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Banned by Fiverr for Exposing Fiverr Scams

November 30, 2012 By 2 Comments

marketing ideas banned by fiverr

I’m continuing some consumer protection work covering Fiverr scams and the manner by which the popular Internet company continues to defend and support these scams. The initial portion of this post began as a response to a rather long thread in the WarriorForum and I’ve gone on to expound from there.

Post response by Chris Kent on July 1, 2011 to “Ban by Fiverr? Here the reason” [sic]:

“Fiverr will ban you if they might lose out of it. On the other hand, they hardly ever ban scammer providers.

“I have twice gotten a refund out of scammers with the help of their helpdesk.

“For example, the first was someone who posts your link on his wall which is a fake “chick’s wall”. He adds several thousand in Photoshop to his list of 72 friends.

“When you get your refund, your negative rating disappears. Fiverr know they have scammers and refuse to ban them. They just want to keep people getting scammed so they make more money.” (Kent, 2011.)

marketing ideas, fiverr scams, scams online, banned by fiverr

marketing ideas fiverr scamSo true!! Here’s a firsthand account (complete with screen captures) about the first Fiverr scam I became aware of. (How NOT to Drive Traffic Using Fiverr | Marketing Ideas 101) This scam was for increased traffic to my website for a month, but the seller was supplying junk traffic. I called the gig off early and Fiverr gave the scam artist the out and removed my negative rating and removed my warning to future shoppers.

A couple weeks later, I ran across another scam involving Craigslist ad postings. This particular gig seller couldn’t produce any ads that weren’t ghosted (in Craigslist vernacular, a ghosted ad appears to be live, however it does not show up in the index pages nor through search.) Apparently, the seller’s previous buyers were blissfully unaware the ads the seller was providing were relatively useless.

As of today, I have officially been banned by Fiverr for the first time after buying $830 in $5 gigs from them over the past year.

My offense? I asked a content writer to work up a blog post about Fiverr scams. No kidding. The gig owner wrote this shortly before my account was restricted:

“Hi there Matt! I’m very sorry but I have to pass this time. I don’t feel confident or competent enough with your particular topic or requirements. Requesting for the cancellation of the order and the funds will be refunded back to you. Thanks for understanding!”

When I went to decline the cancellation request and give her a different topic she might better be suited for, I found my account was unable to complete the action.

marketing ideas fiverr restricted account

The error message said my account had been restricted and that I could forward any questions to Fiverr support.

Here’s how that correspondence went:

Matt, Nov 29 17:21 (IST): Folks, I have a gig seller that is trying to cancel an order because she does not feel qualified to write on the topic (scams on Fiverr). That’s fine, but I want to keep the gig and simply give her a different topic. The system is not allowing me. Any thoughts?

Julia – Fiverr’s Customer Support Team (Fiverr Customer Support), Nov 30 04:01 (IST): Hi Matt, we are unable to reinstate your account at this time. Users who violate our Terms of Service and get their account permanently restricted will be able to complete any active orders they may have; and will continue to have access to their completed orders. The funds in your shopping balance have been returned to your PayPal account.

Regards,
Julia

To which I responded:

???
How did I violate the Terms of Service???

I still haven’t heard back. The only opening for an infraction I can find in Fiverr’s Terms of Service (which is heavily slanted toward controlling the gig seller) is the following clause:

“Posting or sending adult, illegal, rude, abusive, improper, copyright protected, promotional, spam, violent, nonsense or any uncool stuff is strictly prohibited. Doing so will get your account blocked permanently.” (Fiverr, 2012.)

So, was I “improper”, asking for “nonsense” or just being “uncool”? It’s hard to say. With terms as vague as these, Fiverr can do whatever they want, really.

Just slimy. Surprisingly slimy for an Internet company I assumed was based in the U.S. Wait! They’re not based in the U.S. at all!

“Fiverr, stylized as fiverr, is an Israel-based global online marketplace offering tasks and services starting at $5. [...] The website was founded by Israeli internet entrepreneurs Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger. [...] Entrepreneurs and freelancers can use Fiverr to monetize sell their services. Customers in need of services can find and commission that service directly through the site. Currently, Fiverr lists more than 1,000,000 services on the site that range between $5 and $150.” (Wikipedia, 2012.)

I assert that Fiverr is well aware of their shady business practices and they work daily to protect the con job empire they are creating for themselves. They are really a great study on how easily we trust a well-established name and how easily that trust can be grossly abused. Here is a definition for racketeering, which is essentially what I believe Fiverr is engaged in:

“A racket is an illegal business or scheme, usually run as part of organized crime. Engaging in a racket is called racketeering.” (Wikipedia, 2012.)

Oh, and of course there’s fraud:

“Fraud can be committed through many media, including mail, wire, phone, and the Internet (computer crime and Internet fraud). International dimensions of the web and ease with which users can hide their location, the difficulty of checking identity and legitimacy online…” (Wikipedia, 2012.)

Caveat emptor, folks. “Let the buyer beware.”

In support of your efforts,

Matt

P.S. – Here’s a conspiracy theory for you: Consider for a moment Fiverr isn’t just overrun with scam artists, but that it actively and consciously houses a network of them. Just a thought. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

 marketing ideas, fiverr scams, scams online, banned by fiverr

References

Fiverr. Terms of Service. Retrieved from http://fiverr.com/terms_of_service on 11/29/2012.

Kent, Chris. July 1, 2011. Ban by Fiverr? Here the reason. WarriorForum. Retrieved from http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/406608-ban-fiverr-here-reason.html on 11/29/2012.

Wikipedia.org. Fiverr. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiverr on 11/29/2012.

Wikipedia.org. Fraud. Retrieved from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud on 11/29/2012.

Wikipedia.org. Racketeering. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering on 11/29/2012.

Filed Under: Articles, Internet Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

November 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas drive traffic blog

Driving traffic to your blog can be one of the most difficult things to do.  With so many blogs starting up each day, it’s difficult to differentiate yourself and your blog from the others online and to culminate an effective online presence.  While it does take hard work and perseverance, driving and maintaining traffic to your blog can be done by utilizing a few key practices to your daily blogging habits.

Blog Targeting: Keep Your Audience in Mind

This is imperative when creating a blog and writing posts.  Have a targeted demographic in mind and write for them, covering topics they want to read about and that they would find useful in their lives. Often over-looked is the tone of your blog posts, which is crucial to your blog’s success.  If you’re writing a fashion and style blog, make the tone fun, informative and friendly—even casual, as if it’s between friends.

On the other hand, if you’re writing a blog for business men and women, or financially-minded people, then you want the tone to be business-like and knowledgeable. Business readers don’t want to feel like they’re getting information from an unreliable source, just as fashion readers don’t want to feel as if they’re being told what to do.  Knowing who is reading your blog and then writing to them will not only set your blog apart but ensure you have repeat readers.

Blog Optimization: Keep Your Search Keywords in Mind

Once you have your blog written in the appropriate tone and content, go back through and ensure that you’ve used words and phrases that will be picked up by Google search bots. (Read How To Work Keywords Into Your Website.) Using a SEO platform to build your blog on can make it extremely easy to ensure that your blog posts will be returned in searches for your topic.  Having good quality blog posts come up in results will make readers take note of the source and come back to peruse the rest of the blog.

Blog Management: Share, Post and Interact

Having a blog that isn’t seen isn’t really a blog at all.  Make your blog something that you are proud of, sharing it on all social media platforms so that you can encourage traffic and increase the amount of clicks on your links.  Sharing photos and posts on platforms that your readers are members of will increase your traffic and increase reader awareness of your blog.  Social media can give your blog a trustworthy reputation and brand it as a trusted source for your topic.

Drive traffic to your blog to help more, connect more, and earn more.

Before you decide to employ these small changes to your blogging practice and aim to make them a habit, install an analytics program so that you can see the results and increase in your traffic these techniques have brought to your blog.  Once you have mastered these habits and can create effective blog posts, there are many more techniques you can incorporate that are more advanced to drive traffic to your blog.  Because ultimately it is traffic to your blog that will eventually make your blog lucrative and help your message reach many more people, so do what you can to increase your blog traffic!

Filed Under: Articles, Internet Marketing, Non-Profit, Small Business Tagged With: , ,

How NOT to Drive Traffic Using Fiverr

October 31, 2012 By 6 Comments

marketing ideas driving traffic fiverr

(Subtitled: Beware the $5 Traffic Gurus)

I thought I was being smart. I thought I could pay someone five bucks and they would work their magic and funnel all sorts of traffic to my new blog. Of course, I was experimenting, but I had no idea what kind of a fail to expect, so—naively—I hoped for success.

I went to Fiverr.com and dove into ‘Online Marketing,’ then into the ‘Get Traffic’ category. I sorted by rank and found a promising ad. Here’s what it said:

[Name removed to protect the guilty] will drive UNLIMITED
genuine real traffic to your website for one month for $5.

Sounds good, right?

And the job profile comes with lots of rave reviews. I shrugged and hopefully gambled away my $5. The profile asked me the right questions. What’s the URL, what areas do you want to target, etc. Since the job promised to be delivered within three days, I spent three days haunting my Google Analytics reports, eagerly anticipating the hints of a traffic tsunami.

Then it happened! Traffic went from zero (this was a brand new site) to 60 hits and then climbed to 70 hits! Yes! $5 well spent, right!?

Wrong!

Upon further inspection, it appears all the traffic is of the BOUNCING variety (read Should You Worry About Your Bounce Rate? for a better understanding on why high bounce rates are undesirable.) Eyeball the web traffic report below and see if you see what I see:

drive traffic with fiverr

More, if you’ll notice the referrer URL’s, I’m sure you’ll see a trend. Visiting some of these sites will clue you in further to the junk traffic they bring.

Well, there’s an experiment in traffic generation that gives some important feedback. While I might not have benefited from massive volumes of quality traffic, five dollars is cheap tuition. I feel wiser already!

In support of your efforts,

Matt

marketing ideas leadership

Update! (November 2, 2012)

Well, folks.. after writing this post, I opted to go back to the Fiverr vendor and ask them to discontinue the gig, which was supposed to last for a month. I gave them a “thumb’s down”. Here is our discussion:

Me: please discontinue this program. the traffic is junk.

Guilty: Hi, Can I know what happened? And why did you leave a negative feedback without asking information? The traffic is direct to ensure an high level of security with adsense and affiliations, and the bounce rate is related to that because it’s direct. All information are in the document and it’s described, please remove your feedback, and let me know if you are interested in a refund instead.

Me: See attached. Of course you should be expecting negative feedback. There is no value in the traffic you are providing. fiverr-traffic-generation.gif (36.175 KB)

Guilty: My traffic is direct only, and I know the bounce rate is high because it’s a consequence of setting the traffic this way. Some people are converting as they reported me and wrote in the feedback, so it’s valuable for someone, I’m truly sorry it isn’t working for you. As I said, I will refund your order, if you agree to remove the feedback. Please help me maintain a good service, I always do my best to provide that but I know sometimes can’t give the expected results.

Me: Will remove the feedback as soon as we see our sites (both of them) removed from these spammy sites. If we look at our Google Analytics tomorrow and we can see all this bouncing traffic has fallen away, we will remove the comment.

Guilty: I will suspend your campaign immediately, you will notice the removal from a few minutes. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

Guilty: I suspended them as agreed, if you will check the tracking url you won’t see any more visits from me.

Guilty: Hi, Please check the tracking url and you will see the campaign is no longer active, I’m waiting for you.

Me: Go ahead and refund these orders. Thanks.

Guilty: No problem, but you should remove the feedback before I ask the refund or you won’t be able to modify it anymore… Write me as soon as it’s done and I will send the refund, thank you.

I allowed them to sweat a little until the next day. I was still debating taking the review down–after all, wouldn’t the honest feedback protect others from making my same mistake? However, it seems the decision was made for me! I received the following email from Fiverr:

Your order #FO_____________ was cancelled by Fiverr’s customer service team.

Your funds have been returned to your Fiverr Balance and will be used automatically for your next purchase.

Thanks,
The Fiverr Team

So I guess the vendor didn’t want to wait. However, much to my surprise, Fiverr actually removed my feedback from the vendor’s ratings completely! See below. Notice two things:

  1. My negative feedback has been removed, as well as my comments!
  2. Another person has gotten an inkling that the traffic they are receiving isn’t doing them any good; though they are much less confident about what they should be seeing, they suspect there’s something wrong.

drive traffic fiverr

Now, it’s somewhat disheartening to recognize most of these folks see the spike in traffic like I did, however they aren’t looking at their bounce rates or the referring URL’s, so they aren’t realizing they’re being duped.

I liken this to ordering the steak dinner at a restaurant, being served a rice cake, and commenting how full you are now that you’ve eaten so well.

And what about Fiverr in all this? They didn’t reach out to me at all. They just deleted the truth and will let this person continue their deceptive practices. Yikes!

Ah, buy why the heck should they do anything? Fiverr gets paid on every sale, don’t they?

Buyer beware, folks.

In support of your efforts,

Matt

P.S. – The vendor said, “My traffic is direct only, and I know the bounce rate is high because it’s a consequence of setting the traffic this way.” That’s junk, people. Traffic being direct versus referred has no bearing on the quality of the traffic; it’s merely an indication of how people are getting to your site. If there were even people behind those hits. It’s quite possible that traffic is from bots.

Filed Under: Articles, Internet Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Make Money Blogging

October 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas make money blogging

Ah, to make money blogging. It’s one of the holy grails of the Internet community. We write, therefore we are–but we would rather our loquacious posts pay the bills too. Really, is that too much to ask?

Want your words working for you? Here are a few ways to help your articles make money online:

Write. A Lot.

The more gravity your website has, the more value (presumably) it will have, providing you have valuable insight to offer on the topic at the center of your soapbox. The search engines don’t look at only pages; they look at the composition of the whole site, as well as the sites linking into it, the links leading away from it, etc. So the more targeted content you have, the more gravity your site will have on that topic and the higher you will rise through the results.

This is one of the reasons why the Empower Network asks its members to blog daily. It’s not just to show your commitment; it’s to get you started generating traffic to your Empower Network blog.

Keyword Research

Use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool) to help you ascertain how people are searching for the content you want to offer.

  1. On the left navigation bar, set the search to [Exact].
  2. Enter your first attempt at keywords.
  3. Sift through the proposed keywords, looking for keywords and phrases with thousands of local visits, but which also have low competition. (This is Adwords ads competition, but we’re using it as an indicator of global competitive targeting.)

how to make money blogging

Sprinkle Keywords Throughout

Now that you’ve selected some keyphrases, it’s time to work them into your post. They should appear in your title and–if you’re using WordPress like you should be–in your page URL for the post or page you’re creating. Your keywords should also appear occasionally within your content and within a link or two.

Don’t go crazy here, as it all still needs to be readable by a human, but your blog post also needs to be found relevant by a search engine.

Title Your Images

Also, don’t forget to title your blog’s images. You will want to include the keyword in the alt tag for the image, as well as the actual file name for the image. For instance, the image above is titled “make-money-blogging.jpg” and its alt tag matches the title of this post; “how to make money blogging”. The alt tag is something you can set easily in the WordPress blog software.

Afterglow

Well, while this isn’t all the tricks you can do, these ideas will get you a long way toward making money online with your blog. After all, I didn’t even discuss sponsorships, affiliate links, mailing list subscriptions, squeeze pages, Google Adsense or any of the other fun monetizing techniques. There are many ways to make money blogging, but the cornerstone to running a successful blog begins with these core steps. As traffic to your site increases due to the increased value you’ve built, these other techniques will work better and better.

In support of your efforts,

Matt

Filed Under: Internet Marketing, marketing ideas Tagged With: , , , , ,

Did Motorola and Verizon Miss the Mark?

October 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas motorola ad

I’m not sure this ad achieves what Motorola and Verizon hoped to achieve. I don’t see people untethered by longer battery life; I see a digital culture of disconnect. No one is actually looking at each other. All eyes are on their phones. Yeesh. Is this what we’re becoming?

The digitally divided?

Filed Under: Ads, Marketing Collateral Tagged With: , ,

How To Work Keywords Into Your Website

September 16, 2012 By 3 Comments

marketing ideas how to add keywords

One of the most important things you can do to improve your rankings in the search engines and directories (Google, Yahoo, Bing, DMOZ, et cetera) is to ensure your website is optimized in accordance with the keywords and key phrases you are looking to target.

To “optimize” a website for search engine relevancy means going over it with a fine-tooth comb and seeking out ways to make the website more targeted toward the topic it incites. There are a number of ways to do this.

Domain Name

Does your domain name carry with it “maximum information per square inch?” As in, is your product or service in your name? While this can help your rankings, it is not the end all, be all. After all, do a search in Google on “fast food” and you will notice McDonald’s and Wendy’s sites come up to the top and their domain names are not mcdonaldsfastfood.com or wendysfastfood.com.

Page Titles

Each web page on your site should have its own distinct title. A web page title should tell the user and the search engines what the page is about and you want to make sure to work in a couple keywords relevant to your website and specific to that page. Recommendation: Resist the temptation to place your company name first in the title—your keywords are more important to both humans and bots, so they go first.

Metadata

Add keywords and key phrases into your website’s metadata. Every web page has the capacity to have within it a hidden description and set of keywords. Whether web designers make use of this feature is another matter. Besides your domain name and page titles, this is one of the first things the search engines use to determine where in their indexes your site should be placed. While the importance for metadata has been greatly reduced over the years, it is still something you want to address as it’s the meta description that shows up in the search results.

Copy

Your copy (the text you write,) your links and the images you choose can all be constructed to give the search engines a greater idea about your website’s singular reason for being.

When you seek to “keyword optimize” your website, you begin by knowing the keywords you want to target. Once you have a list of 20 to 30 keywords or key phrases, you may then begin to craft your message to your public, sprinkling in those important words along the way. A good rule of thumb here is to focus on a few keywords per page, rather than trying to stuff them all onto every page.

Tip: Write for humans, but optimize for search engines. Do not pack your site with your keywords. The top search engines have algorithms in place that will penalize for “keyword stuffing.” (Keyword stuffing is considered to be a “black hat” search engine optimization technique and is wonderful way to get your website banned from the search engines. Not recommended.)

Links

Descriptive links are another great way to tell the search engines what your site is about and they carry a good amount of weight and should be used wisely. If you are merely stating “click here” or “read more” you are missing an opportunity. Instead of stopping at “read more”, build a little more information into the link by saying “read more about online marketing” (or whatever your topic.) Assuming “online marketing” was one of our key phrases, we just gave that search engine a little more reason to promote our site when someone searches on online marketing.

Images

Even the images you use can build relevancy for your website. For example, if you have a dog grooming company, abstain from putting up pictures of your clients that still carry the same filename as the day they were pulled off the digital camera. “DC3459.jpg” tells the search engines nothing about the subject of that image. Since search engines cannot actually see the image to interpret it (yet,) they can only rely upon the filename you give your image (and an “alt” tag, which we will discuss later,) balanced against the rest of the page on which it resides. A better filename might be “dog-grooming-service.jpg” or “pet-grooming.jpg.” This same principle holds true for every filename you use on your site (.doc, .pdf, .gif, .htm, .php, etc.,) including even the pages of your website.

Does it sound like we are catering to the search engines? We are. Search engines and directories are large conduits into your website. Without them, there would be considerably less traffic on your site, so you want to make it clear to them you are 1) an authority in your field, and 2) your website contains great value to those who will find it.

Filed Under: Articles, Idea Center, Internet Marketing, Non-Profit, Small Business Tagged With: , , , , ,

Marketing Idea #202: Pretend You’re a Celebrity

August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas be a celebrity

LOL. From YouTube:

“On the night of July 27th, 2012, a huge prank was pulled in New York City and this is the video of what took place. Brett Cohen came up with a crazy idea to fool thousands of pedestrians walking the streets of Times Square into thinking he was a huge celebrity, and it worked! Not only did it work, it caused quite a stir. This social experiment, of sorts, makes a profound statement about how modern culture is so attracted to pop culture, without any real credibility needed.”

No kidding. Enjoy!

Matt

Filed Under: Branding, marketing ideas Tagged With: , ,

Marketing Idea #9: Match Competitors’ Prices

August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas match competitor prices

Offer to match your competition’s prices. Bargain shoppers thrive on being able to bring in your competition’s ads to have you beat the prices. There are a few things that work to your advantage here:

  • Your regular patrons will be less likely to be swayed away from you because of price.
  • The hunt for the lowest price is a process that engages the public and draws attention.
  • You never have to worry about keeping a tab on the competition’s price strategy (but you do have to worry about being able to maintain the same price strategy).

Caution: Make sure your margins allow for price wars. There is something to be said for positioning yourself as the premium product or service in the marketplace. For instance, Ruler or Sage brand archetypes may not want to battle at the low end of the pricing scale since those brands lend more to a moderate to high pricing strategy. In contrast, the Jester or Regular Guy/Girl brand archetypes would be better suited for this tactic, due to their broader mass appeal.

Filed Under: marketing ideas, Marketing Strategy, Small Business Tagged With: , , ,

Marketing Idea #18: Start an Affiliate Program

August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas affiliate programs

Create a referral or affiliate program. Otherwise known as making it worth other people’s time to help you reach new clients. The goal of a referral program is to create revenue or to provide some other incentive for those who help you reach more people.

Example: Dreamscape Multimedia offers a referral program with our web hosting service and makes it free to sign up using a simple one-page form. We call it our Prosperity program, as it pays a hefty 50 percent monthly commission* on web hosting accounts you refer to us.

*Giving back 50 percent of a revenue stream may not be possible for your company. Determine what a responsible return might look like, and proceed conservatively at first.

Filed Under: marketing ideas, Marketing Strategy, Small Business Tagged With: , , ,

Marketing Idea #25: Always Carry Business Cards

August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

marketing ideas business cards

Always have enough business cards with you. While this seems like it should be obvious, people are still caught off-guard without their business cards. You’ll never know when or where opportunities will arise. Also, whenever you know you’re on your way to a trade show, mixer, or other networking event, make sure you take a lot of business cards. It’s better to have too many than not enough!

Tip: Keep a number of “card caches” around you at all times. Keeping business cards in your car, at your desk, at your home office, and in your briefcase or purse can keep you from looking ill-prepared if you forget to replenish the cards in your wallet.

What NOT to do: I’ve seen people leave their business cards randomly at restaurants, in rest rooms, and on bar counters by registers. Maybe this works, but I’m doubtful. In my mind, this would be even less effective than placing your business card on a bulletin board! Do you really think the wait staff are going to keep you business cards after you leave? Nah. I think they’re going to clean the table and those expensive die-cut, embossed business cards you had to have are going to end up wearing your table scraps in the trash.

Hint: Save your cards for the people who care.

Filed Under: Marketing Strategy, Non-Profit, Small Business Tagged With: , , , ,
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