Prospective SEO Clients – Make Your Expectations Right

In this post, I am going to talk about some very irritating SEO queries and clients who don’t understand the very “S” of overall “SEO mechanism”.

The most common question is, “How much time do you need to bring us on rank 1 on Google for the XYZ keyword?” or “How much will you charge to bring my site on XYZ keyword on #1?”. These questions are fairly normal and I, myself don’t have any type of problems with their expectation. Now, keep reading to know the irritating part.

Me: Please give me the keywords and site’s URL so that I can make a GUESS?

Client: Guess? Why? Instead of guess, I need a definite answer.

(At this point, I want to tell the client, we don’t own Google. If you want definite answer contact Larry Page or Bin Sergey)

Me: Can you please give me the URL and keywords?

Client: defga.com and keyword is “advertising”. I launched this site yesterday. (Domain & keyword has been changed) and the domain is one month old.

Me:, In fact, the domain age and the generic keyword are enough to make a guess. Not less than one or two years, even more with the kind of competition on this keyword. I suggest him to go for some long tail keyword but he wants ranking only on the advertising keyword.

Height of the insanity: He wants to rank in six months and doesn’t want to spend more than five hundred dollars per month. And if can’t achieve the rankings, he wants the money back.

I tell him we cannot do it. This is just a typical incidence. Most half-baked SEO clients talk like this. They have no control over their expectations but they have shoe-string budgets.

My advices to all SEO Experts and SEO Companies in India educate the client if he or she is reasonable but don’t make false promises. Let him or her understand that SEO or is a time consuming process. It is not a child’s play.

The interesting part is that these clients and companies are spending hundreds of dollars per day on Pay Per Click campaign but they want to BUY Rank one by paying you few pennies. SEO Companies in India often face this problem.