(Click to enlarge your disappointment in the human race)
Do you ever just type in a word or term into Google at random to see what comes up?For me, yesterday's random search term was "procrastination." Mainly, when I do this, I am looking for amusement rather than edification. I am seldom disappointed. Partly this is because I am so sarcastic and partly because I am so intolerant of fools.
Anyway, the usual self-help sites came up, as you would expect - the first page taken up by the ones who pride themselves on keywords and SEO in general. They are funny in and of themselves, but boring.
On page two you begin to get into the squeeze pages. These are my real source of humor. A squeeze page, if you don't know already, is a sales pitch page by someone who has written a wonderful eBook (or "report" as they seem to call them) on the subject you have just searched. These pages are funny because of their terrible grammar and spelling, and because of the absurdity of their claims. They call them squeeze pages because there is no link exit; you either buy the eBook or report at the bottom or you close the tab.
Now, I can't imagine anyone buying a life-changing solution from one of these 8th grade dropouts, but their squeeze pages are all over the web. They all look alike and use the same alternating red headlines and blue bullet text. Some of them are pretty long, because each multilevel master who buys the system feels the need to change the wording to his own, and he always has a couple more fool-proof selling points to add at the end. These eThings always cost $7 - something. $27, $37, $47... always ends in $7. Apparently these cunning online marketers have run a web-wide survey and have discovered those are the magic price points for worthless eBooks. Reports, I mean.
Well, as I said, I find them funny. But there was this one in particular that amazed me. Can you IMAGINE how hard it must be to sell a (virtual) book on overcoming procrastination to strangers on the internet? I mean, your prospective buyers are procrastinators, right? It seems the best you could hope for would be for a procrastinator to read a couple paragraphs of your tedious squeeze page and then bookmark it "for later" never to return.
Actually, the whole thing got started when this misfit procrastination healer came across another squeeze page from someone else under the category of "How to Make $7 Million Dollars in 17 Weeks!!!!!!!!!!" or some such. And he gives his credit card number to ClickBank and pays the $39 for the guy's "system" and... excuse me, $37, not $39. Thus finding himself safely inside the side-show tent, he finds out the infallable "system" is to sell more eBooks to needy misfits like me by making up a zillion squeeze pages of his own. "But wait! You don't even have to write these life-changing eBooks yersef! No sir! For $67 more, you can "invest" in my COMPLETE TURNKEY WEALTH SYSTEM and you'll then get the resell rights to ALL my own personal infallible marketing magnets."
Or some such.
So our 8th grade dropout who is behind on his rent and hoping for a miracle by Friday goes over his credit limit and forks over another $67 to get the resell rights to the infallible marketing magnets that some other dolt down the line has authored. Probably in 1951. OUR dunderhead begins availing himself of his mentor's free subdomain pages to set up dozens of his own squeeze pages, and what book does he choose to sell? How to overcome procrastination. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, huh?
Ah, well. I was going to go on and show you some examples of his squeeze page pitch that I found so funny in the first place, but, as usual, this is already too long. I think I will just go back to answering questions about car repairs on the forum boards.
