Thread: When to Reject Potential Clients?

Originally Posted by bogart

I think it also hurts when companies promise top 10 rankings for $100 to $200 dollars.

I can't trust seo companies and I prefer to do it myself. Cheap is not always the best choice.

Originally Posted by bogart

The going rate for keyword research, page optimization, seo and content recommendations is around $500. This is something like a proposal and a road map or what many people call a "quick look".

That is right in my range. I charge $500 to $600 for a brief analysis, and $700 to $3000 for a full-blown site evaluation with recommendations. My full evaluations are usually 40 to 60 pages worth of details and recommendations. Quoting either one usually gets rid of the tire kickers who are looking for freebies, especially when I tell them that I require a 50% project deposit before I can get started.

Originally Posted by SonnyCooL

Problem is they plenty so call SEO expert charging sky high fees but they don't even know what they do (or this is their secret)

I agree that there are a lot of scammers in this business. Probably 50% of the sites that I work on that have been optimized by another SEO company have never had anything done to the sites even though they were charging a customer for monthly services for months or sometimes years. Sometimes I find that the sites have been turned into hidden link farms or hundreds of doorway pages have been installed.

Originally Posted by bogart

I think it also hurts when companies promise top 10 rankings for $100 to $200 dollars.

It hurts the entire industry whenever someone promises something that they cannot deliver.

Originally Posted by SonnyCooL

agree .... so they must at least provide some information abt what they going to do, not i can get u to top ten for this fees ? or 1000 High PR link for XXX amount or Guaranty result (i off when i see guaranty word during the communication) ...

There's a lot of question marks when it comes to providing services which make it more difficult for the non SEO company to provide the services. The webmaster who is a publisher or affiliate marketer really isn't set up to offer SEO and doesn't have a process to sell the services, billing, documentation, proposal etc. He's not going to stop working on his sites for someone that thinks $1000 is a lot of money.

There are some SEO providers that charge to rank a keyword on a monthly basis. But even with this, there's problems where the client figures that he doesn't need you any more after one month. So, he gets greedy and cancels the service.

The article itself was directed at freelancing writing services. But it applies justs as well to SEO and design services.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

That is right in my range. I charge $500 to $600 for a brief analysis, and $700 to $3000 for a full-blown site evaluation with recommendations. My full evaluations are usually 40 to 60 pages worth of details and recommendations. Quoting either one usually gets rid of the tire kickers who are looking for freebies, especially when I tell them that I require a 50% project deposit before I can get started.

Exactly. Many companies are looking for a "proposal" which is the brief analysis. You won't be able to make a living providing this on a free basis especially when they are looking for you to present the data to them (also for free)

Originally Posted by proweb

I can't trust seo companies and I prefer to do it myself. Cheap is not always the best choice.

SEO services are really for professionals or business owners that are too busy running the business. It won't make sense for a Doctor or Attorney to work on their own site. Also the SEO may be able to perform the services at the lower rate than a large company can do in-house.

The site owner can always go to the netbuilders marketplace and outsource the work while at the same time keeping control over what is done.

Originally Posted by bogart

There's a lot of question marks when it comes to providing services which make it more difficult for the non SEO company to provide the services. The webmaster who is a publisher or affiliate marketer really isn't set up to offer SEO and doesn't have a process to sell the services, billing, documentation, proposal etc. He's not going to stop working on his sites for someone that thinks $1000 is a lot of money.

There are some SEO providers that charge to rank a keyword on a monthly basis. But even with this, there's problems where the client figures that he doesn't need you any more after one month. So, he gets greedy and cancels the service.

The article itself was directed at freelancing writing services. But it applies justs as well to SEO and design services.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

I agree that there are a lot of scammers in this business. Probably 50% of the sites that I work on that have been optimized by another SEO company have never had anything done to the sites even though they were charging a customer for monthly services for months or sometimes years. Sometimes I find that the sites have been turned into hidden link farms or hundreds of doorway pages have been installed.

I spend a lot money for SEO script, BOOK, subscribe, (knowledge is what i want) and i still looking for someone able to help me on SEO, problem is too many scammers that make me hold my trust on them ...

I think my worst experience was with a very artsy client on a movie site...I made a rookie mistake and didn't dig on why the previous website admin left (ie wasn't fired)....

figured it out 3 weeks later after about 80 hours of work and re-work...needless to say it didn't go well. They wanted about $10K of work for 400 bucks...

Left it at thanks for the opportunity.

Sometimes because of the competition and financial problems it takes you to take almost anything and it forces you to do some jobs for prices you would have not accepted if you weren't in need of money.

I hate it when they demand a complete unique website, fully coded with 10 pages, a mascot logo, database driven site, gallery, forms and even much more for $200

I would never accept such deals and neither should any other web designer because it would just hurt the web design industry.

Most of the time clients do not estimate the project, they not analyze the complexity and the workload and they say to do it in very low rate and in fix budget. Moreover, when you accept the work from these clients, mid of the project they change the requirements, even if the NDA is signed. These kind of clients i have encounter in my work history and this is now becoming very common. I dont know if you have experienced this situation, but it was very bad experience for me.

I now usually avoid working with these clients.

For avoidance :

1) please work on a secure platform, and must escrow 100% money if possible, so that if you are working with similar person your time and effort is never wasted.
2) In business never trust anyone, just always do the way business is, documentation and effort security, always keep in mind.