As you may have noticed (since I’m sure you have carefully read through my website before attempting to contact me, rather than heading straight for the “Contact” page), I am a highly competent writer with many years of experience writing specifically for the web. While I appreciate your concern that my “SEO” might need help, and have received your ultra-spammy email indicating that, for a fee, you would be glad to help me out, you might want to address a few concerns I have regarding your tactics:

1. When I say your email was “spammy,” I mean that it had a certain odor indicating a lack of professionalism. In fact, it reeked of the types of tactics employed by robots, which made me question your humanity altogether, and certainly did not make me want to further a conversation about search engine optimization.
2. Speaking of which, please don’t ever use the term “SEO” on me again. I know what it stands for (see above), and despite the fact that I’m sure there are people out there who are properly trained to optimize websites for search engines, I doubt you are one of them. The term itself is associated with spammers and other scumbags, who seek to persuade people that there is a “quick fix” for getting your website ranked #1 at “the Google.”
3. Certainly, there are good tools for optimization efforts out there (like the inexpensive SEO School by Naomi Dunford, which even has a money-back guarantee), but I would never buy them from someone who didn’t even take the time to address me by my proper name in the opening line of their email. If you don’t know what my name is, you aren’t even trying. Perhaps you are legally blind, and your computer’s Stephen Hawking voice has been temporarily muted? Seriously, it’s not like I’ve concealed my identity here. Your lack of personalization gives you away, spammer.
4. Considering the possibility that you actually know anything at all about optimizing websites, you should be aware that I have many tags on my posts, some pretty eye-catching headlines, and some well-ranked pages, including one about writing scams and content mills. I am, in fact, the #3 page that comes up when searching for my (frightfully common) name on Google, and that suits me fine. The two that rank higher than me are Laura Roberts, MD and a consulting firm that has managed to capture my full name for their URL. It’s not like I’m behind loads of content aggregators and such, so I must have some idea about how to work the great Google machine, no?

In closing, no, I have no need of your supposed skills at this time. But even if I did, you should probably try sending me a personalized message first, asking if I might be interested in what you do, including a proper link to your website and some contact info that ventures into the real world (i.e. phone number, physical business address) that would make me feel like you are working at a reputable company that might actually have a clue.

Just my two-bucks worth (as time is money),
Laura Roberts, Professional Writer

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• Scam or possibly scamola?

You’re welcome.

I particularly identify with “they are surprised you actually want money.” Um, yes. Oddly enough, we Professional Writers do charge for our services. Sometimes, you will not be able to afford us. Suck it up and get the money for the fee so you’ll have it done right the first time, or else get your “friend who writes good” to do the work, and see how far that little exercise in futility goes.

Missing from this list is the “oh, I just need a few edits to my website,” which turns into “oh, you have to actually edit the code for my website, otherwise I won’t be able to, like, upload the text myself, or get an unpaid intern to do this dirty work for me!” I do not edit code. I edit text. Words. You know, the things that form sentences? If you want me to muck about in your backend, you’d better be paying me code monkey fees. Look those up and then see how you feel.

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Also, don’t miss the I Was Sucked into Content Mill Writing article by Anonymous, as it’s a good general take on the type of “work” you will find yourself doing, the feelings you will be feeling, and the right way to put a stop to being taken advantage of as a professional writer.

My basic opinion of these places is that if you’re taking content from writers but aren’t paying them, you’re a scumbag. You’ve started a company that preys on writers, hoping to turn a profit. This is theft of information, ideas and time. Writers, real writers who write copy for a living, are paid for their time as well as their end products. So anyone who offers you payment at some unspecified date in the future, in the form of “royalties” or “percentages” or anything that sounds like “if you have to get a million people to click on the article to make one cent per click and see some profit,” you should run screaming. This is not a job, this is a scam. Period. Suite101 is this type of a scam.

Demand Studios is NOT a scam, but they are still not worth working for, no matter how you slice it. They lay out in advance the amount of money you can expect to make (i.e. $5 to $20 per article), but considering all the research involved, as well as the time spent writing and editing, this is a paltry sum of money. Again, professional copywriters don’t work for these places, because the pay rate is insulting, and if you want proof just ask The Well-Fed Writer (who makes $50,000 a year or more, writing for places that respect the work that he does). If you need the money, you should look for another type of job. Even crappy service industry jobs like waiting tables or slinging coffee will net you more income than Demand Studios. Period. I’ve worked for Demand Studios in the past, and it honestly wasn’t worth the effort. You won’t even get good quality clips you can use to net other jobs. Don’t bother.

All that being said, people always want to make up their own minds. So no matter how many times I say “Don’t do it! It’s a scam! It’s not worth it!” there will always be some who want to see for themselves, or try to beat the system. If that’s the case, I’m not sure why you wrote to me for advice and input to begin with, but there’s my advice. Don’t do it. It’s a scam. And really, it’s not worth it.

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