I love to read the blogs of other Online Marketing Agencies, especially where they are venting their frustrations over some of the actions and comments of their customers. It never fails to bring a smile to my face when clearly; most agencies experience the same problems over and over again. Whether they are carrying out SEO services for their client or just providing consultancy, you can appreciate why many agencies are “sacking” problematic clients.
Follicly Challenged SEO’s
Fortunately, in the cold light of day and after a few beers and prescribed medication, some are really quite funny and nearly all of them are very frustrating to the point where many SEO’s are going bald.
So, I thought it would be a wizard wheeze if I listed just a few of the situations we and others have found ourselves in. Sit back and enjoy.
Client v SEO Agency
Client: “I realise that I need to restructure my SEO strategy and I consider this a priority, I’ve put aside £75 per month to rank page one in month two for the term Loans”.
SEO: “HaaHaaHaaHaaHaaHaa”
Client: “See, I told you I could rank page one for the term Coffin Heaters” (Smug Grin).
SEO: “Fantastic, well done. How proud you must be to rank for a keyword that has ABSOLUTELY NO SEARCH VOLUME AT ALL!” (Even smugger grin). Actually, we get this a lot from clients who insist on ranking for vanity keywords whilst ignoring the highly relevant terms that people actually search for. It’s enough to make my Granny spin in her grave, but at least she’d be warm!
Client: “I need to rank for this keyword by tomorrow morning”.
SEO: “Goodbye!”
Client: “You know I said I wasn’t going to renew my SEO contract now I’m ranking well”
SEO: “Yes”
Client: “Well my rankings have started to go down for some reason”
SEO: “I don’t want to say I told you so but…”
Client: I’ve decided to sign up with XXXX company as they are significantly cheaper than you are, and they’ve guaranteed to get me 10,000 back links EVERY month.”
SEO: “But that’s how you got a penalty in the first place”. (Sound of gun being cocked).
Client: “I have this great new product to market but I don’t have a budget to market it. How about you do your SEO thingy and I’ll pay you out of the profits”?
SEO: “Hello, is that the Samaritans?”
Client: All you need to do is copy all the content on my competitors site, put it on my website and I’ll out rank them surely?”
SEO: “Nooooooooooooooo”. (Sounds of Granny getting up to speed).
Client: “What’s a blog?”
SEO: “Sigh”(Granny reaches terminal velocity).
Black Hat Granny Spinners
So there you are, some amusing, frustrating, granny spinning, true and instantly recognisable comments from some customers who think they know everything about SEO where in fact they know nothing. In most cases we have to thank the “Black Hat” SEO “experts” who still lead prospective customers up the garden path with bad and inaccurate advice.
If you are looking at engaging an online marketing agency to run your SEO strategy, at least learn a bit about SEO before you take the plunge. A good start would be Google Webmaster Guidelines. At least then you will broadly understand this art and your expectations will be more manageable.
