My Google Rant…

If anyone has any suggestions on how they would handle this situation with Google please share your thoughts with me.

Google says Do No Evil but they don’t have a problem with setting up toll positions so you have to pay them first or they will create rules that will cause you to lose business.

I’m on a rant today over Google dictating how I should run my business. But it’s their ball field so they get to set the rules for those of us who want to play on their turf.

One of the reasons why I decided not to work their Google Trusted Photographer scheme was because they require that I first submit to them a list of businesses I wish to approach and get their permission before being permitted to contact the business owner. If given the ok they only give you a few days to approach and close the prospect before having to seek permission from google yet again to approach them at a later date.

As I’m a travelling portrait photographer I wanted the flexibility to be able to go into a restaurant for lunch and talk to the owner on the spot and make them an irresistible offer but I found Googles rules to be much to stifling for me. I want to run my own business but working their trusted photographers scheme is more like a job thanks to all of their rules.

Now with the recent launch of Google Helpouts I thought hosting a google helpout would be a great way for me to help out people interested in making money with photography so I submitted a listing. Below are screen shots of what I submitted….

http://screencast.com/t/e7jtVqyp9

http://screencast.com/t/aYYkaS2ETqQ

http://screencast.com/t/CtTm1AzMgI5

Google had me make many changes and emailed me stating that all I needed to do now was to wait for them to contact me for a live video interview to make sure that I had sufficient communications skill to talk to and advise people who choose to attend my Helpout.

After waiting 3 weeks I took the imitative and contacted them. They claimed they weren’t aware that I made any changes but I made every change they requested and was wondering when my live interview would take place.

Google then said that they no longer require a live interview and as long as I made the changes they requested, the status of my helpout would be upgraded from pending to live.

However… they sent me another email demanding other changes to be made… so I sent them this reply:

Hi Cindy, I'm not clear about what you consider to be my "Abrasive Language" that needs to be revised. Is it my use of the word "UGLY" as in Turn Ugly Snapshots Into Fantasy Portraits?

You said: what will you provide in the Helpout that will help users take better photographs. But then later you say: The last 3 paragraphs in the Description is really sufficient for what you will provide in the Helpout.

About your statement what will you provide in the Helpout that will help users take better photographs My helpout is not about how to take better photographs. It's about how to enhance ordinary photographs using the free digital backgrounds I will be giving them. And of course after the helpout they can choose to purchase extra backgrounds from my sites only if they choose to. They will need to visit the sites in order to choose which backgound they want for free from www.BabyPhotoBackdrops.com and from
www.DigitalFantasyBackgrounds.com

My helpout is also about how to find portrait clients, how to create the portraits (which doesn't mean they have to take better photographs as they can enhance poor images and with my help they will look great) and how to present the finished artwork/portrait to their clients so the client will want to exchange money for it.

The testimonial link at: http://bit.ly/1ePhRAJ and www.MomsWithCamera.com links I provided because google said to include my qualifications. Well I'm mostly self taught and self employed with no formal training so I want to let people know my qualifications are that I started from nothing and built a $3000,000 portrait business without any formal training so they are my qualifications.

Are you saying I can't tell them my history? Why would they listen to me if I can't tell them what my real qualifications are?

Sincerely,
Steve

Can anyone here offer suggestions of how I can meet googles demands while still giving people enough information so they can get exited enough to want to attend one of my Free Helpouts?

I suspect part of Google’s problem is they would prefer I charge for a helpout because they get to take a nice percentage and me offering it for free is not putting any money into their pockets.

A couple of years ago I made the mistake of opening up a Google Ad Words Account. They assigned a Google account manager for free for 30 days (I did not want one but had no choice but to listen to her when she contacted me) who tried to get me to purchase ads for my site www.DigitalFantasyBackgrounds.com for the keywords “Digital Backgrounds”.

I declined because the site was already at the top of all of the search engines for those key words. Well after the free 30 day account management period ended my site disappeared in google for those key words but I still rank at the top of most other search engines to this day.

My rant with Google is that they act friendly but if you don’t pay them they invent rules to prevent you using their platforms to help your business to grow.

Not very helpful in my opinion.