I spent a good half an hour on the telephone today to a client of mine. Trouble is, he isn't a client but more of a business contact/partner. He's a salesman at a printing company who's trying to get web site business which they pass on to muggins (that'd be me) to do at a discounted price and then they probably charge the customer about double for it. Trouble is, this guy knows zilch about the web. You would think someone trying to sell a product would at least familiarise themselves with it? Not this guy, and not his predecessor that I had to deal with for the past 3 years.
So this guy calls me today saying that he's off to visit a potential new client. This client has just had a nice new web site done however now they want to get it to the top of the search engines. Okay fair comment, I can understand that. The client has been quoted £460 a year from another company to be at the top of the search engine results. I do like these companies that say they can guarantee you a top position (without advertising 
) – it's always a good laugh. So for the third or fourth time I explain to this guy that there are no guarantees whatsoever and I will not agree to make any. He's fine by that. He asks me what I need to know to move forward with this. I ask for the web address and 5-10 phrases that they're looking to rank well on. I would then take a quick look over the client's site, check that they actually have a chance of ranking for these phrases (the amount of people who seem to think the search engines are telepathic – search for a phrase that doesn't even exist on their site anywhere!), see where they currently rank if in the first 500 results and also a quick check on the phrases and their popularity from both the advertiser's and searcher's point of view. Based on this information I can then offer two options. 1. An SEO report on the site which the client could then either take back to their current developers who have just created the site, pointing out the imperfections which a brand new top end site shouldn't really contain anyhow, or else they could agree to my quote and allow us to optimise the web site for them. or 2. The option of exploring marketing and advertising for at least a short term period.
He kept going on about the front page of Google and the top spot. I then had to yet again explain to him (for about the 4th time) that you had to pay for advertising slots to be guaranteed a front page listing. And then quoted prices I'd once been quoted for the top Sponsored links section right below the search box. I then (yet again yes) had to explain Adwords and the other various pay per click methods available, how they worked and why there were or are essentially a good idea. Again we got back to the rankings on the front page and asking why another company could say that they could assure a no 1 spot. Again I explained that there are 10 positions on the front page that are free, but there are no guarantees of getting there. The top few sponsored link spots were pre paid and the Adwords down the side were pay per click.
I know he's gone to this potential client without a clue. I'm not a sales person. I know this. I hate having to have meetings, it's very hard in my opinion to explain half of what I do without getting technical, but at least if i have to talk to someone about something I know what I'm talking about! I expect to possibly get to the first stage of this job, afterall who's going to pass up a chance to have their site looked over for free, but I cannot see it going any further as he has no confidence in explaining that the other company are most likely just trying to rip the client off. I've seen it happen, a guy I once met had a site, he'd paid £300 to a company (who shall rename anonymous) to get him to the top spot. In return they hid links to all of their sideline sites in his noscript tags, made no effort on his site at all and I believe justified their payment by showing him that he was no 1 for "fishing activity breaks in wales" when he didn't even cater for Wales!
Still, I'll have to wait to see what comes of this guy. If the company wasn't one of my biggest clients I wouldn't care so much, but it's frustrating having to work with someone who just hasn't got a clue.
Hahahah, I've just had an email from the blokie concerning this website. Black on black text, tables, serious 90's style coding, no content, one word in the title tag.
I love it when it's easy
My details cannot exist. I do not exist as far as the final client is concerned. Hence why I have to rely on him to talk to the clients.
And I would, if I had the time. It's an idea I've already thought about, writing up explanations but to be honest I doubt he'd either read them or still understand them.
I think he's one of these guys that likes the phone, he calls after every email, that type of guy.
Still for now it pays (a little).
Hi Sarah, I can definitely relate to this, I get it everyday, almost, I just got an email from this company and they are offering first page placements on Google. People dont get it, SEO, they just think that if someone says it, it can be done. Today a client called to "let me know about the competition", trying to find out if we are the right people for the job. I went to their website to see what they had done and the site had 2 links pointing to their domain and they were an "SEO" company.
For your situation I have come to the conclusion that reports, like you say, are the best alternative and chances are the development house will need to re-look the site in order to optimise it.
I enjoy your blog, it actually has real live comments. Been doing SEO for a few years but there is so much to learn and no one to teach me, so its awesome to read your articles.
Thanks again, have an exseollent 2008
Hey Goran,
Wow you've dug up an old post! As it happens, after this guy chatted to his client he asked me to knock up a quick email explaining what was wrong with the site and he'd send that to them to prove the problems on their site and that he guaranteed I'd get the work once they came back to them and hired them. I wasn't keen on the idea but as I did other work for them it was hard to say no to it, so I spent time on writing an email covering the main points about this site. I heard nothing after. So 45 minutes on the phone, further time writing an email, and nothing for it.
I refuse to do anything with SEO now, especially as it causes far too many headaches regardless of whether you guarantee or not.
Actually, today I had a (kind of) argument with an 'SEO' (he calls himself that, I don't agree) who is prepared to sacrifice accessibility for minor SEO/spam methods. After me mentioning accessibility, the law (it's law in the UK to meet WAI level 2) etc his comment was
Despite him seemingly not realising that you cannot detect screen readers as they're usually add-ons to standard browsers. I'm disgusted by that comment. Sod anyone who isn't perfectly sighted, using a standard browser and loads all images…
Bah.. sorry rant over
Hi Sarah, the beauty with blogs is that we can rant about whatever we choose.
"it's law in the UK to meet WAI level 2"
I really enjoy that proper code, accessibility is ensured. It shows the integrity of the Internet in the UK.
We will be chatting soon again. Enjoy.