3 Types of SEO Clients
I may not have as much experience in SEO as some of the well-known SEO consultants or gurus who have been in this field for over 5 years. However, this is how I categorize SEO clients.
Type #1 Client who wants the SEO work done as cheap as possible
Very often you are asked to SEO a website by a client who doesn’t know much about Internet marketing. The client can easily underestimate the amount of actual work an SEO consultant has to go through and the length of time in which the client will only be able to see any slight positive results in terms of rankings.
In the SEO field, good work equals high cost, though high cost sometimes doesn’t equal to good work if you have asked the wrong people to do the work.
A good SEO expert will often refuse to take the job. SEO has become so much more competitive than it was back 5 years ago, as it is virtually impossible to rank your website on the first page of search results with so little financial support.
Type #2 Client who wanted the SEO work done yesterday
This is the type of client who has a bigger budget on hand but needed positive results yesterday. Often by briefly scanning through the client’s website, even the most basic SEO elements are missing or being mis-used. Also from the external perspective, nothing much has been done to improve link popularity.
The client should be advised to make use of PPC advertising at the meantime while you are busy doing SEO for him. PPC will be a good short-term traffic generating channel to the client’s website. The PPC experts with good experience should be able to set up and run PPC campaigns as both a quality traffic generator and a good keyword discovery test.
Type #3 Client who want you to share your knowledge
This type of client knows so much about the importance of SEO, though he is not willing or doesn’t have the resources to do it himself.
You will find so much pleasure working with this client, who values your great experience in SEO and he may even ask you to build a PPC campaign for his website sooner or later.
Type #4 Client who doesn’t value SEO
One example of this type of client is that he wants immediately results, and will not pay for any work in which no obvious results can be seen in a week. No matter how good your SEO experience is he is simply not interested. Instead, he will ask you to set up and run PPC campaigns. This client eventually falls short to be a SEO client but instead he ends up becoming your PPC client.
Overall, it is always an advantage if your business can provide quality services in both SEO and PPC. From the client’s perspective, it is always better to have more options.
Posted on November 4, 2006
Filed Under PPC, SEO |
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5 Responses to “3 Types of SEO Clients”
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No. 1 and #4 are the worst clients. It’s actually extremely rare that people put any value into SEO especially because they can’t see any results at once. Telling them that it might take 2-3 months before they can see something in their logs doesn’t help either. And of course, they want it dirt cheap as well.
As an SEO company or an individual seo consultant, you will get all kinds of requests for your search marketing services. The majority should be from real companies that know the value of seo and are willing to pay a fair amount for your services, providing you have the skills to deliver.
However, you will occasionally get a prospect who wants to have top rankings for a keyword that is too general (and won’t bring him business even when he gets it) and wants to only pay you if he get’s sales. These are the ones who are rude to you or your sales reps, have a poor business model and don’t have to nickels to rub together but act like they have tons of cash. Don’t let those type of prospects ruin your day. A real potential client would never make such ridiculous requests. Hence, you can’t lose what was never there to be had.
I agree with Kay Bros. The worst thing is that people often doesn’t understand how long time it takes to optimize and the resources needed. Of course every one want the cheapest price, but in SEO industry you get what you pay for.
I was once a client myself. i admit i am no way like clients #1, 3 or 4. i value a lot the work that my seo has done. Maybe i was just lucky that time, i dont know.
Hey, hello from Russian seo ppl)