We have dealt with several client separations for more than 5 years of working on various cryptocurrency projects. It was a mixture of positive and negative experiences. The most absurd partitions happened when the customer stopped using search promotion after a month or two.
We’ve discovered some of the most common reasons why you, valued clients, leave most often. If you are currently at the start of cooperation with an SEO agency but already are dissatisfied and are thinking about finding another one — stop! And find out about our thoughts on the matter.
*More about SEO at the start of a crypto project
Work is in progress, but I can’t see any results
Not everyone understands the difference between contextual advertising and SEO, and some people think that both tools work quickly and flexibly. Or they just want to be “above all” in the search results, but they don’t know that this takes a lot of time and effort.
It is important to clearly discuss what goals you are pursuing and what you expect from cooperation even before starting working with an agency or freelancer. If you want fast results or don’t want to change anything on your site, then SEO is not for you.
The first results from the promotion will appear after 2-4 months of intensive work on the site, but this result will be long-term and stable. And, unlike contextual advertising, the funds invested in SEO will begin to pay off, not immediately, but also after a few months.
In the first months, most of the “internal” and “invisible” work is carried out: technical audit, work on the semantic core, optimization of meta tags and content. These processes are almost not visible, so it may seem to you that the specialist does nothing, only hides behind incomprehensible terms in the report.
Not all contractors talk about the technical part of the work, pursuing the noble goal of not overloading you with information. If you suspect a specialist of idleness, ask them to explain what they are doing with your site, why certain edits are needed, and what outcomes they expect.
Everything at once
Did someone promise that in a month they would bring high-frequency queries for your site to the top and/or double the traffic? The offer is tempting, but it should alert you.
Why is it impossible? Let’s figure it out: consider each stage and calculate the minimum time to complete the work.
A high-quality technical audit of the site and the correction of technical errors will take at least one to two days.
Auditing the competitors, drawing up a content plan and a plan to build up a link mass will also take at least one day.
It will take at least a week or even two to write, optimize, and approve the content. In some cases, you need to set aside some time to find a good copywriter who understands the subject. For example, in the field of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies, there are not many specialists who understand the topic, so it is important to initially get the recommendations from the client as well as find a copywriter. From our experience, it is better to give the copywriter enough time to work on the topic than to rewrite the texts several times later.
It also takes about a week to re-index and accept new edits in the ranking.
After conducting the steps described above, low-frequency queries begin to enter the top. For mid-frequency and high-frequency ones, it is necessary to analyze how the changes made were reflected in the positions of the site and adjust them.
When it comes to search queries, competition should be taken into account. Most often, competition directly affects the time spent on the growth of positions for a particular high-frequency keyword.
You also need a comprehensive approach to the site improvement in many other areas (commercial factors, linking, structure, usability, etc.), which should take at least a month (for small projects).
If there are more than a thousand pages on the site, then search engines need time (at least a couple of weeks) to completely re-crawl (re-index the site, as a result of which the saved copies of the pages are updated), and even adding pages to re-crawl in the Google Search Console will not be able to significantly speed it up.
Therefore, if you are promised everything at once, you should think about how this will be achieved. Will your site fall under a penalty after such a promotion, the removal of which will require more time and money than the promotion itself? For example, for cheating behavioral factors (a set of actions of site visitors), your site will sharply lose positions or even stop showing up in the search results. It will be possible to get out of the sanctions no earlier than in 6 months.
How does pricing affect SEO quality?
Did some agency/freelancer offer you a promotion for $5,000 when others wanted at least $20,000?
Let’s figure it out. To promote a small service site for 100 pages, the following specialists are needed:
- an SEO specialist;
- a copywriter;
- an outreach specialist;
- an account manager;
Additionally, a developer/programmer/layout designer might be necessary, too.
Each of them needs to spend at least 5 hours a month to get the result. Add here the work of the designer, the cost of paid services that specialists use in their work, and the cost of articles on external resources. By the way, there are many ways to get high-quality links, therefore their effectiveness directly depends on the qualification of a specialist.
If the price is significantly lower than the market average, then most likely, the agency will either not spend enough time on your site, or be unqualified. Any of these money savings will affect the result of the promotion. In the best case, the visibility of the site will remain unchanged. In the worst case, you will fall under the filter of search engines, as a result of which the site may be lowered in the search results or completely excluded.
Client’s trust and endless reports
Sometimes, it may seem to you that your site is not being paid enough attention and little time is being spent on it, although according to the monthly report, everything seems to be fine. You ask specialists to provide an hourly report on the work done, a detailed description of each edit, a report on the labor costs for each edit made with detailed comments, and so on.
Such requests will take a lot of time for a specialist, and instead of spending time improving your site, they will make additional reports. The result is a vicious circle, which, in the end, will not lead to anything good.
There can be only one recommendation here: if according to the report everything is fine, but you do not have confidence in the specialist, change them, and do not torture each other. Look for someone whom you will trust.
In addition, it is necessary to mention that we teach our specialists to understand the requirements of the client, as well as maintain the transparency of all processes. The more confidence there is in the SEO specialist, the more confident the client will be. And vice versa, the more confidence an SEO specialist has that their work is appreciated and understood, the more the project becomes a part of the specialist, and the result is what they can be proud of.
Everything has its price
It often happens that your expectations for the amount of work that is included in the promotion are not justified. You hoped that the redesign of the site would be included in the cost of the work, but they ask for an additional fee for it. Of course, the situation is not the most pleasant, but solvable.
To avoid such conflicts in the process of work, it is necessary to find out what is included in the cost of the promotion before signing the contract. Each agency or freelancer has their own ideas about the changes on the site, for which you need to pay extra, and for which you don’t. No one has a universal list of assignments, since the work depends on the state of the project and numerous additional factors.
For example, in one case we can transfer the site to another CMS within the budget for SEO, and in another – only for an additional fee. Because in the first case, we will spend about 5 hours on this: nothing changes on the site, the transfer is simple from a technical point of view, and in the second one we will spend about 40 hours, as the site structure, URL, and other issues will change.
In Conclusion
- Decide what goals you are pursuing: SEO is only right for you if you are willing to wait and work on the site. The result will appear after months of work, but it will be long-term and stable.
- Pay attention to the work plan and reports. They should explain to you what and why will be done on your site. If necessary, ask why this or that implementation is needed.
- If they promise good results in 1-2 months, think about whether this is doable and in what ways this will be achieved. Contact several experts to confirm or refute these promises.
- If they offer a promotion at a price significantly lower than that of competitors, find out why such a decrease is possible. No one will work in the red, they will definitely save on something.
- If you do not have confidence in a specialist, despite regular reporting, change them and look for someone with whom you will be working comfortably.
- Before concluding a contract, find out which changes are implemented within the promotion budget, and which are for an additional fee, so as not to have too high expectations.
Dmytro is the owner of the Crypto SEO product. After more than 5 years of work in this niche, I realized that SEO has long ceased to be an ordinary marketing tool.
