My Time is Your Money

As much as I like to bill clients extra fees, I also shudder when I know perfectly well - and have told the client - that the extra cost is unnecessary.

Let me elaborate: I tell a client, “let’s do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from the very concept of design right through to site launch and well beyond.”

The client says they don’t have enough money to do SEO now; “let’s just put up a nice-looking site.”

The client comes back to me, a few months later and says, “we aren’t getting found online; can you go back in and change the site so it meets SEO requirements?” [Read: restructure/redesign, conduct keyword research, rewrite all the content.]

Pay now or pay (more) later

We comply, and suggest they invest in ongoing SEO work, on a monthly basis, to keep the rankings high by hiring us to build links, add fresh content regularly, and tweak keywords.

The client tells us, no thanks, we don’t have the money for ongoing SEO work.

A short while later, their site is dropping out of page one in Google; they want us to scramble and play catch up by building links, etc.

Same end result - but late to the party

They end up having the Search Engine Optimized site that we suggested from the start - only they lost valuable time (competitors moving up the page rankings ahead of them) and spent extra, unnecessary fees getting there!

SEO is a time-consuming enough process when it’s done right (i.e. well planned and integrated with short and long-term business objectives).

When it’s done wrong - patching together a site with disparate additions like some kind of e-Frankenstein - SEO project time mounts. My time is money… your money.

Hmmm… maybe that longer-term, organic SEO strategy isn’t looking like such a bad idea after all!