How to spot a scam

Over the past few years I have been working hard to promote my photography products one way or another. At some point early on, someone suggested that I should have a website that displayed my work to the world and if I did that, I would soon be making tons of money selling my prints and cards all over the Internet.

At the time I didn't know the first thing about how to build a website any more than how to market one. It was then that I just happened to receive an invitation in the mail to attend a free seminar on this subject. Lord If I had only known then what I know now, I could have saved time, a lot of money, and a lot of very hard work. Here's some of the lessons I've learned:

Building a website nowadays is incredibly easy and in many cases you can do it for free. There are companies out there who offer free templates that you choose from that you can customize for your own use. There are also Internet sites that offer free software to download that you can use to build a site with. They will even have a series of videos and tutorials to show you how. Where you have to spend your money is in two general areas. The first is in buying your domain name and in getting a host provider where you can publish your site to the Internet. These can be done by the same company or you can have them in separate places. It's wise to shop around here as the prices for both these services can vary a great deal. All of this up to this point is so easily accomplished that virtually anyone can do it. You can actually have a website that you build yourself for free, buy a domain name for less than ten dollars, and pay a hosting company a few dollars a month to provide your Internet interface. Marketing your site is where the big money is spent but there are ways to help avoid some of the costs (not all) of this too.

The real problem with all of this is in finding a product to sell, or in learning how to market your product. There are things you need to know to do this correctly and you need to keep up with it. The huge companies like Google and others are constantly monitoring websites for shady and dishonest activity and because of that they will shut you down if you don't follow their rules. The problem is that they don't tell you what all the rules are and they change them from time to time. Most folks like me and you aren't high powered enough to know how to intentionally use the system to make Google change it's rules. We usually fall victim by accident. I haven't had that problem yet but I know it can happen.

Okay, so how do you spot a scam? I use this rule: If somebody calls me on the phone to try to sell me an irresistible website deal, they tend to have the same components in their story. Keep in mind that these people are very convincing. They can sell you laces for shoes you don't even own, so you have to watch out. Here's two key elements they all use: to build trust, they will insist that both you and your spouse be on the phone together so that both of you can hear the spiel. Then there will always, always be a deadline. "You must act today because the offer ends tomorrow." If you fall for it you will then be put in some kind of program to make you think you have gotten a really good deal. You didn't! They got what they wanted and that is you money. One story they tell you is that they will help you with whatever it takes for you to earn your money back, and that they only want you to be successful so they can use your name to advertise their business. Watch out here guys! If you are on the phone long enough to hear that story you are getting into dangerous territory.

If a company can only offer you a deal for a really short time and will not let you hang up and call back, they are trying to rip you off. Any credible company will work with you over time. My objective here is to hopefully prevent you from spending thousands of dollars you don't need to spend. Getting a website and launching it is easy. Finding a product that will sell and marketing it is not, and I don't care what anybody says. It requires a huge amount of learning and long days hard work on your computer. You can't do it over night and anybody that says it's free is lying.

If you are still interested in going on line and building an e-commerce storefront or whatever, take your time. Start small and do your research. Learn everything you can. Yes money can be made and the results can be incredible, or so they say. I haven't seen that yet but I will let you know if I do. All the tools you need are on the internet and most of the ones you need are free. It's after you launch your first site that you open the doors to scammers and start spending money to make your site work. I hope this was helpful and that it saves you from spending money you can't afford to spend.