This is one in a series of posts reviewing and looking at how some of the SEO companies which use bulk emails/spam with ‘we can help your terrible site’ type emails really can (and actually mostly can’t!) help your site.
Read some simple explanations of some of the SEO terms used on this post…
This email came from a Kerry using an @gmail.com email, although a reply came from Mike via an maisontechnology.com email (I also had an identical initial spam email from an Alessandro within 15 mins of the one from Kerry)…
Dear business owner of whyeaster.com,
We are connecting you from a leading website design company and we can upgrade your website in most economic cost.
Our Expertise in:
• Web Design using PSD to HTML,
• Design Templates – Layout
• Customized Template Design
• Custom CMS (Content Management System)
• E-commerce Website Design
• Payment Gateway IntegrationYou will get a customized and responsive website within 2 weeks.
I can show you our packages/action/Portfolio/past work details.
Interested? Let’s discuss.
Best Regards,
Kerry Mayo.
I replied and got a reply from Mike. So let’s see what their report says about my Easter site!
Their Report & Recommendations
The report/plan I received from them was in the form of an email with a PDF attached of their ‘report’. Here’s the email, more on the report below.
Hi James,
Hope everything is well with you !!
I had to come in contact with you, as you were in touch with one of our sales consultants Kerry Mayo. We are delighted you have shown interested to go ahead with us and it will be a great pleasure for me as well.
This is Mike from Maison Technology, Maison technology is a globally reckoned Digital Marketing agency offering a diverse range of internet marketing services across the globe.
As you are looking for the cost, we will give you the best website which is in international standards at $300.
As per my analysis, Here I’m mentioning some website related recommendations to you.
Website Recommendations:
1. This website needs more amount of changes.
2. The Homepage banners/images or slider images should represent your business model.
3. You need to have better content to engage customers.
4. Even though the website is mobile friendly, it needs to be optimized.
5. Your website is not SEO-friendly or Google Friendly. Just because of this, this is not properly indexed on to the Google Search pages.
6. It needs to have good information about the business model.
7. There ere some errors in coding which needs to get fixed on an immediate basis.
As you were looking for the price details, we assure you to give a best website of international standards at $300 which will help you in growing your business more and more in the upcoming days.
The procedure to start would be like this:
We will send you the proposal for rectification of your website.
We will take the upfront amount of 50%, the remaining you can pay during the run time of the project.
We will send you couple of image-replica mock designs of your website.
Once you approve the design, we will start developing your website in a very efficient manner.
Benefits from Maison Technology:
Maintenance and hosting will be free of cost till you continue with us.
24*7 Tech support.
Dedicated Project Manager will be assigned
Internal standard, Google friendly, SEO friendly, User friendly and mobile friendly website will be developed.
Please let me know when do you want us to start the re-designing campaign, so that we can send the invoice.
Waiting for your valuable and sooner response.
Thanks & Regards,
Mike [surname removed for privacy, even though I’m sure it’s not his real name!]
Maison Technology
Digital Marketing Company
So let’s look, in some more details, at the ‘recommendations’ they have for my site…
This website needs more amount of changes.
This sentence doesn’t make any sense! It’s also not one that a native speaker on English would probably use…
The Homepage banners/images or slider images should represent your business model.
Erm, has Mike actually visited the site? My site is about Easter. There’s one image on the home page which is a composite of Easter Eggs, a chocolate bunny, a lily flower and a drawing of Jesus on the cross – so all VERY Easter things. So this is WRONG!
You need to have better content to engage customers.
Again, this makes me wonder if Mike has ever visited the site. It’s pretty clear on the site that it’s just an information site for Easter. It doesn’t sell anything – there are no ‘customers’ as such. But it does have lots of really good information about Easter. So this is WRONG!
Even though the website is mobile friendly, it needs to be optimized.
This is WRONG! It is VERY mobile friendly – in fact far far far more so than their own site – as we’ll find out more about below.
Your website is not SEO-friendly or Google Friendly. Just because of this, this is not properly indexed on to the Google Search pages.
This is WRONG! The site is very SEO and Google friendly. If you search for ‘The Easter Story’, my page for that on the site is #1 on all of Google out of 360 MILLION results!
It needs to have good information about the business model.
This is WRONG! And it’s basically the same issue as one 3 ‘recommendations’ above… (again has Mike actually visited the site!?)
There ere some errors in coding which needs to get fixed on an immediate basis.
No they’re aren’t (unlike their own site) so… this is WRONG! (and are isn’t spelt correctly…)
WOW – out of their 7 ‘recommendations’ 6 are simple wrong and the other one doesn’t make any sense!!!
Looking at Their Site
With SEO spammers, I also like to look at their sites, to see if they practice what they preach (I mean would you trust a plumber who had leaking and rusty pipes all over their own house?!); and also to compare their site with a site they say they can help…
Their site is: https://maisontechnology.com/
For HTML Validation, their site has: 20 Errors and 63 Warnings! (My site doesn’t have any… they said it does – but it doesn’t – but their site really does!)
On Google Pagespeed their site gets:
Desktop: 47/100 (That’s pretty terrible…)
Mobile: 3/100 (That’s REALLY TERRIBLE!!!)
My site gets:
Desktop: 100/100
Mobile: 99/100 – so both considerably better using Google’s own speed testing tool!
On GTMetrix their site gets:
F (5%) / E (51%) – again fairly terrible.
On GTMetrix my site gets:
A 95% / A (94%) – so my site is better!
Using the ‘WAVE’ Accessibility Testing Tool, my site has a clean bill of health – their site has 11 accessibility errors and 8 alerts
There is a huge number of ‘mixed content’ errors on the site (because their site is set-up properly to work over HTTPS/SSL), so many of the pages (including the home page and portfolio pages) are basically unusable!
The main logo on the site has an ’empty’ alt – that’s terrible SEO wise.
The only ‘heading 1’ on their home page is ‘contact us’ – again terrible SEO wise.
The have social links in the site’s header and footer, including an ’empty’ link Google+. That would be because Google+ closed several months ago. You’d think that a ‘globally reckoned Digital Marketing agency’ (who wants to rebuild my website) would know how to take out an un-needed link on their own site – but apparently not…!
They have several ‘Quick Links’ in the site’s footer – but all the important ones (about/terms/privacy) don’t actually work/go anywhere. To me those would be ‘good information about the business model’ which they say my site needs (but actually doesn’t).
Mike also says in his email that the site they make will be ‘Internal standard’, again that’s completely meaningless!
In his email, Mike said “Even though the website is mobile friendly, it needs to be optimized”. If there’s a site that needs mobile help, it’s their one! It scored an appalling 3/100 on Google ‘PageSpeed’ tool. But running a mobile audit on Google’s ‘Light House’ tool, it get’s 1/100! (My site gets 99/100 on PageSpeed and Light House.)
Maison Technology is clearly based in India from their website. However, they’ve only used ‘western’ names in their emails although the way that the English is written is often not how native English speakers would use it. I wonder if they’re using western looking names to try and look ‘bigger’.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I have no issues with Indian based web companies; but I do have issues with any company that flat out lies!
Conclusion
Maison Technology claim to be a ‘globally reckoned Digital Marketing agency’ – but why do they need to spam people behind Gmail accounts?!
Their ‘recommendations’ are either very wrong or meaningless. I really do wonder if they’d ever actually visited the site.
As for their own site, is one of the most poorly built sites I’ve ever seen. It’s full of basic mistakes as well as riddled with errors.
To put it simply: there is no way I’d let them near any of my sites!
But as ever, the choice is yours…