-
No joke, I got fired after increasing traffic by 135% tell me what I did wrong
Yes, I’m 100% not joking, I was literally just fired after producing the largest growth of organic traffic my client has ever seen not with any blackhat methods but rather pure white hate optimizations. Here’s how it went down…
My client ran a fencing business that he was looking to grow and after seeing one of my most recent posts about results I had for a different client he decided to shoot me a message. Long story short things went well and we agreed on a deal for monthly SEO services. Now, normally when onboarding a client I try to gauge how comfortable people are with SEO since many of them like the idea of growth but can get a little stingy when it comes to changing their website design even if it’s the smallest of details and this client straight up told me “You’re the expert do whatever you think is best” to which always sounds good to me right? Well, keep that in mind as you read this because I suggested to the client lets make some additional location pages right maybe 4 or 5 to generate some traction in the surrounding area to which they agreed and overnight I woke up to 100 different location pages….. Not just any location pages but almost exact duplicates of each page with only the location word changed out, making it 100% duplicate content that would not be registered by Google. Now, this wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but for some reason when explaining this to my client they were stuck on this idea that they liked how the content read and didn’t want to change it even just to rephrase it. even if it wouldn’t be indexed defeating the original purpose of why we did them. I eventually stopped pursuing this yet I could tell this conversation wasn’t over.
I sent over my monthly report explaining how traffic was booming and we really made some huge growth of over 135% just within two months which is something that normally doesn’t happen that fast, especially with organic growth. I even double-checked the sources and dates to ensure it was legitimate growth and not someone sending us spam. Now at the bottom of the report I put a little summary and part of that is explaining some potential ideas we should touch on, one of which was about duplicate content in which I told them that according to Google Search Console, many of the pages had not been indexed properly or at all and that rephrasing could really help. They sent me back an email later that day saying they appreciate my work but they just had different ideas of how SEO should be carried out for the website and judging by how we had no problems prior to the duplicate content I could tell that’s what really broke the owner but they hired me as the specialist and I can only do and advise them to what I think is best; however, it does suck to lose a client with so much potential.
-
1 Reply
-
Some clients change web/SEO providers like they change underwear. This is probably less about you and more about them.
I recently took a 7-location business from an average ranking of 11 for their top local keyword to an average of 2.5. In 120 days. Then was fired so they could work with an agency that does SEO and ads (I do not touch paid ads).
At the end of the day, you can’t stop some of these people from making bad business decisions. You just keep doing good work and there will be more good clients than bad.
-
My opinion is often they want you to get traffic up when they have it at a level they want they don’t want to pay more for seo, so cancel as often when they cancel it will be steady for while
-
To most small business owners, traffic is a vanity metric that they can’t really afford to care about. I cannot count the number of times in my career I’ve grown traffic only to be told that it’s irrelevant because the number of orders hasn’t increased and the new traffic isn’t actually driving tangible growth.
Now, ten years in, I totally get it. Who cares about an extra buttload of visitors if you’re not actually seeing money coming in from the expense? There’s a huge disconnect between what we care about, and what a business owner actually needs to see if you want them to keep paying your retainer and it’s always worth thinking about putting some solid weight behind stats about traffic or visits.
-
>pure white hate optimizations
IDK man… I wouldn’t be comfortable with that either.
Jokes aside, I think your client really, like really really loved whatever was written on those content pages.
Personally, I’d have dropped the subject after suggesting it one or two times. Yes, you were hired as an SEO expert, but you got to understand that it’s the client’s business. They get the final say, even if it’s the wrong decision.
Client wants the Ally McBeal dancing baby on every page? I tell them it’s a bad idea, but if they still want it, they get to have it.
-
Appreciate it’s too late now but couldn’t you have put canonical tags in place so Google would understand why there’s duplication? I’m not expert but we use it at a franchise I work for
-
“The client email me back saying they had different ideas of how to carry out SEO” oof I’m sorry man. Clients can just be like that sometimes. Nothing you did, they’re just arrogant. I’ve dealt with this too many times. If anything it’s a blessing in disguise cause you won’t have to deal with them anymore
-
You say traffic was booming because it increased by 135%, but percentages can be misleading. The actual increase may not have been that dramatic
Also, I didn’t see you say anything about leads or sales generated. Business owners do not care about traffic. They care about leads and/or sales.
-
some business owners will get really hung up on how content is. I had a client years ago where I doubled their organic traffic, but more importantly increased revenue from organic conversions by 30%, but to do so I had to rewrite a substantial portion of their content (or add content… many pages on site just had the Amazon feed product description). Updated site navigation to surface high-value items,etc.
But I changed the content, and they didn’t like it. So they let us go. You can’t control clients who think they know best because to people like that, if YOU knew what you were doing, you’d be a competitor, not a temp (which you’re not, but to this type of owner they can see you that way).
What they saw was a massive increase in traffic in a very short period of time, using the content they like. If they generated THAT many that quickly, chances are they think they ‘know’ SEO because they read something about location targeting (had a client like that too) .
My one point of disagreement is to not view them as a client with a lot of potential instead of avoiding what could be a ton of headaches for you. Leave on a good note, but find clients more willing to let you work. If they come back later, make sure you have a stronger SOW
-
Send them keyword ranking report and conversion report.
I hope you have got it figured out what a conversion is and which conversion is crucial for their business.
But yeah keyword report can make anyone change their mind.
-
Not knowing all the specifics (we see your side of the story and your interpretation). Either they were so thrilled that what you did helped move the needle and said hey we really didn’t want to hire someone for the long term, and now we don’t have to. Or the difference of opinion was a bit much and they decided they didn’t want to deal with that anymore. Or, even with the traffic, they didn’t have the budget to keep you on.
-
How much revenue and sales did your traffic drive? Traffic doesn’t mean shit if you’re a line item in an expense report. Even if the client doesnt understand the value, thats the difficulty of the industry to be honest.
-
This type of behaviour has seemingly become more common in the past few years, it’s happened to me more than I’d care to admit.
I drove one double glazing business from doing half a million to 4 million a year turnover with good seo and ppc management in just over 5 years.
The owners response? He found a bigger agency and told me that as I’d not grown my seo company to the heights I had done with his he was letting me go.
You can’t win against their greed and narccism.
-
How many leads and sales did you bring in? Traffic only looks good on paper and people who have no idea about marketing. Also, you need to do a 6 month or 12-month contract with clients, so they don’t cancel right away.
-
Traffic is bullshit, leads generated is everything. Unless the site is selling ads no one gives a shit about traffic.
-
First off, congrats on the increase via Organic….that is very impressive!
Now, simple question.
Did the traffic result in more business for him? Yes or no?
Before any of you take on an SEO gig I strongly recommend you sit down and ask the guy who’s hired you what his expectations are.
Because in the eyes of an owner, you can increase traffic 1,000% and if no new business comes in…it was a waste of time and money for him.
Learn how SEO fits into business and you’ll never go broke. All the technical stuff we wade through every day?…that’s our problem. You start tossing jargon into his face he doesn’t understand (and he won’t) he’ll simply think you are bullshitting him.
As an SEO IMHO, your 1st and most important question should be “How are the leads coming?” because at the end of the day in SEO, that’s where the rubber truly meets the road in the eyes of someone who pays you.
Once you are bringing in business, then and only then will the boss sit with you and want to learn more and most importantly, start listening to you.
Log in to reply.