How to break the news to a client?

[HashtagHustler]

I have been hired to work with a dating website to help with some SEO. The website itself is in a lot of trouble from an SEO standpoint. I have been working on a plan with them for how to fix their problems.

They are currently averaging 1.6k unique users a month and wants to get to 50k in 3 months and 200k in 6 months. This seems entirely unreasonable without spending a lot of money on SEM/Social/Other marketing avenues.

[Grace-N]

Hello there! Without knowing anything else about the website, these numbers do sound incredibly unrealistic. Though nothing is technically impossible, I feel that setting realistic expectations upfront is incredibly important. Did you perform an audit of the site and discuss goals and the scope of work prior to being hired by this client? Also, do you know why the client chose those numbers as goals or are they arbitrary? My recommendation would be to meet with the client and discuss your concerns, recommendations (including other methods of generating traffic), and realistic goals for the website as a whole and how that could correlate with increases in traffic over time. I feel that it is better to part ways in advance if you do not feel that you can meet the (albeit unrealistic) expectations of the client versus disappointing them and potentially tarnishing your reputation in the long run. I also personally feel that guaranteeing traffic or using only traffic as a KPI or success indicator is a slippery slope. What is the true end goal? In this client's case, would it be paid subscriptions? Consider educating the client on the value of the quality of traffic versus the pure quantity of traffic and incorporate CRO into your recommendations to define your conversion funnel and optimize your conversion events. Just a few thoughts off the top of my head - hope this helps!