How to get clients to get maintenance

[faith580]

2 Questions....

I was wondering how do guys get your clients to get monthly maintenance.

I try to convince my clients new and old that just because i build a website for you doesnt mean your going to get traffic. i let them know about search engines, and content is king and keeping the site fresh...but some just dont want to pay extra money. so basically i create a site for them...put a nice <title> tag in and submit to the search engines. other than that I dont do anything if they dont do my maintence plan. Am I wrong?

2nd Question.

i know about SEO because i use to work for a company that did it and they made the web designers know the basics and ive also read books and practice it on other personal sites....any whoo. i was wondering how do others charge for SEO...do you make it separate from your maintenace or do you blend it some how.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Personally I have stopped trying to convince them. When I do a site for someone I do the basic SEO and tell them that this is just the start. I advise them to come back to me if they are not receiving the traffic they would like.

I also give them a handout article marked IMPORTANT/READ THIS if ranking is important to you, etc. On this I explain the importance of getting inbound links and the process of SEO in layman's terms.

What happens? They call me nine months later complaining that they have no traffic. I ask them if they read the information I gave them, They usually say, "What information?", so I go through it all again.

Personnally I have stopped trying to convince people about this. You can only advise them but if they don't take the advice or don't listen then it certainly isn't your fault.

[MDservices]

Most clients would retain you if you are not too expensive and also had done a wonderful work for them.

[raedthakur]

yup ..rather than convincing them its better to put your energy in your personal projects ..where you will gain more money :)

[DXL]

I've never tried to convince my clients that they need maintenance. With the very first proposal that I send them, though, I do let them know that their site may require additional SEO work down the road. 6 to 12 months later, we'll generally know if they need link building or other services (usually relative to how competitive their keywords are to begin with).

Most clients ask about maintenance from the start, as well as how much it costs. Maintenance can become your bread and butter, but its never something that I press upon anyone.