I know everyone has their quirks about their clients, but I would rank SEO as having the worst clients, mainly because of the disconnect.  Most clients seeking SEO don’t have any true understanding of SEO and what is involved, sure some clients can throw around some buzz words and have the jargon down pact but they still don’t have any true grasp of the business.  Most clients are use to paying for a service and getting in return a satisfying result, while with SEO clients don’t understand they are not paying for results they are paying for effort, because there is a chance that the SEO strategy will not bring results.  That is why AntOnaf.com practice satisfying results, we basically continue working (at no additional cost to you) until the site/project gets satisfying and deserving results for our clients.  We also outline in detail for our clients the strategic approach and plan of attack!

With this said, we still have some clients who are from Mars.  Here is my top 7 list of why our SEO clients are from Mars.

1. Unrealistic Expectations.  I will pay you $150 to rank my website #1 on all major search engines for 20 extremely broad keywords in 30 days.  If ranking on the search engines was this easy and this cheap then there wouldn’t be big corporations throwing millions a year at search engine optimization.  Also, if it was this cheap and simple there wouldn’t be a need for my services.
2. Mid-Project Change Request.  Hey I know you already started the campaign and we are seeing ranking improvements for the 20 keywords I supplied you 20 days ago, but I have a new 20 keywords which I think is better suited so let’s stop worrying about the previous 20 and work on the new 20 keywords.  Oh! And remember you have 10 days left!
3. Show me sites you have worked on so I can do nothing!  If you don’t plan on verifying the previous clients of an SEO then why bother asking for sites the SEO has worked on, because if its a shady SEO then that mean the shady SEO will tell you anything to get your money, even tell you he/she did SEO work for a website that they never did SEO work for.
4. Day Two - Where’s my ranking.  I hired you to get my website ranked, it is day two already why isn’t my site getting butt loads of traffic?  There is a big disconnect when clients think that their website will rank in record breaking time (well I know a way to get a site ranked in 12 hours, but there’s some rules to it).  If you are paying for a overnight get rich quick scheme then good luck with that because any true website (business) takes time to grow sometimes years.  It is best suited to go in with a plan and realistic expected duration.
5. Is 30 days too long?  30 days is only 1 month and one month of SEO is not going to cut it these days , especially since most SEO do not work on your website 24/7, you’d be lucky if you get 10 strong and dedicated hours a month.   Being realistic you should expect to build a SEO campaign for no less than 6 months and this in many cases is too little.
6. I own you, I am your only client, and I am all you think about!  Hey we need to talk now it can’t wait!  Hey it’s 15 minutes later, I need to talk to you again!  Hey, I’ve been waiting a whole 20 minutes, we need to talk!  Okay, 30 minutes has passed, I’m coming over so we can talk!  It’s an hour later…I have your firstborn and you can’t have them back until we talk.  Have you ever had a client (or maybe you were the client) who constantly call, visit, email, IM, etc., just worrying about little stuff that can either wait or have no relevance to the project or they are just log hogs while monitoring their logs they see a small negative such as less visitors today than yesterday and this throws the SEO client into a tailspin worrying you to death!  This is the worst thing SEO clients can do, family time is already hard to come by and a worrying client makes it even more scarce.  Definitely ever client has the right to have concerns about their business and website — that’s what they are paying for right??  But, there are limitations.  In the first month a client shouldn’t really expect much (even though I tend to show improvements within 15 days — toot! toot!).  The client should start to expect rank increases within 60 days of the project, this is a realistic expectation if by 60 days you haven’t seen improvements then I’d suggest worrying.
7. Finally got my SEO done, now its time to change my website.  How many times have you seen this happen?  You perform some of your best work on a website and then a month after you are complete the site has been redesigned without keeping your SEO mods in tact.  Sure, its no concern to you because you already got paid and completed your task, but the client doesn’t realize they have lost all of their SEO power.  It’s beneficial to contact the client and let them know, but the client may want you to redo your work for free — talk about a rock and a hard place.

With all the above said, it’s not really the fault of the SEO clients, it’s the fault of SEO.  Just because SEO is second nature and common sense to us, it doesn’t mean the client has that same understanding even if they make the claim.  It’s like when you take your car for repairs, you try to go in with as much information as possible, as you don’t want to portray that you don’t know anything about cars.  For one mechanics tend to talk as if things are common sense and you should know what a common auto part is and what it does.   But the second most important reason you would tend to act as if you know a little about mechanics and cars is that you don’t want to be taken for a ride or taken advantage of by the mechanic.  The same applies in the SEO world.  You have some upstanding and honest SEO (like myself) and then you have the shady overcharging SEO. 

So, previous SEO providers are to blame for my bad encounters with (some) SEO clients…

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