Anyone get this from clients? Any good solutions?

[ZephSnapp]

Well, sometimes we have to deal with people we don't like.  One of my first clients was a huge pain in my rear.

I complained until my throat was sore, but the fact of the matter is that him being on me made me better at documenting progress, reporting and explaining processes.

Take those lemons, and make lemonade

[ypl]

I enjoy your posts a lot as you make sharp points and offer useful ideas.

[danatanseo]

This is a really good thread with good comments all round. While I am very fortunate that the CEO of my company has a good understanding and healthy respect for SEO, he doesn't run the company in a vacuum. There are 4 other owner/stakeholders that are constantly asking me to prove ROI. We have an issue with a meta refresh on our home page. It's been there for 5 years, sucking page authority out of the life of our site. I finally made enough noise (and got some great support from SEOMoz) to convince them to spend $1,000 to get it fixed. The thing is, and I am sure this is the case with many clients, if they can't see that something is broken, they won't believe it's broken. A lot of times you can hold what you consider to be proof right in front of them, and they won't see it because they don't understand it.

Yes, perhaps the hardest part about being an SEO is being able to explain what we do in terms that people who know nothing about SEO can understand.

Personally Micah, if I had hired your agency to do SEO for me I would demand to see the SERPs. I think tracking the progress of targeted keywords and sharing that with clients is crucial. Otherwise, how do they know what kind of impact your work is having? That kind of transparency can go a long way to building trust between your clent and your team.

I think one of the problems we have as SEOs is using too much "SEO-Speak" and not enough "Business Speak." We need to translate what we do into business terms that normal business people who know nothing about what we do can understand. I think the worst thing we can do is come off as arrogant and make our clients feel stupid. By the time I'm done, I want my client to feel like a genius...if for no other reason than they were smart enough to ask me for help

[ZephSnapp]

I love that last line...

"By the time I'm done, I want my client to feel like a genius...if for no other reason than they were smart enough to ask me for help :-)"

Do you mind if I use it?

[danatanseo]

Thanks Zeph - You go right ahead

[Laurean]

Agreed! At the end of the day, my clients want to know: Where are we in the SERP How much more traffic are we getting? How much revenue did this result in? We can talk all we want in SEO speak, but like any other business practice, at the end of the day, it's about business. THEIR business, it ours. We are being entrusted with their businesses, and we need to show them what we've done to moreover their business. After a few months, you have to (according to my dad) S--- or get off the pot.

[Laurean]

What's OSE?

[danatanseo]

Hi Laurean,

OSE is short for Open Site Explorer.