to-date, no more than 6 months old. I have seen blueprints that give out PDF (E-Book) files with old, dead, website links in them and videos that demonstrate old software. Another thing to look out for is recycled material. Material that the blueprint author (the scammer) knows is two years old for example but thinks it can still be sold as relevant. Tell tale signs of this include old copyright notices on material and the fact that they mention free software with old version numbers. The dead links are the real giveaway though.

Seminars

Many bad "Gurus" and bad "Internet Marketers" like to organise a monthly seminar. They book a hotel function room for example whereby they give talks on "Making Money Online" for example, to like minded people who are innocently just trying to make a little money online, and then hype up that seminar in junk emails they send out just before the launch date. "SIGN UP NOW", "REGISTER NOW Before It's Too Late", "We Have 3,000 Members But Only 200 Places" and so on. The reality of these talks though are just reashed works of material they spoke about months, or years, ago that fill you with nothing more than hope and the philosophy of how to make money online.....without actually telling you their true "secrets" of how to make money online. Why? Because they do not have any "secrets" to tell. They make their money through selling e-books, blueprints and software that supposedly tell you how to actually make money online. To add insult to injury they charge £75 to £250 for a one or two day seminar - Not cheap. So ask yourself "Could I spend that money elsewhere, more wisely?".

Cancel / Unsubscribe

Cancellation is another big problem with these scammers. Ironically, they scam you but are protected by law with regards to their contract (your subscription). So always read the cancellation terms and conditions before even subscribing to their blueprint or whatever. Otherwise you may find yourself wasting more time later through writing letters to your bank and faxing them with evidence of cancellation - The banks like to see proof that you have cancelled so that any future withdrawals from the scammer can be noted and dealt with. If you do not inform your bank of these scams the scammer will continue to deduct money from your credit card even though you have cancelled with them. Also check out their Money Back Guarantee if you do not want a headache later.

In some cases the person (scammer) you thought you signed up with is not actually the person you signed up with. These scammers hide behind so many names and company names that you have to be extra careful. For example. Test their Telephone Helpline, Email Helpline and Postal Helpline anonymously with a routine, and then difficult, question to see what kind of response you get.....if any.

The Reality

One of the big realities of these Blueprints is that they cost you more money in the long term. For example. They say Do This and Do That with your blog but fail to show you how to build an actual blog. So before you can go blogging you need a website designer on your side (money). When you get a web designer you find out you have more costs to pay - Bandwidth, Web Hosting, Video Software, Etc. Many of these costs are not mentioned in the Blueprint. It might suggest a plan (dirty tactic) whereby you buy up to twenty websites and have them all link back to each other in order to get higher traffic rankings. Regardless if this tactic is good or bad, it will cost you a small fortune to host twenty websites. 20 websites, even at £30 a year, would cost you £600 a year. And to update/maintain those 20 websites, each with a blog on them for example, would be a nightmare for one person (even for 5 people). The realty though is that it would cost you nearer £1,000 a year for 20 websites.

The idea of leaving your safe, boring, job for the possibility of earning $10,000 a month is unrealistic. The blueprint paints this ideal picture but forgets to mention the sums. For example. Let's say you affiliate a product (sell someone elses product for a small commission). Even if you were to sell 10 products a day, at $20 each, that would only earn $6,200 per month (31 Days). That is 10 x $20 = $200 per day multiplied by 31 = $6,200. Now with your commission even at 50% that would only earn you $3,100 per month. Sounds nice, but the reality of selling 20 affiliated products a day though is unrealistic. Why? Because you are just starting out remember!....with no traffic. And even if you had plenty of traffic (thousands of visitors) and a reasonably good product you should still not leave your job simply because you are not guaranteed to sell one product. The only occasion that would require you to leave your job is when your products are selling so fast you need to commit 40 hours to marketing them further. Remember. You would just sit back and take the money because you would have already done the hard work of affiliating the products, so why have one income when you can have two?

Google Adsense and Google Adwords are also mentioned strongly in blueprints, but they forget to mention you need a strong website before google will even consider it for adsense or adwords membership. Also. Your adwords (cost per click/keyword) campaign can end up costing you $100 or more per week. And saying this, you are not going to get noticed with a $100 a week adwords campaign. For example. If it costs you 1 cent each time a visitor clicks on your advertisement, it will cost you $100 by the time they have clicked on your advertisement 1,000 times (simply because 1,000 cent is $100 of course. Therefore 1,000 clicks also equates to $100). To put this into perspective, the big companies pay $1 per click and sometimes more. So 1,000 clicks would cost them at least $1,000.

To put this into further perspective. Not many people are lucky enough to get 1,000 visitor clicks (advertisement clicks) that turn into 1,000 sales straight away. It is near impossible. Realistically it may take 4,000 clicks or more to get you 1,000 sales, simply because not every visitor who clicks on your advertisement wants to buy. Some of them are just curious about your product. It would be nice to have 1,000 visitor clicks turn into 1,000 product sales straight away, because at $20 a product that would be $20,000 on a $100 investment. Unfortunately though, it never works out that way because of the numbers and hard work involved. Not to mention that a 1 cent advertisement is almost useless, both in terms of ad placement and quality. In other words. If you are competing with an advertisement that costs someone $1 per click their advertisement is going to be better positioned/placed on google than your 1 cent advertisement. So do your sums when you hear unrealistic forecasts coming from these scammers.

Conclusion

At the end of the day it comes down to Internet Marketing gone wrong! These bad gurus and bad internet marketers come under the umbrella of "Scammer" because they know they are not selling anything of real worth. They are playing on peoples emotions and the current recession whereby people are even more desperate to "Make Money Online". Unfortunately their tactics fall on the right side of the law. They are selling to you a blueprint for example that you wanted and paid for based on what you had read/seen. It is call marketing. They are merely promoting their products and services in a profitable way. If you do not like what you have received there should be a Money Back Guarantee and/or Cancel Subscription service available to you. As long as these are in place you cannot complain.....even though the scammer will make it difficult for you to cancel of course. So the bottom line is: READ EVERYTHING FIRST BEFORE PARTING WITH YOUR MONEY.

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