Friday, May 31, 2013

Bad SEO Clients Haikus - SEO Battlefield Haiku

SEO Battlefield Haiku 

Prepare for battle
SEO is a warzone
Prune links, warrior!
SEO battlefield
SEO Haiku - SEO Battlefield
Photo Credit: Nerd Army

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Bad SEO Clients Haikus - Penguin SEO Haiku

Penguin SEO Haiku


Like the rising sun
SEO is a mad dash
Destroyed by Penguin

Penguin SEO Haiku Photo Credit: John Dalkin

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Bad SEO Client Haikus - PPC Haiku

PPC Haiku



To do PPC
You do not need to know how
To do PPC

One thing I've learned in this industry is that fakers can make it. Even if there's a big brand and millions of dollars supporting it; fakers have a lot of authority.

Even if one area of expertise is not someone's specialty, they can still fake it till they make it. On several different occasions I've seen For Dummies books at people's desk because they have been thrown into a specialty when they are no specialist. Whether it's because the boss sold a new service or the position hadn't been filled yet; you do not always need to know how to do something.

Thus, the PPC haiku was born. One does not necessarily need to know how to do something to manage something. Ponder on that miraculous thought.

Lesson learned: fake it till you make it. 

Friday, May 17, 2013

Bad SEO Clients - Are You Scolding Me?!

"Are you scolding me?! If you are, that is totally inappropriate!", she said to me via email. Oh G0d, another epic bad SEO client.



Here was another project setup to fail. More bad clients that don't know a thing about the "internets". A typical day in the office.

We were managing this client's PPC accounts. We met the wife at a conference and she has no idea what to do with her website. It was getting redesigned, they were almost finished and she was thinking about dumping them. She felt like she knew more about the design of the site than they did. She decided to give us a try with PPC first, which is not our specialty especially when the quality of a site becomes a big issue with PPC campaigns.

So I'm assigned the project with an SEM analyst. She was very needy and every day wanted a phone call and wanted to adjust her campaigns. We went through 2 months of constant calls, emails and adjustments.

The analyst did everything he could to make their campaigns the best they could be, but they just weren't converting. They weren't converting because they had no quality PPC landing pages, they had no quality content, and they had no quality calls-to-action.

The short story: their redesign was basically a miserable failure.

So one day after about 2 months of this back and forth, I tell her via email that we're using up a lot of their time, and she needs to keep me in the loop of all the extra phone calls she's making directly the analyst.

And then she said, "Are you scolding me?! If you are, that is totally inappropriate! I have told you how important it is for us to stay in constant communication as our campaigns are not performing!"

Sorry lady, but your baby is ugly. You need more help than optimizing your PPC campaigns. You just redesigned and guess what? You need another redesign.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Bad SEO Clients - You're Mean!

"She's just....mean", he said to the President's assistant. Another typical bad SEO client, that just does not like to hear about what he's contracted to get.

mean frog
That's me: the mean project manager
 What I can't figure out is why he's so upset with me when I am just the messenger....wait - I think I just answered my own question. He must blame me because I'm the main point of contact, yet not the analyst. Unfortunately, I cannot control how and when the analyst does their job.

He has one of the smallest projects we offer, he basically gets nothing for a couple thousand dollars a month by contract. However, he got 3x as much work for no extra cost. The problem was the analyst did whatever he thought he needed, and not exactly what the client wanted OR what the contract stated. So I'm always the bearer of bad news.

He got project plans and status updates from me. What he also heard was that his time was up and he would have to wait another week or so until we do more work. He wanted more work in less time. Why would we sell such a shit project, you ask? I really don't know. I guess the President wanted to do the small business a favor and keep the money coming in. This was not the first time we've had this kind of project, and ALL of which have ended terribly. I guess the big honch thought this one would be different

At this point in time we did not know he had a terrible linking problem, because well....he is supposed to get 6 to 8 hours of our time a month and that really only leaves us with enough time to DO things, not research a lot.

So his rankings are not moving and we continue to do work and he continues to pay and whine about paying. He gets project updates from me and does not like what he's hearing. He calls to complain like a typical bad SEO client and gets the President's assistant. Apparently, I'm mean.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Asshat SEO - We Want More - Bad SEO Clients

Bad SEO clients always WANT MORE! Why do they want more? BECAUSE MORE IS BETTER! The problem is, more = more $$$ AND more does not equal INSTANT better.

And that's why this video is exactly what's wrong with bad SEO clients in this industry. Asshats...


Asshat SEO - You Can't Fix Stupid - Bad SEO Clients

I met a new bad SEO client in October 2012. Not only is he a bad SEO client, he is an asshat too. He out does the original (OG) asshat from a couple years ago. This guy really takes the cake, I mean he is the biggest a-hole on the planet. OG Asshat has got nuthin' on this guy.

He is used to push button SEO; thus he really screwed himself with purchased links. Unfortunately for production, during the sales process we included a clause that said "consultant and client agrees to X goal by X date. Consultant makes no guarantees but will put forth best effort to achieve these goals". The first sentence is all that matters, as far as he's concerned he is always doing his best and will make sure we do everything possible to increase his traffic by 10,000%. That's what our traffic estimator tool determined - 10,000% increase in potential for his keywords.

This guy makes my blood boil so I have to keep remembrances to a minimum. The first couple hiccups in the project went a little something like this.

In a matter of 2 weeks asshat said his team had finished all of our recommendations from a site review. We know that's impossible, but we went along with it so as not to alarm them of their stupidity. Also keep in mind this dream team had just completed a week long SEO course and swore they knew exactly what they were doing.

Apparently we went "along with it" too long and after telling them it wasn't actually completed, asshat blew up. He claims we took too long to check their work and if it took them 2 weeks to do everything why isn't their entire site reviewed and fixed in 4 weeks.

Hmmmm, I don't know asshat, maybe because you project is X amount of hours and not 100 hours? Maybe because I don't have to reply to your emails within 5 minutes. And maybe because you are not entitled to 8 hours of my day every day. I have other work - get over it. The irony is he is actually getting 3 times more work than he's paying for. I guess the squeaky asshat gets the SEO oil.

Lesson: you can't fix stupid


Asshat SEO - Hey Asshat!

asshat girl
HEY ASSHAT!

SEO: Hey Asshat! Whatcha up to?

Asshat: Not much, just buyin links and doin what I do best!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Asshat SEO [COMIC] - Series 1

Asshat SEO Comic Series 1

asshat seo comic
Asshat SEO comic strip

SEO: Hey - I got you a hat!

Asshat: Why? I already have a hat.

SEO: This one's for you ass.