Why Do Relationships Between SEOs and Clients Fail?

There are plenty of companies working with SEO agencies to improve their Google rankings and boost their brand. If you’re one of these companies you’ll probably have a lot of questions about what’s being done, what your money is used for, and how it’s going to benefit you.

It’s completely understandable to want as much information as possible about what your SEO professionals are actually doing; after all you’re the one paying for these services. However it’s increasingly common for relationships between SEOs and clients to fail due to a number of different factors.

If you want to find out more about relationships between SEO and clients and how they can fail, speak to me now.

Contents

1 Problems SEO Agencies Face from Clients
2 Work with Your SEO Experts
3 All SEO Related Posts

Problems SEO Agencies Face from Clients

Okay, so you want your company’s website to rank better in Google and you want your target audience to come to you for whatever services or products you offer. But you don’t know how to do it yourself, so you decide to hire an SEO agency to do it for you.

This is something that loads of businesses do, but it’s important to understand the relationship between an SEO specialist and a client they are working with. The services provided by an agency can include on-page content optimisation and building links. But there are loads of other strategies all designed to improve your rankings. It all varies depending on what you need for your site.

Your agency will be able to talk you through everything they offer, and the costs of SEO services for your company so you can stick to a budget.

There are certain problems that most SEO professionals will face at some point when working with clients. Some of these can definitely lead to relationships failing:

Continuous Emails and Phone Calls – It’s fine to have questions about what your agency is doing and the strategy they have set up to rank your website. But constantly phoning your account manager about every detail will take their time away from working on your site. Of course you will be unsure on some things, but let the professionals do what you are paying for. Ask any questions you have during your monthly report.

Unrealistic Expectations – Ranking website pages takes time, it won’t happen overnight. So if your site is ranking on page 4 of the search results for a particular keyword, don’t expect your SEO agency to move you up to position 1 after a few weeks. It won’t happen. In order to rank a site in organic search results, it has to be just that, organic. There will be a natural progression which takes place with months of work and implementing different strategies. You need to build up your brand and develop a positive image that will attract potential customers. Don’t expect immediate results from it.

The Difference Between SEO Methods – It’s important to know the difference and the risks involved with white hat and black hat SEO. The client needs to know what he wants so it’s crucial to explain before a strategy is set up.

These issues can lead to SEOs becoming frustrated and annoyed. Especially if they can’t focus on what they need to do to help the client. Imagine if the same thing happened in other industries. For example if you were paying someone to decorate your house, you’d probably decide on a design, tell them your budget and then let the experts get on with the work.

You wouldn’t be constantly bombarding them with questions like ‘What type of paint are you using?’, ‘Where did you get this carpet from?’, ‘Why are you using that type of hammer?’, ‘Why does the wallpaper look like that?’ etc.

See what I mean? Imagine if your decorator had to stop every 5 minutes and explain each part of what they’re doing. The work would take 100 times longer, it’s the same with SEO.

Work with Your SEO Experts

There’s no point asking hundreds of questions while the work is still in progress. Especially if you aren’t an expert in what needs to be done anyway, you’ll probably end up being more confused. The best thing to do is just give your agency the time to do what you’re paying them for. They’ll show you what’s they are doing through your monthly report.

This will give you all the information you need in a format that’s simple to understand. It also tells you how the work has affected your website. Your account manager can then answer any questions you have and clarify things you’re unsure of.

Having a good relationship with your SEO agency is vital. Particularly if you want to have a successful campaign which has a positive effect on your website’s rankings. By allowing the experts to do their job and work on your site, you can save them and yourself a lot of time. This is much better than constantly answering questions and telling you what they are doing

If you have any comments about the relationship between SEOs and clients, feel free to leave them below as we’d love to hear what you think!

All SEO Related Posts

Check out the in-depth list of SEO posts.

The full list shows the various SEO strategies to help your online marketing knowledge grow fast in November 2020.

2 Comments

Amplify ROI says:

24/07/2016 at 2:58 pm

It is key for clients to understand that SEO takes time. If they want instant results, we usually suggest supplementing their SEO plan with PPC. Then, as the SEO gains grow, they are able to often scale back their PPC efforts.

- James Dooley says:
  
  19/03/2017 at 9:36 am
  
  Yes 100% agree with this. Making sure from the off the customer understands how it works is key. No point over promising results and it is a shame some sales folk do this as gives the industry a bad name. Plus normally if you are trying to quickly rank you normally find yourself over optimising your strategy and being penalised