Sunday, March 10, 2013

Bad SEO Clients Ask Stupid Questions - They DO Exist!

First off, I do SEO. I am an SEO expert, that means I know my shit. I didn't just wake up last Tuesday and think "Gosh, I should do SEO and offer services to random people for money." I went to school, I attended courses I spend at least 3 hours a day reading the SEO updates, for the last decade. Basically, I know my shit and I don't like to be questioned.

Are bad SEO clients becoming more frequent, and more stupider-er?

This post is an introduction to the stupidest questions that I have been asked, not in 1996 when SEO was a new and mysterious thing, but in 2013 as SEO is the standard for any business with a website. It isn't a secret society of nerds in a basement anymore, we exist, we are in the world and yes we know our shit- don't question it.

This topic could go on forever, as I have learned there are really stupid people in the world, I will however refrain from a barrage of idiocy blurted on this page, similar to my inbox from stupid clients. I will stick to a few that just, irritate me to the point of writing this post.

Stupid Question:

Q: Can I just copy content from my competitors and out rank them?
A: No, that would be copyright infringement and duplicate content which are both negatives to your overall SEO campaign.

Pretty cut and dried right? You don't see a McDonalds banner outside of Burger King, or the Burger King website promoting a BK Big Mac- that shit ain't right. 

The idiocy continued-

2nd Q: Well, if I do that anyway won't Google just punish them? How do they know that THEY didn't copy me?
2nd A: You stupid **ck, REALLY? - oh wait I didn't say that .....
2nd A a- Google indexes webpages on a continual basis, at some point prior to you taking the content, Google has more than likely already attributed that page content to your competitor and indexed their URL for that content. So yes they will know that you are the second to use the same content and you will be negatively impacted by that process, it's also quite unethical.

You'd think, the business owner would say - OH, DARN! Nope, it continued. 

3rd Q: Well, if they are outranking me based on content, I should just use parts of their content and outrank them with their own words. I don't see how a search engine would know the difference, didn't they "index" my content already too.

At this point dear readers, I opened a beer. 

3rd A:  Yes, your content and webpages have been indexed in Google the search engines know how your site looked, so when you change the content it will index the new content ( in this situation your competitors' content). Google will then index the new content on your site and will again visit your competitors' as well. When they show up as the same content a 'flag' will go up within the software that is Google. It will flag yours as new content being duplicated as old content on another site. This makes you the website that copied the content, it's NEVER a good idea.

Second beer, feet on desk - feeling completely confident that this dude won't ask another question. 

4th Q: Oh, I see. Well what if I just use the competitor who isn't in the number one spot? So, I copy the URL in the fourth or fifth spot?

The fourth answer didn't come from me, I couldn't do it. I didn't respond, I did however get drunk on green bottle German Beer and thought about becoming a brewmaster instead of doing SEO.




Thursday, March 7, 2013

Bad SEO Client Made Me Cry - It Was Over Before It Even Started

I got a new project and the very same day it began, was the very same day I was taken off the project. It was over before it even started. It was over before this bad SEO client bitch even saw how much of a bitch I could be, but she beat me to the punch.

Beginning of the Bitchy End

I got a project announcement that said it would be release to start the next day. I was swamped so I did not reach out to the bitch until a day after the official start date. We schedule a call by the end of the week and she sends over all of her background information. While I'm coordinating the call I'm in another meeting. Bitch states that she will send over what we need before the call. My brain does not remember that we already got everything we needed and I mistakenly tell her it would be helpful if we got everything before the call. I also did not answer a question she had in the email. This really pissed the bitch off and emailed me back saying that she was up until 2am sending me everything and I did not confirm I got it. Then hastily asked me to respond to her other question.

Bitchy Project Efficiency

This is what I refer to as efficiency. No matter how efficient I think I'm being - it backfires. And boy did the bitch rage backfire. I decided to call her back and just apologize and I sincerely thought it would work. I thought this would be ok, but I was already in a fragile state of a shitty busy week. She was still very concerned and she was not at all understanding of my mistake. She was appalled and what I had done and didn't think I would be a good match for the project. I again apologized and said this never happens and we hung up. I knew she'd call the boss next.

After the call I knew I was doomed, I stormed out of the office and cried. The bitch made me cry. You should feel sorry for me.

Bitch Problems

The boss talked to the bitch and filled me in on what her fuckin' problems were. She claimed accounting told her she'd get a call on Monday. The project was released on Tuesday, first contact made on Wednesday, and first call scheduled for Friday. The bitch should be grateful for that. However, we came to learn that she was pissed for two main reasons that I had no control over:

  1. did not get her call on Monday
  2. she was losing $500/day because of her shitty site

So with that, the project was reassigned because I was the "bitch"....ironic...

Bad SEO Client - Asshat SEO - Caught in a Bad Situation

This is the third installment of the Bad asshat SEO client chronicles. Full versions of installments 1 and 2 can be read in full if desired.

But if you're just jumping in, the recap for both are below:

Recap 1:
- Asshat was always an asshat, but it took awhile for everyone to notice.
- Asshat had it made, he was in charge, and no one questioned him.
- Asshat made mistakes.
- A different analyst came along to the project and began to hold him accountable.
- Asshat began sending hate mail.
- Asshat began to crumble in defeat.

Recap 2:
- Asshat was not doing his job
- Asshat was lying to us
- Asshat was lying to his boss and throwing us under the bus
- Asshat was caught & got more angry

After asshat began to crumble, his stories started to deteriorate very quickly and he was in a bad situation, he was being a VERY bad SEO client. He would say he knew what needed to be done on the call; then he'd send an email to one person asking for help. And help was exactly what he needed, and we all knew it. He needed help moving on! He turned from defensive to helpless and depression began to sit in. I know this because I watched his Google Plus updates. Maybe if he could manage his attitude like Dale Carnegie methods taught him; then maybe he'd figure out HE was the problem.

He was also very proud of being "one of the first Google+ adopters". I think at one point he called himself a Google+ innovative consultant. Based on his profile he is clearly very proud of himself and thinks his shit don't stink. I also remember at one point he showed redesign comps to his Google+ circles for feedback....because honestly, why wouldn't these innovators have some good advice? He was all proud of himself again. No one acknowledged that email.

Soon the owner began to ask more questions during meetings and via email and was finally getting the hint that Mr. Asshat wasn't doing his job. Multiple times we politely told him that what asshat was saying was simply not true and showed him screenshots. This put asshat in a really bad situation.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Bad SEO Client - Asshat SEO - Anger Addition

Bad asshat SEO client post #1 will give this one more clarity.

Recap:
- Asshat was always an asshat, but it took awhile for everyone to notice.
- Asshat had it made, he was in charge and no one questioned him.
- Asshat made mistakes.
- A different analyst came along to the project and began to hold him accountable.
- Asshat began sending hate mail.
- Asshat began to crumble in defeat.

Now it's time for installment #2 of the asshat chronicles of bad SEO clients, which I lovingly refer to as the anger addition.

Anyone who uses this in their subject line has anger problems:
IMPORTANT: For the love of Pete, please fix!
This was an email about the site menu "fanning out past two levels and things were duplicated" and that is was embarrassing to him. Turned out to be design snafu and the design folks fixed it quickly. At least he cared at this point...maybe...but still an ass.

Now on to more asshattery. Hate mail started to become a regular thing, but eventually the focus shifted off of their insistence of blaming us for duplicate leads and onto THEIR lack of implementation. We had a change in analyst after some time, and we began to hold him more accountable. This is when the anger kicked in.


Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Bad SEO Client - Asshat SEO - Ego is a bitch

Today I'd like to remember a fallen SEO - wait - he didn't deserve the title of an "SEO". But he was surely an extremely bad seo client. This guy had no idea what he was doing AND he was an asshole; thus he was named asshat. He dug his own grave and his downfall was a huge victory! 

I'd like to call this installment "ego is a bitch" because I have so much material to share on this egotistical jack ass. It was clear he had a big ego early on - way too big for his 5 foot 5 inch frame.

Rewind to early 2011, and this guy was in charge of a one month redesign project. The company prior to us had completely fucked up their one of many attempts to redesign and came crying back to us to fix it. I've learned this is a normal process for asshats. The husband-wife owners are the sweetest people alive, but they are also the dumbest internet people I've ever known - they are ignorant to the fullest and unfortunately for them, they are constantly getting screwed over and making terrible decisions for their website. 

The website gets launched extremely quickly without a lot of hiccups and they're jazzed. I go through the project with asshat for several months, and didn't notice his weird forceful antics - probably because I'm just as forceful. Then he began to complain about their lead capture form, complain about not getting email leads, complain about conversion, and complain about the VP of sales breathing down his neck. How do you tell a client everything they chose to go live with was terrible? That was their problem. They had a shitty form that asked too much information, they never planned properly for a call-to-action, and didn't ask the correct vendors to fix things (i.e. email server issues). Of course, all things that we are supposed to deal with but asshat thought he knew everything.

This was just the beginning of the madness, but exactly where it all started. I remember it got so bad to the point that they took it upon themselves to redesign the call-to-action. They had no idea what they were doing and stupidly we let them do it because asshat was so demanding. We got back control of the CTA, but asshat was still whining about conversions and forcing us to talk to the VP of sales. To this day, I have no idea why he kept making us answer to a sales guy.

Enter problem #1: Ego
I invited the sales guy to a meeting, because duh - asshat asked us to talk to him. Why was that such a problem? I don't know, but I will include what asshat wrote me right after that meeting: