Client is making me crazy

should I let him go?

[webwoman]

I have an SEO client who bought a very expensive website, then found out that you actually have to *do* something with it in order to be found in the engines. He hired me (he was my first ever seo client) and I got him top positioning for his best keywords.

His site is very graphic heavy (he designs buildings and is fantaical on the design aspect of his site) and I have added as much text and optimized as many pages as I can. The site was originally designed by a graphic artist with no regard whatsoever to the web. My client will not approve any additional pages or many changes to the existing ones since my initial optimization. Thankfully, his competition is fairly clueless so I have been able to maintain good positioning.

I talked him into letting me build a second site that I could actually build and do something with - but he hasn't paid for it and hasn't much interest in it. So it is sitting neglected. He calls me when his leads slow down and asks for a rankings report. Other than that, I feel there is not much I can do for him, tho I really would like to, and have many ideas for additional keywords we could target etc.

I am wondering if I should continue to take the monthly maintenance fee he pays me (it's not much) or if I should let him know that he needs to: 1. either start approving additional pages, and building either or both sites or 2. that I can no longer in good conscience continue to take his money.

Weird question, huh? I just feel so useless with my hands tied on doing the things I know his site needs. But he will not approve funds and he's a bit of a whacky guy. He calls me to chat about oddball things...

I look forward to your thoughts on this.

-webwoman

[Shak]

If his industry/website has potential to make money?

If the competition is lame?

If he is not willing to listen?

then I suggest tell him to take jump, and get into the crackhead industry if possible :)

Shak

[webwoman]

Shak, LOL!
Thanks for the laugh. I needed that!

[martinibuster]

It seems to me that your ambitions are exceeding his. If he asks for something tell him what the prescription for it is. If he doesn't want it, then keep receiving the maintenance fee, as long as it pays for your time for updating a spreadsheet, etc.

Some people walk into a store and buy a keychain, and some folks purchase half the store. What can you do? Stop selling keychains?

[Marcia]

>>I talked him into letting me build a second site that I could actually build and do something with - but he hasn't paid for it and hasn't much interest in it.

If he hasn't paid for it, then it's still your site. Maybe there's something else you can do with it.

I agree with martinibuster; you're just being paid for maintenance, give him what he's paying for if that's all he wants and try not to think beyond that. It's always hard when we know more can be done. It's nice when they listen, it makes the work much more enjoyable.

[PRNightmare]

My simple rule is, no clients that don't get it and don't get me.

Of course we somtimes misread clients and things go wrong. But, you should stop at the moment it gets fishy.

Unless you're cash poor!

[marcs]

My "golden" rule is that no price can be put on my sanity. If a client gets you to the point where it's no longer worth it, or they start to drive you "nuts", drop them.

If it's not quite to that point, sit back, take a deep breath and work with them as best you can :)

[EliteWeb]

Maintance Fees are acceptable but if he's not going with your dreams of SEO tactics to increase traffic and leads then tell him you have a site on your hands you built for this amount of money and your time needs to be compensated for, if he is not willing to buy it you will sell it to XXX because time is money and right now your holding onto something useless to you but a goldmine for someone else. :)

[gsx]

Why not take the second site, optimise it to the full, and point it to several competitors (make it like a small directory). Give them the business. Then when Google has danced etc... give him the option to pay for what he should have paid for in the first place.

[webwoman]

All great advice - thanks! I really hadn't given up on getting him to pay for the second site - and I didn't put that much work into it because I had a suspicion he wasn't really interested enough to pay promptly.

But I like the idea of really doing something with it, and selling it elsewhere. I also agree with martinibuster on the keychain concept. I'm getting paid fine for the keychain, so...a keychain is a keychain.

Thanks to everyone.

-webwoman

[Robert Charlton]

I am wondering if I should continue to take the monthly maintenance fee he pays me (it's not much) or if I should let him know that he needs to: 1. either start approving additional pages, and building either or both sites or 2. that I can no longer in good conscience continue to take his money.

If you've got paid time on your hands, there's a third option... get him some links.

[webwoman]

Thanks Robert, but there is no paid time on my hands. And yes, links are always good for using up paid time. A valuable service that goes a long way and never seems to reach an end point :)

[nvision]

hi webwoman - is he just happy in his little comfort zone or do you think you can convince him that by working on this second site you can bring him more traffic, ie. more potential clients, ie. more $$, therefore justifying the investment he'd be making? Or could he not handle more clients?
;)

::nvision

[webwoman]

nvision - he's a bit of a whacko. He definitiely wants more clients, and that was how I "sold" the second site to him originally. He was pounding me for top positions in "church architecture" and then got his hand slapped by a state agency (I am sure a competitor complained) because he is not an architect, but a designer - big difference legally. The domain name for the second site has the word architecture in it, so he suddenly loses interest in the second site - despite my attempts to educate him.

Then he decides he wants nothing to do with "church architecture" and wants "church design" - I generally ignore his instructions regarding his website, since I feel an obligation to keep his positioning good and ensure he gets a reasonable amount of traffic and leads (which he does)

I think martinibuster said it well - my ambitions are exceeding his - the trouble being his ambitions are unclear, sorta like "I wanna be rich and famous" When it comes to actually paying attention about *how* to do that, his mind wanders off...It's frustrating.

-webwoman