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“Customer is always king”, “Customer is always right” – yeah that’s what the world will tell you. Well in SEO, your clients have to know a thing or two about what they’re getting into. Otherwise, it would make things harder for you and it wouldn’t produce the desired results of your client either.
It’s quite tough to educate and convince clients here in the Philippines about SEO and internet marketing. Perhaps that is because we are running behind other countries in terms of technology – but that is not true in regards to the internet usage of our countrymen. Even so, companies I’ve negotiated with are cynical with SEO and internet marketing. They just don’t know how it works – meaning, they have no idea what they need to do to help you make it work.
And in SEO, you need the client’s help (a heck lot of it) to make it work.
There are seven things I tell my clients for me to make sure that they know I’m on their side – and that I’m going to need them to make it work.
“Don’t hide anything from me.”
Some clients don’t really tell you about previous ‘incidents’ that happened to their site. For example, they might have already been penalized – then how the heck are you going to make that rank if you still haven’t tried to fix the reason why the site got penalized? Remember, it’s almost impossible to lift a penalty/ban even if you try to appeal to Google itself.
Sometimes the client doesn’t know that a detail is vital for the SEO – simply because they do not know the nature of the work. You have to be the one to tell them. And they have to be honest and transparent in the website’s history and happenings.
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
SEO is all about time and effort. If your client doesn’t know about SEO, take the initiative to teach them. Some clients tend to ask stupid questions because they have no idea how SEO works. Questions like:
“When is the soonest our keywords can be on first page?”
“By how much can you improve our sales?” – yes, I’ve had a client ask me this.
“By how many percent can you increase our traffic?”
SEO is an art. It just cannot be pre-measured.
“SEO takes time – a heck lot of it.”
Most companies want it fast. They want results here and now. They want their money’s worth ASAP. Well, it just doesn’t work that way. Unless you’re working with a black hat SEO with ninja skills.
The problem with many companies is that they realize they’re getting behind the search game and so now they want to make things happen fast. In consequence, they pressure and push the SEO specialist to give instant results. They think that the timeline for this kind of work can well be two weeks. I say to see real results, you’re gonna need at least 6 months.
“Don’t take my time.”
There are some things that you as an SEO specialist needs from the client. And without these things, they will not be able to move as best as they should. Meaning, if the you need an article or two from the client, the client should provide it. Otherwise they shouldn’t expect you to move your ass.
It is vital to let the client to know his or her deliverables at the start of a project in order for it to go smoothly between you and the client.
“I can only guarantee so much.”
Guarantees can be a double-edged sword at times. Guarantees are dangerous because you just don’t know if your competitors are doing the same thing or if the search engines are gonna change ranking factors, or if the world will end at 2012.
There are some clients who want to make a contract out of performance – meaning they want the contract to be based on a guarantee of keywords that you can rank for them, or perhaps on how fast you’re accelerating in rank based on a specific set of keywords. An SEO project just doesn’t work that way. It can’t be contracted based on performance – because it takes a heck lot of time to accomplish.
You need to let your client know that there are just no guarantees when it comes to SEO. There are several factors and reasons behind that – some of which I’ve already stated above.
“You need to help me if you want to win.”
Yes you have to teach your client to educate him/her about SEO. Likewise you have to ask him/her to teach you about the business too! You need to learn the market, their strategy, their processes, their status with customers, etcetera.
You need your client’s help if you want to win – so you need to ask the client for it.
Some clients think that they pay you and you work and that’s it. No, that’s not it. If you want to give out the best quality service that you can possibly give, you need to learn about the client. You need the client’s help if you want to win.
“Can we be friends?”
Providing SEO services means having a good relationship with your client. Yes, client is king – but it doesn’t mean he has to be such an ass. It means you will always want to give the client the best you can give. And that can only happen when you have a good relationship with the client.
Most clients aren’t so hard to talk with. In fact if they do not know much about SEO, educate them. For that, they will respect you and you’ll find it that they’re not so hard to get along with.
Tips for Keeps: Communicate with your client. Tell them what’s wrong, what you need, what questions they should and shouldn’t ask and you’ll make your life as an SEO specialist a lot easier.
Like it! :)
I agree with you Sean. I also cater SEO services, and most of the time, they want a guarantee that their site will be up within 30 days. I encounter this most of the time, let’s say 3 out of 5 clients. They always say that another specialist can offer them a much cheaper price than my rate within X amount of time. I always say, I do not control Google so I cannot guarantee how long before your site shows up and how long it will stay there, I always say the estimated time frame based on my experience and I always say that it may take longer. Unfortunately, (I hate to say this..) some clients are a$s..
Oh yeah. Some of them surely are brother – that’s just how it is. Business will always be business and some clients will always be jerks. But we have to live with it :)
Dear Sean,
I think this is the best among your many great posts! First, I’ve been called a “ninja” with SEO – should I consider it a compliment or a hint that I’m a “cheater”? :) Incidentally, the design of my SEO sites only has three colors – black, white and gray (not intentionally). Talk about subliminal manifestations.
Your second point is what I adhere to strongly – there are no guarantees with SEO. In fact, I espoused the same viewpoint in one of my posts so strongly, http://www.seo-philippines.net/2010/11/reaching-the-first-page-of-google/, that I must have hit the nerve of some threatened local SEO who commented on it with a stinging backlash. They claimed that this viewpoint is absolute trash, and that they could absolutely guarantee a page one ranking.
This viewpoint is obviously false since you would have to be Google to guarantee any fixed position. It is better to tell clients an honest to goodness appraisal of how things really are in this industry.
Keep up the great blog,
Regards
Edward
Hey Edward,
Thank you. Being called an SEO ninja would always be a compliment. Only a handful have attained such a title.
Cheers!
I recently had a client who asked if we/I could get them ranked on Google’s first page by the weekend because that’s when they were launching their product! It’s crazy that still, in this day and age, inbound marketing is the last thing on the ‘To Do’ list. But, it is very exciting too because there is a lot of potential out there and being part the initial process of helping start an online brand is amazing.
How long have you been working on their keywords for them to ask you to rank them by the weekend?
“How long” should not be the question. How much budget should be the question. A site could be rank in 1-week with their desired keyword as long as they have a big budget. May it be black or white hat.
If you can’t do that, then you’re ideas as an SEO is nothing.
That’s an interesting perspective Ana :)
You mean getting it on with PPC so you’re surely on the first page?
No budget can “guarantee” organic rankings in a short timeframe. If you acquire links too fast, that may give Google an alert and you’ll be penalized. And what about the algos? If they suddenly change tomorrow, what happens to your guarantees?
This post is really great! Thanks for sharing your tips and your story Mr. Sean. The scenarios are very familiar to me as I have undergone all of these things mentioned here.
With my clients, I always makes things clarified and simplified as I don’t want to end working with nothing to accomplish. And the “can we be friends” is the thing that I don’t do much with them as I don’t want them to interfere with my other businesses online or offline.
I liked the stupid questions presented, I have asked by those questions and I honestly answered them with basing upon my previous SEO experience. But now, thanks as you just give me a cool idea.
I can’t believe I have commented on three of your posts consecutively. I must say they are engaging. Anyway, clients will always ask SEOs when can you get my site on the first page? But a true SEO with a strong whitehat perspective would always say “there’s no guarantee”. If the client is still persistent, well I would tell them that “okay, you need to have loads of money to get your site on the first spot because we will have to buy loads of links” or “we will have to do something so forbidden that once Google finds out your site will be hurt badly and it will even make our efforts useless”. Then cite them some huge company websites that had been penalized like Forbes, JC Penney, and Google.co.jp so that they may know how it will affect their site.
Lol.
Yeah there really can be no guarantee – unless you’re targeting a low competition keyword and you are confident with your skills and team. I do give out guarantees – but on spans of 6 months to a year depending on the authority of the client’s website and their desired keyword/phrase.
Man Sean always a great read!
Excellent post. I guess this is why I stopped trying to sell SEO to clients and only use it for myself.
Very good list and it is crazy that some of the clients I have worked for fail at a number of these (or is it me who is failing them?) I would add an 8th statement “SEO is not free traffic, SEO costs money and a lot of it depending on your keyword” the reason why I would say that is I have had a number of potential clients ring me up and suggest that for £100 I could do some work for them. Yes I could, probably build them one decent link but normally one link isn’t goign to make a difference to their rankings.
It is for this reason I have refused to take on some clients as they just can’t afford me… and I am not that expensive!
I have had number of clients who asked me the same stupid questions; it is truly annoying though but when you put your shoes to theirs, you will understand the real concept of all these. We, as an SEO specialist, are here to help them reach their goals although we can’t give them assurance and all, but at least we’ve done something that might make their lives easier (and if fortunate enough, luckier).
It’s what we have to live with :)