When To Admit Defeat Options

[RisaBB]

Hello,

I just got a shocking phone call. My biggest client, a successful attorney with 5 offices, is hiring Martindale-Hubbell, a famous law directory, to re-design and optimize the website. I have achieved a top 10 ranking, and several #1's, for several keyword phrases, but he's not happy with his traffic of avg. 25 visitors/day. I have not tried any PPC or Google and Overture Ads.

They want to keep me on to do the weekly maintenance of the website.

On the one hand, I would guess that a firm whose sole purpose is all about attorneys, would know exactly how to write good content which attracts more visitors. My client is very aggressive about marketing himself. He's on TV, radio, written books, quoted in newspapers... On the other hand, I think I can do it, too.

This firm told me that they have 80 phrases that they would optimize the site for, and have a different design for the home page, and inside pages. I told the guy who called me that I didn't think you could optimize a site for 80 phrases, and that it's not a good idea to have 2 different designs.

Should I just admit failure and let it go, or should I fight for it?

Thanks for any advice.

Risa

[Jill]

Why couldn't you optimize a site for 80 phrase? Are you saying that's not enough? Too many?

You can certainly optimize for 80 phrases and more. And you should!

[Tom Philo]

Quick impression take: Sounds like they are doing a complete site makeover and then optimize each page for phrases that he/they as lawyers use/wants, not necessarily ones that USERS use to search for law services. Which is how they got him to switch. "We are law specialists and when you search for these law terms in your area we will give you #1!" which is not the same as getting clients to find you.

If you get 25 serious visitors a day, and you convert just 2 our of the 125 a week to clients that more than pays for it. Unless he wants to expand his staff, overdoing a web site and getting more than you can handle on the back end also gives your firm a bad reputation. Everyone will come out saying "never go to him, he is too busy to take on your case."

Do you have stats to show how many clients have signed up due to your web?

Also ask him if the new firm will give $ back if he actually gets less customers after the redesign than the current one is getting.

[SearchRank]

If you have the content for it, you can optimize a site for hundreds and even thousands of phrases. There is no limit as long as you have the content to support it. There is also no problem with having 2 different designs as far as SEO goes. It may confuse visitors to the site (I like consistency myself) but it will not hurt SEO efforts, IMO.

[RisaBB]

Hi,

I did think that 80 phrases was a lot, but I guess not.

I do not know how many visitors converted to business.

Thanks, everybody for your advice. I wrote and re-wrote an e-mail to my client saying how I could increase traffic to his site, too, with PPC ads, but I'm not sending it.

I just think that having a salesman call me up to inform me that his company is re-designing the site is a lame way of letting me know.

Have a good weekend. And thanks for your input, Jill. Every time you respond to my questions, I feel like someone famous is talking to me.

Risa

[Jill]

(IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif)

Oh gosh, please don't feel that way! I'm not even close to famous, and am just a geek sitting at home on her computer all day!

[cyanide]

wow

It was the other company that contacted you, and not your client?
Yeah, that is lame... not to mention chicken-s**t, on the part of your client.

It's never easy to swallow losing a client, but obviously they've thought about it.

I wouldn't look at it as Admitting Defeat, but rather this client made a business decision to move on.

[RisaBB]

Well, now that I'm done being sore, I don't feel that bad. They still want to retain my services to maintain the website, and they want this new firm to design the template and do the SEO and I'll fit the existing pages to the new design. I'll print out the statistics for keyword ranking and visitors, so I'll see how it all improves.

Thanks for all your input!

Risa

[Renagade Master]

Maybe backing up the site is a good idea, if the new website isn't effective you can restore yours. Also maybe collect loads of stats then you can effectively compare both strategies.

[flyer]

I wouldn't be happy with 25 visitors a day, either. I can get that many without trying; if I actually paid someone to get me that low an amount of traffic... (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/yuk.gif)

[chrishirst]

So what's wrong with 25 targeted visitors every day if many of those turn out to be buyers/clients.
Vast numbers of sites/businesses don't need dozens of sales a day to be profitable and many small business ventures couldn't care less about the volume of visitor traffic. They need just as many buyers/clients as they can comfortably handle. So for these, having thousands of "interested bystanders" browsing the site is simply pointless.

Convertable traffic is needed. Not an opportunity for the SEO to indulge in "willy-waving"

[OldWelshGuy]

I have a client who is overjoyed with his one conversion a week. Weeks where he gets 2 or 3, he is swnging from the chandelliers. each one is worth £££'s.

[cline]

RisaBB, what business are you in?

Maintaining websites? If so, this is no big deal.

Building websites? If so, it's disappointing. It means they aren't happy with what they have and won't give you a shot at improving it.

Website marketing? If so, turn down the opportunity to maintain the site. Don't admit defeat. Give the competition an opportunity to fail. Stay on good terms with the client, and document before, and if possible, after performance.

[donp]

Some interesting things may happen; the new firm really gets the site moving, they flop, or the traffic stays the same and conversions the same and your client just dropped a bundle. Either way, you just got an education. If the site goes crazy and is getting more traffic and conversions - you can see what they did and LEARN, if they flop, you still learn, and if it's the same, well, you get the idea. Life handles us the occasional lemon, make lemonade and enjoy something out of it.
PS - I have attorney websites and although they link with Martindale-Hubbel, they get little in the way of traffic, but feel the ROI is OK.

[RisaBB]

Thanks, guys, for the input.

I'm in the business of designing and maintaining websites. I just launched a website of my own where I'm trying to sell things. I'd love for that to succeed and just work on my own website, because I don't real love maintaining websites.

It's ironic. Martindale-Hubbell convinced my client that the design isn't good. Just last week, I signed a contract for an even bigger client, who hired me because they really liked this attorney's website. Also, after I designed the website 2 years ago, my client thought I should submit the design for awards because he thought it was so good. Oh well...

I'll see how the traffic goes. I spoke to the rep. at MH and they said they're going to optimize the meta tags for 80 phrases. Well, I know exactly how Jill feels about optimizing meta tags without optimizing the content, so I'll track the traffic to see how it goes.

Thanks again.

Risa

This post has been edited by RisaBB: Oct 20 2004, 08:23 AM