Sometimes naïve clients come to me waiting their brand new websites to be in the top 10 in the search engine rankings without considering the competition. For instance, I’ve had clients who say that they want to spend $500 to be listed in the top 10 rankings for a competitive term such as “home loans”.

When I get such requests, I will quickly point the client towards the competition for this term. The top 10 listings are dominated by large corporations, government sites and sites that have been around for at least 6 years. Aside from the government sites that are considered to be trustworthy and authoritative, the corporate sites have most likely invested hundreds of thousands of dollars or more on their SEO efforts over several years time and may even employ a full time search engine optimization staff to make sure they stay in those top rankings.

What I then will offer my client, if they decide to select my company for SEO services, is to do in-depth keyword research to find alternatives to the heavily competitive keyword phrases. Many small businesses may benefit by optimizing for long tail keyword phrases that are specific in nature.

About half of the time the client will wish to do this. The other half of the time, they will search for a new SEO who will promise to get them into the top 10 rankings for “home loans” for very little money and effort. Once this client has been disappointed by the lack of results, they sometimes come back, burned by this former SEO, yet with more realistic expectations.

As any SEO will attest, managing client expectations and offering realistic services and results is the most difficult task at hand. If an SEO can to this well, then the client will be happy with the results and it will be a win-win for both parties.

Filed under: Clients