Help needed regarding managing client expectations - tricky situation

[bluelynxmarketing]

I will try to explain the scenario as quickly as possible and my hope is that someone can share their opinion on how they would move forward.

I was introduced to a local business owner who said he wanted help with SEO. Upon looking at his current online marketing, I saw he had 2 current sites promoting the same local business (martial arts instruction / classes). Why he had two sites?  He said it made it easier for him to dominate in Google.  Red Flag #1.  Upon doing a quick site audit, I found a ton of problems with the existing site.  Black text on a black background, keyword stuffing in title tags, non-canonicalization, no xml sitemap, no Google analytics installed...on and on.  In addition, the site did not really have a good look to it graphically.

I told him that I recommend a fresh new site using Wordpress and that we should build the content with the focus on explaining the benefits of the classes.  He agreed and we began development of a new Wordpress site from the ground up.  We built a sitemap, wireframe, nice design, etc.  The site looks much better and we got rid of a lot of the technical problems with the site.

The problem is this:  Even though the new site is technically better based on On Page analysis, it is not showing up anywhere in the Top for localized keywords.  The site has been live for about 2 1/2 months (March 1).  I made the mistake of telling him that in a lot of cases in the past, I was able to build a new site for other clients that would rank well for localized searches based on On Page optimization alone.  This is not happening for him with the new site.

The new domain is relatively new (less than a year old) and has no links at all at this point.  I recommended that we do a 301 redirect from his existing domain to the new one but he is skeptical and I almost can't blame him.  The client is not paying me to do any SEO.  The contract was to build a new site that would be built with best SEO On Page practices (Title Tags, Header Tags, Meta Desc., XML Sitemap, canonicalization, etc.)

I hesitate to post the links to his existing site and the new one we built but I can see where that may shed some more light on the subject.  If interested in taking a look, please send me a message.

I guess the two questions are this:

1. Is it reasonable for a site to rank well for a localized non-competitive term based on A scores of on page analysis?

2. What harm or foul is there in doing a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new one and then reverting back if he decides that the move hurt his rankings more than helped?

Thanks.

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

Kevin-     You are in a  pickle....I have to make a couple of assumptions based on the information you gave:

Assumption #1: He kept the same url's and the new site is one of them.

Assumption#2: He had to have had some basic seo done on the first site.

Assumption #3: You must have changed some of his content/ removed old content when you upgraded his site.....

Question #1 answer:  It is "reasonable for a site to rank well for a localized non competitive term based on A scores" but it certainly isnt a guarnatee and you seem to be missing the real poinrt. An A score of a page analysis only means the foundation is built well.....to get local search results you need hyper-geotargeted localized keyword focus and content. If you rewrote his content to make it sound better and chnaged the density and use of localized keywords, you basically fed yourself poison. Good news is you need to go back and add in localized keywords and build back up the content.

Question #2 answer: Doing a 301 redirect is a perfectly viable solution to pass link juice from one site to the other. Understand when you pass the link juice the other URl will drop in relevancy and quality score and you wont be able to pass 100% of the link juice.

Hope this helps.

Mark

[RockyOutcrop]

Check out my new site at ? Add the link to his Google place page?

[bluelynxmarketing]

James...

Thank you for the quick and easy suggestions. I guess if we at least give some signals to the new URL and he begins to see some positive movement in the SERPs, he will be more inclined to follow my initial recommendation.

My original intent was for him to consolidate all 3 domains (the two previous sites and the new one) to one.

Ultimately, I can see Google having an issue (on a high level) of essentially indexing the same business 3 times via three unique URLS.

What makes all of this even more complicated is that I lost money on the web development build and am not offering / being paid for SEO services.  I originally told him that I would be a more SEO friendly site (on a technical level) and have done that...now he wants to see the results.

[ilyaelbert]

Kevin

I'm dealing with my first 2 paid clients recently, and one of them is actually in the same boat as you are - a fairly brand new site with no links. I was able to rank with just good on page in a non-competitive niche, however I will say that you may want to throw a few low level links at the site just to prod it along. It doesn't need to be direct anchor text - you can just have the link be the website name or company name.

Also, I'm not sure if the old site was linked to from all the local profile sites such as yelp, google places, citysearch, etc. It probably has a 'blended' result because its age, and google maps rank. Have you done a competitive analysis of the niche? Have you checked the rankings of your new site? Is it in the top 4 pages? if its not even in the top 4-5 pages for the main keywords you probably got something wrong in the on-page optimization.

Lastly, I think the main problem is that the old site, while being spammy - WORKED. You disrupted something that was working/chugging along, and now the client is going to be looking to you to improve. You essentially overpromised and underdelivered, without even getting paid. Now you'll have to shovel your way out. I recommend using this as a way to practice your on-page skills, and to make sure that the content is relevant, and related to the niche you're targeting. I would also throw some cheap links at it - make sure the site is listed in all the major local yellow pages/profiles correctly.

[ShaMenz]

Hi Kevin,

Just a few things to think about...

1. The best thing you can do to improve the situation is to move your client's focus from "Rankings" to "Results"... Is the new site getting traffic? Clearly the UI you have built should be much better for conversion. Does the new text stack up on the conversion front? Whatever the rankings, if the client starts seeing trackable conversions from the new site, the tension will ease quickly.

2. Have you taken advantage of the "Fetch as Googlebot" feature in Google Webmaster Tools and the Bing version in Bing's Webmaster Central to get the pages of the new site crawled and indexed quickly?

3. A 301 is called a Permanent redirect. It is not intended to be reversed at will, but it is intended to inform search engines that the old URL should be de-indexed  and replaced with the new.

4. I would be looking fairly closely at the backlink profile of the old site for two reasons. 1) To see whether there are local citation links in the mix so you can make a more informed decision about the need to use a 301 2) To see if the old site is in line for a penguin slap in the near future

Hope that helps,

Sha

[BrianJGomez]

I have a lot of clients just like this guy who have high PR for a site that has had little to no traditional SEO work done. Usually they have a domain that's old and back links dusty old chamber of commerce sites. I would sell him on the 301 re-direct. You have to show him how without the re-direct, he's essentially competing with himself. Most small business owners I've dealt with will cede control if you explain this properly.

Now if I read between the lines, it sounds like this guy may have lost confidence in your abilities, which if that's the case, your best bet may just be looking for a graceful exit. If he doesn't trust you as an expert in what you do, you're going to be fighting a losing battle from here on out with him. Worse yet, you won't be getting paid for it. If this is indeed the case and you have honored your agreement with him, I would chalk this up as a learning experience and monitor the site from afar - hopefully it will rank eventually and you can then send him an email to make nice.