How much client need to know?

[Bruno]

I got problem with 1 client, this clients wants to know everything about what i do, he wants to know 100% of what im doing and why and not just that, he wants that i write him everything in Word what i did and send that every morning with all explanations, tactics, examples, just everything :)

How much clients need to know about my SEO tactics? Where is the limit?

[gabs]

I only have a small number of clients and have a v.close relationship.. I basically show them my track record and tell them to let me get on with it..

I give relistic time frames and explian what helps rank the site in simple way..

The bigest problem is creating the trust between you and your clients.. Once you have that then its all about reporting ROI..

All IMHO.. :D

[Chris Boggs]

I have tackled this problem before in a couple of ways:

1. Fire the client
2. Charge the client a premium for additional consultation

:p

Seriously though, as gabs mentions there must be established trust when someone outsources. Micromanagement is something that should be reserved for in-house employees, in my opinion, if that is your style of running things. When working on SEO, we provide all content and code-change suggestions to the client for revision. This sort of iterative development helps them know that we are in fact working, I guess - as well as their monthly reports of rankings and links gained.

I would recommend finding resources such as articles about the SEO process that you or others may have written, and suggest the client reads them in order to get a better understanding. Also, being very clear in the proposal/contract about the work performed helps to avoid questions.

I have some clients that seem to want to know more than others, but they balance out with those that put their complete trust in our hands. Think of the time spent on the phone as additional training for future consultation/sales.

This thread (http://forums.seroundtable.com/showthread.php?t=241) is kind of similar in subject to your question...

[rustybrick]

IMO, everything you do should be documented anyway. At my company (we dont do SEO but we do do web dev) we set up an automated process of documenting the task at hand (there are normally hundreds) and within that task we document automatically who worked on it, what code changed, what time it was changed, when it went to the live production environment and so on.

Then at the end of the month, I hand it over to the customer with a bill.

It enables us to keep track of our business, billing and any issues that may arise.

So, if a client needed information daily, it is not a big deal. Our clients get updates several times a day via email with automated messages with status updates and comments from our programmers.

[Chris Boggs]

barry we do use such a system as well, adding tickets as work is performed or if links are purchased (not that we would do that in order to gain rankings), so I guess we could show this to the client if needed as well. Good point...

[gabs]

I
I would recommend finding resources such as articles about the SEO process that you or others may have written, and suggest the client reads them in order to get a better understanding. Also, being very clear in the proposal/contract about the work performed helps to avoid questions.


Here's a start..

Let your clients read this..
http://www.google.com/newsletter/librarian/librarian_2005_12/article1.html

Hope it helps

[David Wallace]

How much clients need to know about my SEO tactics?
Everything. That is what they are paying for, right? Why would you be reluctant to document everything you do anyway?

When we develop the initial SEO strategy, everything is documented. It has to be because many times the client's own web team has to implement all the changes that are made to site.

After that, all additional aspects of campaign are documented - which directories were submitted to and status, what link building has been done, what additional changes are made to site, additional marketing ideas, etc., etc.

Sure there may be the fear that by documenting everything, they will eventually fire you and do it themselves but that is very rare. Rather I find that they see all that you do and have a greater appreciation for what is being done.

[Jim_Hedger]

As far as we are concerned, the client owns the operation. He or she is paying for our services and have every right to know what they are paying for. What the client does NOT own is our time. Time is a commodity that is doled out at the disciplened whim of our office manager, Mark.

We provide our clients with a written list of stuff we are doing or are planning on doing in the foreseeable future. We also give each client one full hour per month of consultation time. If they wish to use that hour questioning our techniques or learning everything they can about them, their dime has purchased the time.

We also offer clients the right to book the time of the SEO who worked on their site if they require further information.

It is incumbent on SEOs to be honest and forthcoming with information however nobody should let clients dominate their time without cause, 'cause that time is very expensive.

[Bruno]

Maybe i have ask question at wrong way.


What the client does NOT own is our time.

This is my problem.

My client is really happy with my service. Its not problem just in writing, i can give him daily report, he calls me atleast 40 times a day asking for everything, why this, why this, i spend more time learning him then working on site. I get calls and messages in 10-12 at night and days when im not working even he knows that. I just got feeling that i give to much my time for free.

[gabs]

It completely sounds like your teaching your client to seo not doing just seo'ing..

Almost like "on contract training".. ;)

umm.. I feel you may need to charge more for this as is an addtional service your providing...

As you can see many people work in many ways and that it all dependant on you and your client agreement.. IMHO.

[Jim_Hedger]

It seems you customer is using you as a free consultant. We had this happen to us in the early years as well. The best way to deal with it is to tell clients they have ONE HOUR (or whatever) of free consultancy time per month. Anything past that is billed at whatever you bill per hour.

There are thousandes of SEO/SEM/Webmaster resources you can direct curious clients towards if they want to learn more about search marketing.

[St0n3y]

We use a similar task system as mentioned above, where the client gets an email whenever we work on their site. While we never try to hide what we are doing for the client and will happily tell them anytime they ask, we don't spell everything out word for word in the task/email system, we just give them the broad strokes. IMO, they don't really need to know we changed a title tag from "blah blah keyword blah blah" to "blah keyword blah blah blah" or that we added something to an alt tag, etc. etc. But we do let them know that we are working on the site and they can see various communications from our team on specific tasks.

[netshet]

Suggest asking in keyword-related Groups here via the above Groups tab if you haven’t done so already,