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Question about ending working relationship with SEO person.
Hi, SEO people! Last weekend I fired my SEO person.
Almost since the beginning of our working relationship she’s been unresponsive and I have no idea what she’s actually doing as she sent me one update in August and nothing else.
I’ve had multiple e-mails go unanswered, call times scheduled and rescheduled, I’ve caught her during what seem like bursts of work and she asks if I am available for a call ASAP to which I respond yes and she disappears, and I’ve waited more than a month on two occasions for a response on e-mails. I told her on more than five occasions I was unhappy with her service and she promised to be better. Almost every e-mail from her starts with, “Sorry for the delay in responding!”
Today she’s asking for money from May until now in one lump sum to terminate ($2,500). Apparently her payment processor didn’t take my new payment details and we both were unaware. I’m happy to pay for services… if they were any good or if there even were services. But since I literally have *zero* deliverables from her since May what are my options? How can I find out if she was actually doing any work? Any help would be appreciated.
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9 Replies
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Did you find her on reddit by any chance??
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Seems like she was in for money.
When I was doing SEO I made monthly reports for the clients so they can compare the website’s current month results with the previous month. You can ask for this kind of report or ppt format file where she can show you what she did to improve the website. -
Smells like trouble, terminate her ASAP.
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Did you have a contract? Does the contract specify what is the work to be done?
If yes, then you can refer to that, and demand to see what work was actually done. If none, then you are not entitled to pay anything as per contractual terms.
No contract? Well then you don’t have any obligation to pay anyway. Demand to see the work before any payment.
Also: did you pay this person anything? I get they are telling you their payment processor didn’t get the details, BUT if you paid money from May to today and it’s NOT returned by your bank, then it must be with her.
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Looks like she sucks at customer service… But did she deliver on SEO?
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any keyword ranking, traffic on website, lead or sale ? if yes then pay according to it.. if not then don’t pay..
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ouch-tough one…clearly she did not uphold her end of the contract so by rights you don’t have to pay her anything. I would be clear that upon receipt of evidence (anything at this point) that she was in fact actually performing SEO on your site payment will be forwarded. Put a time to it-like 7 days whatever. If she doesn’t deliver I would walk. Not the kindest response but business isn’t built on kind-it’s built on trust, credibility, and performance. You can also use a tool like Mangools (free 10-day trial) that will tell you what and when backlinks have been added to your site. If you’re set up on GA you can view those reports too. But at the end of the day, you should know just based on the number of calls/clicks to your website if she was doing what she promised.
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Looks like I’ll be a contrary opinion here. I think you should pay something. You had a working relationship. Every month you did not terminate her you were enabling the situation to continue.
SEO is hard to actually show proof of deliverables unless those are clearly defined. Did you pay for time spent or results?
I paid a CPA / Tax Preparer $3k to do our taxes when I first got into business. I had no idea what was normal. Turns out she cost me $10k in filling my income incorrectly and was 6 months late with the filling.
Now I pay 1/3rd that and have way better service. Whenever I think of that situation now, yeah I’m pissed at her, but also myself. It was a hard lesson to learn, but cheaper then than if I made it now.
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Sounds like a scammer to me
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