The Best and Worst Clients I've Ever Had, and What I Learned From Them - Episode 06

Summary

Grumpy SEO Guy: Episode 06 Summary The Best and Worst Clients I've Ever Had, and What I Learned From Them

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Introduction

In Episode 6 of Grumpy SEO Guy, titled "The Best and Worst Clients I've Ever Had, and What I Learned From Them," the host delves into his extensive 14-year experience running an SEO agency. He contrasts his most rewarding client relationships with the most challenging ones, sharing invaluable lessons for SEO professionals.

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The Best Clients

Characteristics of Ideal Clients

Grumpy SEO Guy identifies that approximately 30-40% of his clients fall into the "awesome" category. These clients typically:

• Understand SEO Basics: Many come to him as backlink purchasers, reflecting his agency's initial focus on backlink services.
• Provide Clear Direction: Some clients know exactly what keywords they want to target, while others are eager to learn and collaborate on strategy.
• Maintain Minimal Communication: Like a reliable cable service, once their SEO is set up and yielding results, they rarely need to reach out, maintaining a smooth, hassle-free relationship.

[04:42] Grumpy SEO Guy draws a parallel, saying:

"How often do you call your cable company? ... That's how it is with SEO."

Success Story

One standout example involves an Italian olive oil importer who, after purchasing a backlink package, saw his website surge to the top of search engine rankings within days. Although the client eventually sold his company—which led to the termination of their SEO services—the initial success underscored the effectiveness of delivering tangible results.

Lessons Learned from the Best Clients

1. Assist with Keyword Selection: Many clients struggle to choose effective keywords. Grumpy SEO Guy emphasizes the importance of guiding them towards terms with meaningful search volumes and manageable competition.
2. Limit Unnecessary Communication: Over-communicating can be counterproductive. Delivering outstanding results reduces the need for frequent updates.
3. Value Delivery Ensures Retention: By consistently providing exceptional SEO outcomes, clients remain loyal and continue to pay regularly.

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The Worst Client

Introducing the Nightmare Client

Grumpy SEO Guy recounts his sole experience with the worst client over his decade-long career. This client was a marketing agency owner who:

• Paid Significantly More: He was earning approximately ten times more than any other client.
• Had Unrealistic Expectations: Despite achieving excellent SEO results, the client was never satisfied and continually complained.
• Exerted Control Beyond Scope: The client demanded additional services like website modifications and Instagram management, which were outside the agreed SEO services.

[19:07] Grumpy SEO Guy reflects:

"There’s not even anyone else in the running. I have only one client that I would consider the worst client I’ve ever had."

Detailed Account of Challenges

Initially, the client was thrilled with the immediate ranking of a low-competition keyword. However, his dissatisfaction grew when other targeted keywords didn’t achieve top rankings as swiftly. He failed to understand the varying levels of competition and persisted in his complaints despite clear evidence of progress.

[25:22] He illustrates the misunderstanding:

"But this keyword had zero search volume... but he felt good because now he was outranking the terrible, dishonest liar who was at the top of the search engines for that keyword."

As the relationship progressed, the client’s demands became more intrusive. Grumpy SEO Guy attempted to accommodate by handling non-SEO tasks, which only exacerbated the situation. Eventually, the client imposed unreasonable payment terms tied to lead generation, leading to the dissolution of the partnership.

[47:43] Highlighting his frustration:

"You can't just call up somebody and say, by the way, we're not going to pay you the full amount this month unless we feel like it. Sorry."

Lessons Learned from the Worst Client

1. Don’t Be Overwhelmed by Revenue: High-paying clients can sometimes be the most challenging. It's crucial not to compromise your agency’s integrity or boundaries for the sake of income.
2. Set Clear Boundaries: Define what services you offer and stick to them. Allowing clients to dictate additional tasks can lead to scope creep and dissatisfaction.
3. Recognize When to Let Go: If a client doesn’t appreciate the value you provide or constantly introduces conflicts, it’s healthier to terminate the relationship.
4. Avoid Being Dictated By One Client: Relying heavily on a single, high-paying client can be risky. Diversifying your client base ensures stability and reduces dependency.

[61:55] Emphasizing the importance of boundaries:

"Don’t be intimidated by dollar signs. Just because somebody is paying you a lot of money doesn't mean you need to give them preferential treatment."

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Overall Conclusions

Throughout the episode, Grumpy SEO Guy underscores that delivering exceptional SEO results fosters client loyalty, often reducing the need for constant communication or promotional efforts. Conversely, high-paying clients with unrealistic expectations and a lack of appreciation for SEO fundamentals can drain resources and disrupt agency operations.

Key Takeaways:

• Focus on Delivering Value: Consistently achieving SEO goals ensures client satisfaction and retention.
• Maintain Professional Boundaries: Clearly outline your services to prevent scope creep and manage client expectations.
• Prioritize Mental Health and Business Integrity: It’s acceptable to part ways with clients who negatively impact your well-being or agency’s functionality, regardless of their financial contribution.

[65:32] Final advice on client relationships:

"If it's not working for you, don't keep working with them. It doesn't matter how much they're paying you. Honestly, prioritize your mental health."

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Notable Quotes

• On Minimal Communication with Great Clients:

  "[04:42] Grumpy SEO Guy: How often do you call your cable company? ... That's how it is with SEO."

• On the Worst Client’s Unrealistic Demands:

  "[19:16] Grumpy SEO Guy: This client was annoying. I was in a much better place not working with him."

• On Setting Boundaries:

  "[61:55] Grumpy SEO Guy: Don’t be intimidated by dollar signs. Just because somebody is paying you a lot of money doesn’t mean you need to give them preferential treatment."

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Conclusion

Episode 6 of Grumpy SEO Guy provides a candid exploration of client dynamics within the SEO industry. By sharing both positive and negative client interactions, Grumpy SEO Guy offers practical insights on fostering productive relationships while safeguarding against potential pitfalls. Whether you're an SEO professional or a business owner seeking SEO services, the lessons from this episode are invaluable for navigating client partnerships effectively.

Transcript

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

This is Grumpy SEO Guy, Episode six, the best and worst Clients I've Ever had and what I Learned from Them. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the configuration that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because some clients are horrible. But you know what? Some clients are awesome, too. On this episode, I'm going to tell you about the best and the worst clients I've ever had, and I'm going to tell you what I learned from them. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Now, let's get started. I want to start by talking about the best clients I've ever had. Now, if I'm being honest, I. I would say that probably 30 to 40% of the clients I've had fit into this category of being awesome. Let me tell you how it works and why they're so awesome. Now, I want to set the stage here because, listen, most of the clients I've had that fit this criteria I got while I was basically a backlink provider. So as I mentioned in another episode, the first years that I was in business, we were mostly a backlink provider, okay? We provided backlinks for individuals, for SEO agencies, and for larger companies. It wasn't until years later that I moved my agency into being a full service SEO provider.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So let me explain to you how these awesome clients would work. So these awesome clients that I had, it basically worked like this. They would contact me sometimes we would talk for a little bit, okay? Then they would order a package of Backlinks. Now, at the time, I was primarily a backlink provider. And I've mentioned this before, when I first started my agency, we were basically a backlink provider. So the only service that we offered for the most part, was backlink building.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

And for that reason, we were used not only by individuals, but also by SEO agencies who would outsource their link building to us. I've mentioned this in another episode and I'm going to discuss this more in the future, but I joke that there are only five people in the world who actually build backlinks and everybody else outsources to them. And I'm kind of joking because it might be more like 10 people. But like, honestly, from my experience, your experience might be different. But from my experience and what I've seen and the people with whom I've spoken, the overwhelming majority of big SEO agencies do not do any backlink building on their own.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I don't understand. Personally, if I had the resources of a large SEO agency, it would be without question the number one SEO agency on the planet. But I don't know why they don't do their own backlink building. I don't know why they don't build their own portfolios. It's very, very weird. In fact, it would even be cheaper for them to do it that way in the long run. I don't know why they don't do it that way, but they don't. So more business for me, I guess. Anyway, at the time, we were mostly a backlink provider. And as I mentioned before, I did transition my agency from being only a backlink provider to a full service SEO agency. But that is a whole different topic. So anyway, these clients, they come to us, they purchase a package of backlinks. Sometimes they know the keywords they want to use, sometimes they don't. Sometimes we need to talk about it for a little bit. Not a problem. I don't mind hearing about a client's progress and what they're doing and. And what they need to do. Maybe they need some suggestions for the keywords. Maybe they need some help with analyzing the competition. It's all good. I like helping them. Anyways, they buy the package, we build the backlinks, they get to the top of the search engines, and then they generally don't ever contact us again. But they keep paying their invoice every month. It's awesome. Now, this isn't bad customer service. This isn't bad client relations. There's just bad. No reason. Let me ask you a question. How often do you call your cable company? You pay your cable? Well, you might not use cable, but let's say you do use cable. I know a lot of people don't use cable television, but just go with my example. You have cable television.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

How often do you call the cable company? Never. Like, maybe there's a problem every so often. But you don't email them, you don't text with them, you don't chat with them. Right. Why would you? There's no need to. That's how it is with SEO. They're at the top of the search engines. They're content. I'm getting paid every month. I'm content. It's a perfect relationship. Okay. That's the first kind of client. That's awesome. There's another kind of client that's awesome too, that's very similar to that kind. So this client will come to you and will contact you. And instead of like the first client who kind of knows what they want, this client somewhat tells you their whole life story. And I'm not saying that in a rude way. I like hearing about my clients. I like hearing about what they're doing as it relates to their business.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Well, I should say they tell you their life story in relation to their business.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

It's usually a small business owner and they need more search engine traffic and they're interested in SEO. But unlike some people, they really want to know how it works. So they ask a ton of questions and they give you all of the data that they have about everything. It's often kind of a long phone call.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

At this point, but it's fine. I don't care. I actually like it. See, this kind of client takes their business very seriously. And that kind of client is a good kind of client to have because you know that they're probably in it for the long term and they're very serious about everything. So if you get that kind of client to the top of the search engine, they will stay with you forever. It's awesome. So anyway, they tell you all about their business, all about their competition, all about the stuff they've done, all about the stuff they've tried, all about the stuff that worked, all about the stuff that hasn't worked. And the more data that you get as an SEO provider, the better you're able to help them.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So you get all this information, long phone calls, long emails, whatever. It's all good. And then they would buy a link package and they'd probably get to the top of the search engines and they'd be very happy and very grateful and very thankful that you got them such good results and that you explained everything to them like you did. It's awesome. Let me tell you a story about a client that I had like that. So one of my first clients, actually, I'm trying to remember. It was a long time ago, but I think I'd been in business about a year at this point, and I never reveal my clients.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

But I will tell you what industry they were in. They were an Italian olive oil importer. They sold Italian olive oil in America. So talked to them for a while, picked some keywords, selected a backlink package, got them to the top of the search engine, didn't hear from them for like, six months. And then I get an email from the owner, and he's like, hey, I wanted to tell you because you got us to the top of the search engine. We just had an offer for somebody to purchase our company. So he's like, thanks, this is awesome. He's like, I get to sell my company now because of the increased business and growth and everything that we got from your SEO. And I'm like, oh, that's so awesome. I was kind of sad, though, because then the new owner didn't want to continue with the SEO service. So let me just talk about that for a second, because that might actually happen to you.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Like, this kind of thing's happened before where you get a client to the top, some bigger company or whatever comes and buys them, and then they no longer want to use your SEO services. So when that happens, this is how I handle it. I try to get in touch with the new owner, which you can't always do. And I say, hey, listen, we've done all this SEO. Look, they used to be here. Now they're at the top. It's awesome. Look at all this increased traffic. Look at all these increased visitors. Everything is great. Are you sure you want to terminate this service? And they're like, yeah, we have our own SEO guy, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Okay, Are you sure, though? Because as soon as we turn this off, as soon as we start removing the backlinks, you're going to lose your ranking. Are you sure you want to do this? Oh, yeah, you know, we. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, so we start removing the links, and if you go back and listen to episode five, you will learn the correct way to remove backlinks and the correct speed at which to remove the backlinks when a client, for whatever reason, decides they're not going to work with you. Anymore. And you know what, Sometimes six months down the road, they get in touch with you again and they say, oh, hey, you know what? Listen, we're not getting as much traffic as we used to. Would you be open to having a discussion about this? Of course I would. Let's talk. You know, some people don't understand the value of SEO. Some people don't want SEO. What I would do if it were me, and I'm just mentioning this because there's an important point in here, if it were me and I bought another website, like I was taking over the company or something, what I would probably do if I wasn't going to keep the same branding of the original website is I would redirect that website to my new website. Whatever the new one is, whatever website you're using presently, I would redirect the old one. And I would probably keep all the SEO intact because you know what, when you redirect a domain, it gives most of the link juice to the new domain. Okay, that's actually like a strategy that I'm going to talk about in another episode. There's a whole strategy involved with redirecting for an SEO standpoint, and it's possible to do it wrong. But ultimately, if you have two websites and then they combine into one business for whatever reason, and you're only gonna use one of the websites, just redirect the other one to the new one and you're fine, it's not really a problem unless you do a couple things wrong. But just like, that's what I would do because it will pass most of the link juice and eventually the old one will stop appearing in the results and the new one will get the link juice from the old one. And it's not a problem. That's how I would do it. But whatever. Anyway, so this guy sold his company. It was pretty cool. I was very happy. And honestly, it felt good to actually have helped somebody like that, even though they're no longer gonna be a client, but, you know, whatever, that kind of thing happens. So those are very similar, but those are the two best kind of clients that I've ever had. Now, before we go on, what did I learn from them? Well, I learned a couple things. First thing I learned is a lot of clients don't know how to pick their own keywords. So it's probably pretty important that you help them pick the right keywords. We'll talk about how to pick keywords later on. I just say that because I'd say at least 50% of the clients we've ever had, when they came to us, they had an idea of the keywords they wanted to rank for, but they were not the correct keywords. They were either way too competitive or they had, like, zero search volume. Like, literally zero monthly searches. And it's like, look, we can rank you for these, but it's not gonna do anything. You're not gonna increase your traffic. Nobody's gonna go to your website that way. It wouldn't make any sense to do it. Now, there's one case where it does make sense to rank for keywords that get zero monthly search traffic, and that is if you believe that in the future those phrases will have search traffic. It makes sense to rank for them today because then you're establishing yourself as an authoritative website for those keywords, and you're doing it before your competition, which is awesome. But honestly, how often do you find yourself in a situation where you know a keyword that nobody searches for and you know that people are gonna start searching for it? And, like, how often does that happen? Maybe if you're introducing a new trend or something to the world and you know, like, in three months, it's gonna be the coolest thing in the world. Like, yeah, then go ahead and rank for it. But, like, normally, no, there's literally no reason to do it. What else did I learn from these clients? I learned that, honestly, there's no reason to be overly communicative. Look, take from that what you will, but you know what annoys me when I sign up for a service or whatever and I get emails all the time. Look, say what you will about email marketing and that kind of thing. Like, personally, and I think I need to preface this by saying my opinions are generally not the same as most people's. Okay, so probably do the opposite of anything that I tell you from a marketing standpoint, because I can't stand marketing. But I actually have a couple companies right now that are emailing me on a regular basis because I either, actually, no, I probably didn't sign up for anything because I seldom sign up for anything ever on anyone's website because I know they're just going to send you countless stupid emails all the time. All the time. It's so annoying. But you know what else happens? Sometimes you email a company and then you get put on their mailing list because you emailed them, and then all of a sudden, they just email you all the time. Sometimes it's even more than one email a day. I'm like, how do you guys even think of More stuff to say. Come on. Look, if I want a product, I'm gonna go buy the product. I'm not gonna buy it because I get 500 emails from some company spamming me constantly, okay? But what I'm gonna do is unsubscribe from your stupid mailing list, So. I don't know, man. Look, I don't like to bug people. All of our clients know that the amazing SEO results they're getting are from us. I don't need to send them an email every day and remind them of how awesome we are. You know why? Because that would annoy them and they would probably cancel their service. Or they should, because it would be being annoying. I don't know. Whatever. Look, I have literally gone probably years in some cases without contacting a CL and without hearing from them, but they still pay their invoices every month. Do you want to know why? Because they're at the top of the search engines and they're very happy. Anyway, so what did I learn? There's no reason to be overly communicative. I don't want to bug people. They're probably busy managing their own business. They probably don't need to be hearing from me. And you know what? When they do email me when they do need more backlinks or whatever, or they have a question about a project or something, I am totally willing to help them. They know who I am. They can get in touch with me. It's all good. Now, I bet you that the overwhelming majority of marketing gurus, right, Internet marketing gurus, would tell you not to do that. They would tell you to email them constantly, because the more you email them, the more you're in their mind and they will remember you. I don't know, man. That annoys me so much that I can't do it to other people. Like, I just. I literally. I literally can't do it. I feel I have. I have. I have played around with that kind of email thing in the past just to experiment with it. I felt so skeezy every time I hit send. I'm just like, ugh, gross. I sent out, like, one. Like, one newsletter or something. I'm just like, all right, gross. I don't even want to do this anymore. Like, you guys know me. You've been working together for years. You need more SEO, Come to us. We'll help you out. But I'm not going to email you every day or every week or whatever and be annoying. Just so I stay in your mind. You got to email them all the Time so they remember you. Do you know how many spam emails everyone gets every day? No. Anyways, I'm done with that. I'm sure some marketing gurus are gonna email me and be like, you're wrong. You need to email them all the time. Guess what? I don't care. Have fun with your spam guys. Okay, what else did I learn from them? I learned that if you deliver amazing results, clients will stay with you forever. Let me ask you a question. If we get you to the top of the search engines, why would you ever stop working with us? Why? I mean, maybe if you sell your company, but other than that, why? Why would you ever. You're at the top. You're getting a ton of traffic, you're getting a ton of business, you're hopefully getting a ton of conversions. By the way, conversion marketing is not part of SEO. We're going to talk about that later. But anyways, and I just mention that because everybody thinks that part of an SEO agency's job is to, like, write better content to increase conversions. It's not. That's called conversion optimization. It's an entirely different skill set. It has literally nothing to do with ranking. SEO is getting websites to the top of the search engines. When there are searches for specific keywords, that's all it is. Now, does SEO have a place in writing content? Of course it does. When I have a client who's changing content on their site, I like them to run it by me first. Why? So they don't make any mistakes. So they don't over optimize. So they don't do something they're not supposed to do. Okay, but if you get tons of traffic to your site for the right keywords, and I'm emphasizing here for the right keyword keywords, because there is definite right and wrong keywords. We'll talk about that later. Like, searcher intent is one of the things that we're gonna talk about. Are the people that are searching for your keywords looking to learn or are they looking to buy? Okay, it's different. Those are separate kinds of keywords. But listen, if you're getting all the traffic for the right keywords and it's not converting, that's not an SEO problem. That's a conversion problem. Okay, I'm just putting that out there anyways. But like I was saying, another thing that I learned from this is when you deliver great value, people never want to leave again. If you're at the top of the search engines, why would you ever stop working with that SEO? Agency, you wouldn't, assuming you're making a positive ROI from the service, of course. But there are even cases when clients will stay with you without a positive ROI directly from your service. And this is another thing that we can talk about in a different episode. But the reason for that is if it's a company who just wants to be everywhere, they just want to be everywhere. They don't care if somebody buys anything. They just want to show up. Think of it as being similar to marketing. For example, beverage companies will put their logo everywhere, and they know that if you see a logo on a sign somewhere, you're not gonna necessarily go buy it then. But it's in your mind. It's in your mind. And next time you need a beverage, you're gonna think about them, that kind of thing. Sometimes clients just want to be everywhere in the search engine, but they don't actually care about getting business necessarily. It's very odd, but I wanted to mention it because it happens sometimes. It's awesome. That's why a lot of our clients have been with us for years. Why would they ever leave? They're doing exceptionally well. They're getting tons of traffic. Why would they ever leave? Okay, let's talk about the worst client I've ever had. Now, you're probably going to learn a lot from this story. I learned a lot while this was happening. Some of you guys who were maybe better at running a business than me or better at sales than me, or better at both of those things than me will listen to the story and think, yeah, you did a lot of stuff wrong. No wonder. Good. My point is not to tell you how awesome I am. My point in this case is to tell you stuff that I tried and stuff that happened so that you can learn from it. So that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can manage it better than I did. Okay, let's get started. So the worst client I've ever had, and let me just say, in over a decade of running an SEO agency, I have only one client that I would consider the worst client I've ever had.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

There's not even anyone else in the running. I mean, this client, this particular client takes the cake in every area of being the worst client.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So I don't know what to say besides that. Okay, so this client came as I was transitioning from being a backlink provider to being a full service SEO agency. They were a referral.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I love getting referrals because you don't really have to put forth as much effort like when somebody says, hey, work with this guy. He's awesome. You kind of don't have to do anything. It's pretty sweet. Anyway, so this guy was a referral and you know, he's like, hey, I heard that you have an SEO agency and blah, blah, blah, tell us about yourself. I was like, okay, blah, blah, blah. Look, I'm not gonna like, really get into like the sales details in this podcast too much. I'm gonna talk a little bit about it. But just, you know, we talked, I explained my agency and the kind of stuff that we do. He's like, oh, that sounds like exactly what we're looking for. We should set up a meeting. And I said, okay, cool. So we set up a meeting, we talked, and this guy, I would say our first meeting was probably an hour. Okay, it was a phone call. The first half of this phone call was just this guy talking about how great he is and how he's better than everyone and how he's smarter than everyone and how he needs my agency to get him to the top of the search engines so he can also have best marketing company in the world. And as you know, I don't share any of our clients details, but I will tell you what industry this guy was in. He ran a marketing agency. I'm not gonna get any more specific than that. I'm not gonna tell you what his keywords were or anything, but while we're on this topic, if you're ever talking to an SEO agency who does tell you who their clients are, and they didn't make you sign an NDA first run that might not be super self explanatory, so I will explain it later in a different episode, but for now, just trust me on this. Okay? But as you're gonna learn if you keep listening to this episode, he's also one of those people where nothing is ever good enough. Even when everything is awesome, still nothing is good enough. And he's not happy if he's not complaining. So he spent the rest of the phone call complaining about his competition. And in particular, there was one competitor that he hated so much because they were horrible and liars and dishonest and. And they were ranking for a specific keyword that he really thought they did not deserve to rank for, but he did deserve to rank for. So we'll come back to that keyword in a minute, but let me just tell you now, this keyword had no search volume. It literally had zero searches per month. So his competitor, even though they were ranking for it, was not getting any traffic from it. And as you may expect, with the keyword having 0 monthly search volume, there was also extremely low competition for that keyword. What you will learn is they were by far the biggest client that we had ever gotten up until that point. And I don't mean in terms of size of company, I mean in terms of what they were paying us.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

They were paying us roughly 10 times what any other client had ever paid us. So as I said, transitioning into full service SEO agency, and I'm going to talk more about that later, because it's not really as different. Look, when you're a backlink provider, you're just selling backlinks to people. It's super straightforward, okay? When you're a full service SEO agency, if you want to get results for your clients, you're still basically going to be a backlink provider, okay? You're going to package it a little bit differently and you're going to offer a couple more things. But ultimately, 95% of SEO is increasing your client's authority anyway.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So if you're not awesome at building backlinks, it doesn't matter what kind of SEO agency you have, you're not going to be successful or you're going to be like one of those big SEO agencies who outsources it to an agency like mine, in which case you're not even really doing SEO anyway. But we'll talk about that later. So, biggest client in terms of money we've ever had by far. And when you first get a really big client, you're just kinda, you're super excited and, you know, you wanna make sure that the client feels appreciated and such. Now let me tell you about all the mistakes that I made along those lines. So they hired us to do their SEO.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

We did some analysis, we looked into their company, we looked into their competition. Their competition was not very good at SEO, by the way. Let me tell you a little story that happened. So one of the companies that the owner was complaining about was a different agency who did the same kind of marketing that they did. So, like a competitor, basically. And there was a certain keyword that this other company was ranking for that my client was not ranking for. And he was very, very upset that he did not rank for this keyword, but these terrible dishonest liars did rank for the keyword. Now I kind of understand where he's coming from, because there's a lot of terrible dishonest liars that rank for a lot of very profitable keywords.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I'm not. I'm not saying that's not the case, but this particular keyword had zero searches per month, so who cares? You want to rank for it? Awesome. But you know what? You're not going to get any traffic from it, so it doesn't even. It shouldn't even be a concern. Anyway, I looked into this keyword. The competition was very, very low. So I built one backlink from one of my sites with the search term as the anchor text, as we've learned about in this podcast. And then like two or three days, my client was now number one for this keyword. And I told him, I said, look, this is how SEO works. Do you see what just happened right there? You were nowhere. We built you one backlink, and now you're at the top of the search engine. This is how SEO works, okay? You now know 99% of how SEO works, okay? Now this keyword. Again, it didn't matter. He got zero traffic from this keyword for the duration of us working together. But he felt good because now he was outranking the terrible, dishonest liar who was at the top of the search engines for that keyword. Again, for a keyword with zero traffic per month. So it literally didn't matter anyway. Let me make a quick comment here. Yes. It took two or three days for him to get to the top. And the reason is because there was such little competition that it didn't even take much effort to rank him. That doesn't mean that SEO can be done in two or three days.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

When you get into competitive keywords, it can take three, three months, it can take six months, it can take a year to see good results.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

That's normal. That's normal for SEO, okay? If you're in a very competitive industry, it takes months to see results. Well, to see good results, okay? You should start seeing results pretty soon. But results might be like, you increase your ranking from, like, the bottom of page five to the middle of page five or something. Like, you see some positive movement, but it's, you know, you're not at the top of page one, so it doesn't really matter. It's possible to do it in two or three days when there is very low competition. Anyways, he couldn't comprehend the concept of competition. And look, I view myself as an educator, okay? Yes, I'm good at SEO, but I view myself as an educator. I will spend hours explaining things to clients. I will write long emails answering clients questions because I want people to understand how it works, okay? Now some Salespeople might say, oh, you shouldn't spend so much time, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I understand both sides of the arguments, okay? But I like it when people have correct information. So I don't mind explaining things to people. I could not explain this concept of competition to this guy in a way that he would understand. Okay? So, like, a couple months in, he's like, well, why aren't our other keywords at the top yet? And I'm like, well, they have more competition. You've got, you know, there's more agencies that are trying to rank for them. There's more searches per month. You know, there are more profitable keywords. So more people have stepped up their SEO game to try and rank for those keywords. Worry, look, we're making progress, see? Well, yeah, but those other keywords, I mean, it only took three days. Why isn't it only taking three days for these keywords? Well, you see, those keywords, they didn't really have much competition, so it was really easy. I mean, it only took one backlink, and then it took, like, a few days, and you were at the top. But these other keywords, they're so much more competitive. The monthly searches are higher. There's more results for them because more people are trying to rank for them. You know, it's going to take a bit longer. Well, yeah, but, I mean, you did the other ones in three days. Why can't you do these in three days? And no matter how I phrased it, he didn't get it. Like, he was getting angry at me because all of his keywords weren't immediately at the top. And I'm just like, I even told him before we started. I'm like, SEO takes a while. It's probably gonna be three to six months before we see meaningful movement. Okay, it might be less, it might be more. But on average, for the competition of your industry, based on what I have seen over the years, it's probably going to take three to six months to see substantial movement. Okay, okay, that sounds great. And then as soon as I do it with one keyword for, like, two days, a keyword with no competition, by the way, like, well, what's the problem? Why can't you do it for the other keywords? Like what? I mean, what's the. Oh, my gosh, it was so annoying. Okay, anyway, I'm gonna stop talking about it now. So the next thing that I will say about this client. Have you ever had a client and you hate checking your email because you know that if this client has emailed you. It's gonna be drama, basically. It's gonna be annoying. They're gonna be complaining. You know, it's just like manufacturing problems that don't even need to exist because they need to have problems in their life to feel happy. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, he was one of those people. I hated checking my email every single day while this guy was a client. Okay, I'll come back to this point in the future. Anyway, so like a month or so into working together, a few things happened. We found some big problems with his website, and he had a web developer. Look, I don't like talking bad about people, but I don't know, man. Their web developer wasn't. Look, let me put it this way. I'm not a web developer, okay? But I was better than this guy. Like, this guy who was technically a web developer. Like, I don't think he knew what he was doing. And I'm not trying to say mean things about him because I know everybody's gotta start somewhere, but I was under the assumption that he would be able to handle their technical web development stuff and he couldn't. So whatever. And again, I'm not a web developer, okay? But I knew more than this guy. So, anyway, one problem. There were so many problems. Let me give you one example. Their website was very picture intensive because they were a marketing agency and they wanted to show their work. And that makes sense. I mean, if you're scrolling through a marketing agency's website, you probably want to take a look at the stuff they've done to get a feel for what kind of stuff they might do for you. Makes perfect sense. Here is the problem. None of the pictures had been resized, okay? So they were all like 8,000 by 6,000 pixels.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

But on the website, they were being resized to like 800 by 600 or something like that. So you had these giant images that were all being compressed on the website and taking forever to load. Like their homepage took over a minute to load or something ridiculous like that. So the way we figured this out was there's a website you can use. It's webpagetest.org webpagetest.org it's awesome. You type in a URL, it will load it. It will tell you how long it takes the site to load, and it will show you a summary of every single attribute on the webpage and how long it's taking each one to load. It will say, this picture takes this song. That picture takes this amount of time. This script takes this song, it's really cool. It displays it for you in a waterfall chart, and you can see exactly which components of the webpage are taking how long to load. It's a super cool site. I recommend it. I think they give you some free searches, like a number of free searches every month before you have to make an account. Anyway, you should check it out. It's pretty cool. For figuring out how long a website takes to load. Now, I say that the only thing that really matters in SEO is authority, and that's correct. But if your website takes a minute to load, first of all, page loading speed does actually play a role. It's not a huge role, but it's a role. But more importantly, who's gonna wait a minute? Oh, my gosh. If you're trying to pick a marketing agency and this guy's website doesn't even load in a minute, aren't you gonna click back and check out another marketing agency whose website actually loads? Of course you are. So anyway, for some reason, their web developer couldn't do it. I don't know why. So I'm like, fine, we'll resize all the images for you. It's not a big deal. Here's the problem with that. They had hired us to do their SEO. They had signed an SEO contract. Yes, this type of web development does play a role in SEO, so it does fall within the umbrella of SEO, but it took longer than it was supposed to because there's always stuff that comes up. Right. Anyway, that's just one example. Okay. But ultimately it was like problem after problem after problem. And basically we had to do all this other stuff for. For him. We couldn't even begin doing the SEO for, like, months now. Let me tell you why this was my fault. I should have been more clear and more direct and had more professional boundaries and said, no, you hired us to do your SEO. We can do these other things, but it's going to detract from the time that we have available to do the SEO. Which would you like to emphasize in priority? Or I could have said, no, we're not going to do it. Have your web developer do it. We'll provide an outline so they don't do it. Wrong with reference to SEO, but this is not what we're doing. But instead, I was a little bit enamored with the dollar signs and I said, oh, yeah, we can help out. We can help that out for you. And, you know, you do one thing for somebody and then they want you to do another thing, and then another Thing and then another thing, and basically we got a little bit more further into things that were not SEO than we should have been. It's a huge pain. I don't need to get into all of them. But basically every time I talked to this guy on the phone, he was unhappy, blah, blah, blah, all this other stuff. And on top of it, all of his other keywords weren't raking as quickly as that keyword. That I got it to the top in two days. Yeah, that's because the competition is different. You still don't get it, but that's okay. Trying to make the client happy, big client, trying to keep them happy. Okay, now somewhere, I think it was around month two or month three, he emails me, or maybe it was a phone call, I don't remember, and he's like, you know, I want you every month to send me a breakdown of all the tasks that you completed and how many hours each of them took. And okay, my response should have been no. And the reason for that is because SEO doesn't work that way. Let me tell you how SEO works right now. When we take on a new client, it is a lot of work. Sometimes we have to build content, we have to do research, we have to do analysis, we have to look at keywords, we have to look at on page stuff, we have to look at backlinks, we have to look at competition, we have to look at competitors, domains. We have to look at all of these things. Okay, all of these things. It takes a long time. Then we have to create content, we have to use the right anchor text, we have to do all the things, we have to put it on our blogs. It takes time to do all of this. Okay, Once that's done, once the client is hopefully at the top of the search engines, it's very little work. Look, the first week that we work with a new client, we might put 40 hours a week in for that client, just for that client. Okay, Maybe the next couple weeks, it might be, you know, a pretty decent amount of hours. There's still work to do. There's still a lot of stuff to do once everything is done. Okay, maybe five minutes per month for that client. It doesn't really take much time to keep a client's blog posts online. It doesn't. That's how the SEO industry works. You do not pay by the hour, you pay by the project or the service or whatever. I've never, ever had a client ever complain about that in 14 years. Except for this guy. Now, some people listening might be like, well, if you're only working five minutes a month, they shouldn't be paying you. Wrong. The reason they're paying us is because they're at the top of the search engine, which is worth substantially, substantially more than what we're charging them, by the way. And think about it. I mean, that's just like basic math. If you're paying a certain amount of money to be at the top of the search engine, and you're making more than that in profit from being at the top of the search engine, you would keep doing that. That's called making money. I don't know what else to say about that. If you're paying us a lot of money per month and you're not getting a return on your investment, you would stop working with us as a client. That's called smart business. I don't know how else to explain it. Nobody has ever been concerned with this except for this guy who made a big deal out of it. So how did I actually handle it? Okay, I should have said no, but I was afraid of losing a big client. So what I did. And let me be clear here, I do not feel bad about this at all, okay? Because it doesn't matter.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I put together a spreadsheet, I put some nonsense on it, some technical SEO sounding stuff, plus the stuff that we actually had to do for his website. And I put some hours next to it and I totaled it up every month and I sent it to him. It was 100% fake. I mean, well, it was like, it was probably 50% fake because this stuff that we were doing to actually fix all his problems, that had nothing to do with SEO, but that I incorrectly suggested that we could fix for him because I didn't want to lose him as a client. Yeah, that was on there. The rest of it was made up. Like, honestly, look, I'm not a dishonest person, but this was such a stupid requests that had literally nothing to do with anything. And I said to myself, you know what? So I didn't really care. I didn't really feel bad. Like, I really, I do try to be an honest person. Like, I will be honest with potential clients even if it means losing them as a client. Because I don't want to lie to people, you know, I want people to understand how SEO works. This was. Okay. The reason I didn't care is because the only reason he asked for it was for his own ego. Because I guarantee you, he was like, ha ha, look at how many hours these guys are working for me. They're working for me. I'm so wonderful. Like, okay, you can feel that way. I don't even care. Like, you're still paying us. Okay, good. Like, whatever, whatever. Okay. So basically, it was a big mess. We were slowly getting some improvement in their keywords, but all this other nonsense kept popping up. You know, problems that weren't really problems, but he made them problems. And again, they were paying us a lot of money, so I was trying to keep them pacified. Anyways, another month or so goes by, and he sends me an email, and he's like, hey, we need to talk. I'm like, okay. So we get on the phone and he's like, you know, none of our keywords are at the top of the search engine. Which, by the way, was wrong. But whatever. Like, whatever. Look, this guy, like, okay, have you ever met somebody who just. They just say things that they want to be true just so they can make a point, just so they can complain, but the things they're saying aren't actually true.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Like, this guy's like, our keywords are not at the top of the search engines. They were.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

We were getting good results, despite the fact that we had to fix all those other problems that had nothing to do with SEO and weren't even problems really in the first place.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

His keywords were getting to the top of the search engine. I sent him monthly reports. His traffic was increasing week over week. His keyword placement was increasing week over week. We were getting awesome results. And this guy gets on the phone and he's like, our keywords are not at the top of the search engines. Yes, they are. But. Okay, let me back up here for a second, because I honestly, I don't think this was a miscommunication.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I think he was just trying to create problems because that was his personality. Because when I would send him these weekly reports with his traffic increases and his keyword positioning and all this, he would respond back and be like, that's so great. You're doing such a great job. Keep doing all this stuff. You know, we're so happy with all the traffic increases and everything. Okay, good, because that's what you hired us for. And then, like, out of literally nowhere, we get on the phone and he's like, what's the problem? We're not getting anymore traffic. We're not at the top of the search engines. Yes, you are. Do you remember all the emails I sent you? Do you remember all the happiness that you responded with? Because you're so happy about all the Traffic increases and all the keyword increases. What are you even talking about right now? You're not at the top of the what? Like, if you're gonna pick a problem to complain about, at least have it be an actual problem.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

His keywords were at the top, and I'm pretty sure he knew they were at the top. Okay, but he's on the phone. We're not at the top of the search engine. Yes, you are. Look at the data. Look at the monthly reports I sent you. Go to your computer right now. Go to Google. Type in your keywords. Look, you're at the top. You're in a different state than I am. It's not even. Like we're not even on the same data centers, okay? Like, you're at the top of the search engines. Okay, Our keywords are not at the top of the search engine. Whatever. Just. Okay, so I think you get the point. Like, he's one of those people who just makes fights, makes drama, makes conflict and problems out of nowhere. Because. I don't know, but I have met people like that in my life, and they all do the same thing. Everything is awesome, and they just. They just make problems out of nowhere just so they can complain. I know you know the kind of person I'm talking about. That was this guy. Could I have handled it differently? Yes. In fact, that's the point of this episode. But at the time. Look, I'm a very logical person. If somebody says something to me that is demonstrably false. Uh, no, because look. Look at all the proof. Look at all the evidence. Look at your traffic increases week over week over week over week. You used to be getting barely any traffic. Now you're getting tons of traffic. You used to not be at the top of the search engines. Now you're at the top of the search engines. Don't look at the data. Don't Google your keywords. Don't tell me that you're not at the top of the search engine because you love drama when you are at the top of the search engine. Okay, just stop making things up. Like, he. I can't remember when. This was actually a long time ago, so I don't remember, like, the exact order of things, but we had been sending him analytics reports from his own account, like, on a weekly or monthly basis. I think it was on a monthly basis. I can't remember. Like, I honestly don't remember. It was a long time ago. But anyway, his traffic was increasing week over week or month over month, whatever his keyword positions were. All increasing. Everything was going great. Like we were successfully running our SEO campaign, albeit not as quickly as I had planned. But, you know, we're trying to do the other things too. Anyways, so he gets on the phone, he's like, none of our keywords are at the top of the search engines. And I'm like, oh yeah, they are, but you know, we can talk about that later. And he's like, you know what? He's like, you know what? I was actually wondering, what are we even paying you for? And I'm like, I've literally never, I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, I have literally never been asked that. I honestly, I don't remember what I said, but I think I was like, are you serious? And I started to list out all the things that we had been doing for him. For example, hey, remember when you weren't at the top of the search engines? Hey, remember when you got no traffic and now you're at the top of the search engines and now you're getting tons of traffic. But as you know, if you've ever spoken with somebody like this, there's no right answer. I could have said literally anything in the world. Even if it was true, which, by the way, it was true because we were getting them great keyword movement. Like I said, slower than I wanted, but still good considering the competitiveness of their industry. And we had done all this other nonsense for them that we weren't even supposed to do. But I'm trying to be helpful. So, you know, and I'm trying to contribute value to their company. So, okay, whatever. So we get off the phone call after he says this, he goes, you know what, why don't we take a few days and then let's schedule another phone call and you can justify your worth to me. So in my head at this point I'm like, not only have we gotten you amazing results so far, but we also did all this other stuff that we weren't even supposed to do. Like, and now you're asking us to justify our worth. Way to be ungrateful. Look, I would get it if we hadn't done anything, alright? If his keyword movement was non existent. Yeah, I'd get it. If his traffic hadn't increased, yeah, I'd get it. You know what? If those were the cases, I would say to him, hey, look, I'm not really satisfied with the results we've been getting you. Maybe we need to rethink our relationship. So I'm like, okay, whatevs. So we get off the phone and immediately, okay, this should be a learning experience, because I didn't necessarily handle this correctly at first anyways. So I immediately start putting together these documents of all the things we've done. And look where your keywords used to be, and look where they are now, and look at how much faster your website loads, and look at your search traffic, and look at your increased visitors week after week and month after month. And literally everything is going as it's supposed to go.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Now, we didn't get all your keywords to the top as fast as that one keyword that took two days because there's more competition. But I didn't even really finish this document. So here's what I did. I went to my friend who worked in the same building as me. I worked at a co working space. I went to another guy who worked in that building who was a sales coach, and I said, hey, I got a question for you. And he's like, yeah, what's up? And I said, I just had a client. Biggest client I've ever had, by the way. Ask me, what are we paying you for? And we've gotten him great results. And I'm not really sure how to respond to that. And so my friend says, listen. He goes, if you try to explain your value to him, you will 100% lose him as a client. And I'm like, nah, that doesn't make any sense. Like, why would you not explain your value to people? The entire business world is based on value, okay? And my friend is like, okay, listen, if you justify yourself to him, you are going to lose him as a client. And I'm like, yeah, I don't think that's how stuff works. He's like, okay. He's like, just. He's like, come with me. And we went into his office, and he literally spent, like, two hours explaining, like, sales psychology stuff to me. Now, look, I'm not a salesman, and I'm going to do an episode about how to sell SEO, okay? And one of the things that I'm. And one of the things that I'm gonna talk about in that episode is how for years, I literally violated every sales rule and had incredible success doing it. But you can call it beginner's luck, you can call it a bunch of other things. I'm not gonna get any more into it now than that. But let me just say, all of this sales strategy and stuff was so perplexing to me that I'm just like, I'm just gonna listen to this guy because it sounds so out there that it might actually be correct. So anyway, he spent, like, two hours with me, and then I think the next day, we spent, like, another hour or two going over scenarios and, like, why people say the things they say. And I took all these notes and I typed all these notes, and I printed out the notes, and I highlighted the notes, and I spent a weekend memorizing this dialogue, okay. Of, like, what to do if they say this and what to do if they say that and all this stuff. And it was literally the most counterintuitive logic I've ever heard for, like, anything like this. And I'm not gonna get into it very much, but basically, even starting to explain why he should keep working with us was not the correct way to handle the situation. And again, it sounded crazy to me, but, you know, whatever. So we get on the phone the next day or whenever it was, and I had my notes with me. I had my printed out, highlighted notes that I had typed, and I'm like, I'm ready for this meeting. And, like, actually, I wasn't really ready. And the reason I'm gonna talk more about this probably on the sales episode as well. But the reason was I had memorized it, but I wasn't necessarily congruent with it. So, look, you can think whatever you want about, like, memorizing sales scripts, okay? But there's a difference between listening to somebody who sounds memorized and listening to somebody who sounds natural.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I hope, for example, that when I talk to you about SEO, it sounds natural. I don't have this memorized. I don't even have a script. I'm literally just speaking off the cuff as I go. And, yes, sometimes I have to go back and edit parts of episodes. Sometimes I'll say things a little differently. But, like, overall, I'm literally just telling you this. I've spent a lot of time talking in front of people, giving presentations, not memorizing anything. No script. I just know the concepts, and I just say it as I go. It, you know, kind of makes sense. There's probably some things that I explain very similarly every time I explain them, and that's because I've been telling people them for over a decade of explaining SEO and backlinking and authority and all this stuff, But I don't have a script. I don't have any of this memorized. I'm just. Maybe that sounds really apparent. Maybe I sound scatterbrained. I don't know. Maybe I sound like a crazy person who can't put, like, Two thoughts together? I don't know. Hopefully not. Anyway, so I had this dialogue for the sales thing memorized. And there's definitely a difference between having something memorized and, you know, sounding like a robot versus having it sound natural because you understand the concepts and you don't have to use exact phrasing.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Remember how I said I spent years breaking every sales rule there is and being successful at it? I think the reason I was able to do that was because I was congruent with it and it was authentic, and it was coming from, like, who I am as a person, rather than trying to, like, memorize the scripts and they say this and you say that. Like, that just sounds fake. And I think no matter. I think even if you're saying certain things, I think people can feel if it's authentic or not when you're saying it. Maybe not. I don't know. That's just kind of what I think. Anyways, so we get on the phone, we kind of go through the process. I don't explain anything. I don't justify anything, and I wouldn't say it was super successful. So the sales coach that I was talking to, he's like, you know, if you explain yourself, you're lose them as a client. You want to keep them as a client, so here's how you have to do it. And I didn't necessarily keep them as a client because look. So the phone call ended, and we decided mutually, by the way, that we were gonna take a month off. They were not in a place where they were ready to have SEO done, even though we had already gotten them amazing results. They had too many problems with their websites and too many what seemed to be internal conflicts. I don't even know what was going on, but he was always unhappy about something, so fix your stuff, and then let's talk in a month. And he was apparently unhappy with us, even though he was at the top of the search engines and getting lots of traffic. So let's take a month off. Sounds like a smart decision. And I was actually content with that. During the phone call, we decided that it would make sense to take a month off and then circle back around in a month and see if it made sense to work together again. Now, I was totally fine with that because, honestly, they had some problems they needed to resolve before they were ready to move forward with their SEO. Okay, I like doing SEO for people, but your business and your website has to be at the right place in order for SEO to make sense. So we took a month off and let me say, in that month off, I was so calm. I could check my email every day without freaking out, because I wasn't worried about some stupid problem that wasn't even really a problem. I didn't need to listen to him talk about how great he was all the time. It was pretty awesome and relaxing. And yes, it was bad that I wasn't getting paid a huge invoice that month, but I was so calm and relaxed. It was amazing. Okay, so fast forward one month, we get on the phone and we start talking, and he tells me about all these changes that he's made to his website, and it's so great. It wasn't really great, but we'll get to that in the future. It was so great. And, like, he's ready to move forward with the SEO. I literally feel like this guy's day is just determined by the mood he's in. Like, when he wakes up in the morning. And like, I don't know, man. I guess our meeting took place on a day when he was in a good mood. Cause he was like, I'm so ready and I'm so positive and optimistic and. Yeah, and it's like, well, until like, five minutes later when you're mad about something and then you become, like, a horrible person. But whatever you want to move forward. Okay, let's lay down some rules this time. One, we're doing SEO for you. We're not doing website changes. We're not managing your Instagram. By the way, Instagram was a thing he wanted us to manage for him. Like, the first time we worked together. Like, no, you guys have all these photos. Like, in the time it takes you to send me all the photos and the captions you want to use, just do it yourself. Like, come on. Anyways, okay, we're only doing your SEO. We're not doing your website. We're not doing your Instagram. We're not doing any of this other nonsense. We're not doing conversion optimization. We're doing SEO. We're going to rank you for specific keywords. Do you agree to these terms? Because that's what SEO is. Oh, yeah, I agree to those terms. That sounds great. Okay, let's kind of resume from where we left off. So. Okay, I'm checking his website, and it's totally different. Totally different. Like the new theme, new everything. It was a little better than before, but, you know, still had some weird formatting problems and stuff. And I'm like, look, I will talk to your developer about how to fix these problems. Okay, Whatever. Doesn't even matter. Let me tell you what happened. So one day, I checked their position one day, and they're gone. They were not even ranking. So I don't mean, like their position dropped to, like page 10 or something. I mean, they were literally. They had vanished. And I'm like, what just happened? I'm like, we've only been working together for like, two more days at this point. Like, what did you guys get a penalty? Like, what even happened? Like, it's very rare, unless you get a bad penalty that you drop out of the search engines completely. And one service that I use is a SERP tracking tool. So SERP is SERP and it stands for Search Engine Results Position.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

It basically means where you are in the search engines. So a SERP tracker is a program that checks the search engines every day, finds out the position of your website for your keywords, and puts it on a chart. It's really cool. It's very awesome. You can show it to clients and say, look, you used to be here. And then you can basically see the progress of how they increased or decreased over time. It's amazing. I love SERP trackers. There are many out there. The one that I use is called Serpfox. So S-E-R-P-F-O-X.com. i highly recommend them. I'm not getting paid by them. They probably don't even know that I'm mentioning them in this podcast. But they're great. There are others out there, but I've been using Serpfox for over 10 years and they're awesome. Anyway, you can use them. You can check them out. I think they have a free trial. I don't know. Use them if they work for you, you know, whatever. So anyway, I'm checking their position every day, as I do. You should, by the way, if you're doing SEO for somebody, you should check their positioning every day. Okay, so. So I'm like. I'm trying to figure out. I'm like, what is going on? And I logged in. I can't remember the reason for this, honestly, but I logged in to their hosting account, okay? They had given me access to their hosting account. And I saw they had another. They had another domain for a similar business. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what's on there? And I loaded it up. They had made a duplicate copy of their first website on their second domain. Okay, now let me stop for a moment and say, I spent episode one telling you that there's no Such thing as duplicate content penalties. And there's not. If duplicate content penalties existed, websites like medical research papers would not exist because they all have the same papers with the same content, which is definitely duplicate content.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

If duplicate content penalties were a thing, there would be no lyric websites because every lyric website has the exact same content because it's the same song lyrics.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Duplicate content is not a thing, and it's not a penalty. Okay? With that said, if you duplicate your own website on the same server, apparently that's the penalty. I've only seen this happen once ever. Of course, I don't know anybody else who's ever done that. I've only seen this happen once ever. And that was with the client that I'm talking about. So what happened was they had copied their website exactly. Onto the other domain. And the domain that we were working with, the first one, got kicked out of the search engines. And I'm like, what is happening right now? So I don't know why I asked them about it. I said, hey, listen, we have a problem. Your website is gone, but I noticed that you have an exact copy of it. Can you tell me about this? And they're like, oh, we don't know how that happened. Okay, well, can I get rid of the second website? Because it's literally penalizing your first website. Oh, yeah, that's cool. You know, they probably set it up on that to, like, try out a new website design and then, like, forgot about it or something. I actually. I don't know. That's my best guess. But anyways, we took down the second website. First website came back. I think it came back in like a week or two to back where it was. It was the weirdest thing. That's literally the one time in my life I've seen a duplicate content penalty happen. And I'm pretty sure it only happened because they did it on the same server.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Like, the search engines obviously knew that, like, something weird was going on. Like, why would two sites on the same server with the same IP address, why would they have the same content? There's literally not a reason that should ever happen. So the search engines picked one to remove, and it was the one that we were working with. Anyway, we got it back. It was good. All we had to do was remove the one that had copied it. It was fine. And I said, listen, please don't make any more website changes without running it by me, because we don't want this to happen again. Oh, okay, sure. No problem. Anyways, so let's fast Forward a couple more months. We were doing more SEO. They were getting more visitors month after month, they were getting more amazing results for even more keywords. But this guy, who's literally never happy, would schedule these phone meetings with me and just talk about how amazing he was. And like anytime we did anything, like we were getting some pages on his site indexed or I can't remember, like it was something, something relatively little like that, like getting, getting some pages indexed or something, and he's like, so that happened pretty quickly, right? Would you say that that happened quicker with us than with any other client ever? Like, no. I mean, it pretty much happens at a constant rate for everybody. Like, okay, sure, you're the best, coolest, most awesome person in the world. Like, wha. I don't know. Literally every meeting was just about how amazing this guy was and how great their projects were and how great and amazing everything was. But he did nothing but complain about the results that we were getting him top of the search engines, no problem. Let's complain. Increase traffic week after week after week. Oh, let's do nothing but complain. I need to create problems out of nowhere. Like, alright, whatever. So anyway, during this time I'm back to like annoyed mode where I hate checking my email every day because there might be an email from him and it's not gonna be anything good. So anyway, there's something to be said for like peace of mind. Anyways, so a couple months later, I actually think, I think it was like six months later, he calls me and he's like, let me just say at this point, they were at the top of the search engines for their keywords. Their traffic volume was amazing. All their competition that this guy hated so much that he couldn't stop talking about how dishonest and what liars they were. They were underneath us. He was doing amazingly well. The traffic was awesome, the search rank was awesome, everything was awesome. Okay, so anyways, he calls me again to complain and he decided that he wanted to get more leads than he was getting and he was ready to fire us if we couldn't increase the leads. Now, let me just remind everybody, conversion optimization is not an SEO thing. SEO gets the website to the top of the search engines, but if your content is not converting, that is not an SEO problem unless you pick the wrong keywords. But we didn't pick the wrong keywords. Okay, so he decides that he wants to do a paid search campaign. Okay, that's cool, but I run an SEO agency. I don't do paid search. Okay, I know somebody who does? In fact, I'm not joking. One of my colleagues is literally the best person in paid search that I've ever met in my life. There is a competition. There is an AdWords competition, like just for fun, like a little thing that some company did online, like an AdWords competition. And my friend actually got kicked out of it because he was beating everybody so badly. I don't mean he was like gaming the system, he wasn't like cheating, it wasn't like black hat ad words or anything like that, you know what I mean? Like he was just literally destroying all the competition by a factor of like 600% or something ridiculous that for some reason they like asked him to leave. Anyway, so he's amazing. It's what he does for a living. He's literally like a paid search guy. So I was like, look, we don't do paid search. If you want to do paid search, I know somebody that can help you out. So he's like, yeah, that sounds great. Alright, so call up my friend. This episode is getting kind of long so I'm just gonna really, really shorten it now. But anyways, all of us got together, we had a meeting. My friend had him pumped for all the awesome stuff that he was gonna do and like five minutes after the meeting he emails me and says, well, here's what I've decided to do. I'm gonna pay you half of this month's rate up front and if we don't get any leads then I'm not gonna pay you the other half and we're not gonna work together anymore. And I was like, ahaha, no, like I don't know that. First of all, I'm not gonna do work for free. Number two, AdWords takes money. We haven't even talked about budget yet. Don't forget, somebody's gotta pay for that. Number three, that's like a horrible imposition on our working relationship. You can't just call up somebody and say, by the way, we're not going to pay you the full amount this month unless we feel like it. Sorry. So we actually ended our working relationship shortly after that email. And you know what happened? I went back to being happy to check my email every morning. Calm and peaceful and awesome. And yes, it was depressing to lose such a big client. But you know what? I didn't even care because I was happy every single day. So anyway, worst client we've ever had. I don't even know what happened to that guy. Like I checked his website once like a couple years later and I'm like, oh, it's still pretty hideous. I don't know, man. Whatever. I hope they're successful, but I really don't care. So anyway, what did I learn from this guy? Okay, so much stuff. Hopefully I actually mentioned it, but if not, here's what I learned from working with this guy. One, don't be overwhelmed by dollar signs. Have you ever heard somebody say, they say the clients who try to negotiate the lowest rate are going to be the most annoying clients. And they also say the clients who pay you the most will be the most annoying clients. There's a saying, I apologize. I can't remember what the saying is, but it's something like that. Like, basically, if somebody tries to, like, make a big deal out of the price, they're going to be annoying. That's basically, I think, what the point is. So this guy, I don't even know if he knew he was paying us more than everyone else, I don't think. I never told him that. I never tell anyone that, by the way. But I don't know. But he was just like, everything. It wasn't enough that he was paying us to do the SEO. He had to be in control of everything all the time and complain about everything constantly. And even when the results were amazing, he still had to complain about them constantly because he's not happy if he's not complaining. I'm sure you know, people like that in your life anyway. Okay? So number one, don't be intimidated by dollar signs. Just because somebody's paying you a lot of money doesn't mean you need to give them preferential treatment.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Number two, be very clear about what your boundaries are for what you will and will not do. If I hadn't been like, oh, yeah, we'll make those website changes for you. Like, first of all, he probably wouldn't have stopped paying us in the first place because it's not even an SEO thing. That's like complaining because you have somebody come fix your washing machine and they won't fix your refrigerator for you. Like, no kidding, they're a washing machine repair guy. Like, what's the problem? I don't understand why, you know what I mean? But I was new to full service SEO and I was stupid. And I'm like, oh, yeah, we can help you out with that. Cause I didn't think it would take very long. But you know, if you do one thing for somebody, they just want you to do like, another thing and then another thing and they want to take advantage of you because that's how they do things, so shouldn't have done that. Next thing that I learned, if somebody doesn't appreciate the value that you provide for them, it's probably not a good fit. Now, I'm not trying to make excuses and be like, well, they should keep paying you anyway. No, we were getting them awesome results. They went from, like, nowhere. I don't know, like, page five. That's kind of nowhere. To the top of the search engines. Got tons of. I don't know, we, like, 10x their traffic or something. I honestly, I don't remember. This was, like, years ago, but it was something from, like, not very much traffic to, like, tons of traffic. For many of their keywords, it was great. Not even in a long amount of time. Like, we only worked together for, like, two or three months before he decided that he wasn't happy because all of his keywords weren't at the top immediately. Like that one. No competition. Keyword was. And then all of a sudden, we shouldn't work together anymore. So, okay, so we took a month off, and then like, a couple months again after that. Amazing results. I don't know what the guy's problem was, but, you know, whatever. You know, that's fine. I don't know. But ultimately, here's another thing that I learned. This is actually a good point. So the sales coach that I was talking to told me this. He said, why are you so concerned about losing this client? And I said, well, they're paying us more than any client has ever paid us ever. And he's like, so why do you only have one client like that? He's like, you shouldn't be concerned about losing a client because you shouldn't only have one client. That's such a big deal. He's like, don't get lazy just because you get a big client because they might decide to stop working with you. And then what are you gonna do? I'm like, you know what? That is so obvious that I actually think it needed to be said. So that's a good point, which is why I'm including it here. Just because you get a whale of a client doesn't mean that you can be lazy, because the whale might be very difficult to work with. Like, the whale I had was. And it's not even worth the headache. Like, it's honestly not even worth the headache. So ultimately, I was happy when we stopped working together, even though I wasn't getting paid a huge monthly invoice every month. Anyway, I hope these are helpful. Probably are listening. And either Being like, wow, what a long, boring story, or wow, what an idiot. Either of those. You can say those. I probably wouldn't disagree, but I hope that. I hope that this was educational. And if you find yourself in a similar situation, you're like, oh, okay, I know what to do. Because grumpy SEO guy said, don't do it this way. And look, it didn't work out for him. So I'm gonna do it better, hopefully. Anyway, I'm sure there's some other things I could have done better, and I'd be happy to hear those suggestions from you. Now we're gonna talk about sales more, how to sell SEO in a different episode. Because I really wanna go into that and share with you how I've done it and what has worked and what hasn't worked. And the last thing I learned is that it's always okay to fire a bad client. Okay, don't be so. Look, I don't want to, like, copy the, like, self development language that everybody's using. But, like, don't approach everything from a place of lack. And you need to hold on to the scraps that you get. Like, honestly, if it's not working for you, don't keep working with them. It doesn't matter how much they're paying you. Honestly, prioritize your mental health.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

This client was annoying. I was in a much better place not working with him. And even though he paid us a lot of money, like, ultimately it probably. I mean, other than this story that I got to tell that may or may not have even been a good story, it was like, it wasn't even worth it. Like, I don't know, man. He was annoying. I hated checking my email every day. I didn't want to get an email from him because it was just gonna be annoying garbage, stupid nonsense that doesn't even need to be a problem. That wasn't complaining about everything 24 7. I have no idea how he ran his business. I have no idea how a client ever had a good interaction with him. But somehow they got some very big clients. And I'm not going to name them, but if I named them, you'd say, holy cow, those are some big clients. This marketing company sounds awesome. I don't know, man. The owner was not a nice person. But, you know, I don't know. Sometimes people don't care about that stuff in business. So I don't know. Anyway, this is the end of the episode. Let me know if there's anything you think I could have done better. I'm always open to hear suggestions. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. I hope this episode is helpful, and if you have any questions or if there's anything that you want me to talk about on a future episode, you can email [e-mail] and I'll talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about some of the most annoying things in the SEO.