Khalid, glad you brought this up.
Unfortunately I still lots of people being pranked by SEO experts charging outrageous rates and even worse delivering bad quality solutions and poor client experience.
I’ve been writing about bad SEO for sometime
(see
marketingeasy(dot)net/seo-australia-are-we-doomed/2007-10-11 )
and the negative impact of PR when is not completely understood, see marketingeasy(dot)net/google-page-rank-sucks/2007-09-13/
Cheers
Lucio Ribeiro

Bust ‘em with back up data. You owe it to your client.

If I were that client, I would have been happy if you warned me about the poor performance of the SEO guy. Of course, in order to believe you, you had to bring in some sort of proof for your words.

Yeah def tell them he’s clueless. It’s amazing that bullshitters can get 700k a year where the actually talented individuals go un-noticed.

It’s all in the marketing and networking of that individual. This guy probably has a lot of connections, was able to sell himself as an expert to very clueless individuals, and hence got his foot in the door. It’s a tough market because if you don’t have the business savvy, you will be left out in the cold even if you are the most qualified.

Ouch. Once or twice I’ve wondered whether I have any business doing SEO consulting, given that I’m no Rand or Aaron (and others, of course)… but if that’s what other clients are getting and paying for, well then I should up my rates.

And, yes, I think you owe it to your client to tell him, diplomatically, that you don’t feel comfortable working with this consultant because you disagree with his methods. Then explain what you understand to be the current state of the craft, and offer to help him find a new SEO. (By that point he should be convinced that you know your stuff and that he should just go ahead and pay you more money!)

$350 an hour?
Damn looks like I need to get out of affiliate marketing.

Utah web design – I totally agree.

$350 par hour? I think its really expensive..Oh my god! In spain is more cheaper…its around 72€ par hour…

And they jsut keep helping to give the industry a bad name. Great post

Okay, I have GOT to know – what does this guy do exactly?

My vote is tell the company. Back it up with a report. You can’t keep quiet now that you know about it, more, if you don’t, you are letting someone undeserving get the work – and that’s just plain wrong.

Good luck though…

I am an SEO consultant but I do not call myself an expert. Someof my customers do. I charge a rate far below the value of my knowlege consulting, if my advise is followed. There are many ineffiencies in consulting, as any experience consultant or customer knows.

I see two SEO mistakes you made in your post above. I won’t tell you what they are, but they are not difficult for an experienced SEO to see. ANYTIME you make a claim you are subject to review by someone more knowledgable than you ON THAT SPECIFIC CLAIM.

A few specific bits of knowledge do not a successful and productive consultant make. Likewise ignorance of some aspects does not a worthless consultant make.

I also can see (from firsthand experience) how that consultant might have gotten placed, why he may stay placed even at a high rate, and how he can deliver value far in excess of that rate. No, it wasn’t because he is so sharp about on-page seo for large sites, but surely you can see how he might be working on other aspects of the SEO puzzle for them?

Let’s not forget that the client hired him and works with him. Who would be to blame if the SEO wasn’t a comprehensive solution to their SEO needs? You seem to blame they guy who is trying to help them with their SEO needs.

Perhaps a better response to your experience would be to share your experience with your client. You might say “My best advice for you would be to get an SEO consultant who understands large site optimization” for example. Repeat it again verbatim when they respond that they don’t understand you because they alreayd have the SEO guy.

Sorry for the typos.. there’s no edit function here and I am mobile.

A software architect who understands search can charge more than $350/hour.

This is a sad tale indeed. From experience, I can tell you that there is strong likelihood that the client will not appreciate your opinion of their expert. Granted, his comments to you betray a lack of sophistication in approach, they might actually work for the goals stipulated by the client or the client may be happy with the advice that they are getting. Here at Ascentium, I strive to make sure that my clients know why I am making the recommendations that I do. This involves giving them enough background about the nature of search today and as much as is known about how the search engines do what they do so that the changes recommended not only make sense and can also be carried on long after I’ve finished my engagement with the project. That is how I justify my bill rate. marianne

p.s. And, let us not forget that SEOmoz has admitted to a bill rate of $1,000/hour. Guess that is how they manage to get to all of those conferences.

Thats just classic. I’d say about 50% of our new leads at Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning have had a bad experience similar to this, although on a much lower scale.

Its right up there with my current / past SEO submitted me to all these engines line…. Silly SEO a good site will be found without submissions… SEO is not for rabbits

@Lucio, that is the challenge of working in an infant industry. No real standards are defined for SEO so many people who do not have a clue are jumping into it. I guess time will take care of problems like these.

@Jason, I think I will. I just need to make sure the client understands why I am doing that.

@Lid, lol…I am not sure what he does. My guess a lot of web surfing!

@Sebastian, are you saying I need to increase my rates?

Your story has been spunn, so
you could use the comments from
users to support your claims.
Just point your employer to this
forum page for instance.

No one on any blog will say that
you are wrong, because you’re not.
Page after page of people
laughing at this guy and being
shocked at the waste of resources
would surely make them think twice.

If a consultant working for me showed me something like this post, addressing another one of my consultants, I would thank him politely and then fire him. Maybe that’s just me

@john, this must have captured your attention to come back for a second comment

I guess thank God for contracts. I do not think my client would want to remove our team because of a blog that did not address them by name. Of course having a huge penalty for breaking the contract never hurts!

Hah Khalid I have been in the room where this stuff happens too many times. Sure contracts are great, and they do ensure teams have avenues for negotiation, but individuals can be removed easly as behavior is always subject to “client perspective”. I’ve seen million dollar contracts vaporize following what was called an “off-putting remark” by the client side.

No one wants the client to explain in great detail why the offendng behavior was (insert negative descriptors here…. as may as you need to hasten the negotiations) One guy getting fired from the account is nothing compared to a team or firm getting on the do-not-use-ever list.

I think Marianne above said it well.

I think you should do a favor to them by recommending that you get rid of that consultant.

Having been in a similar situation with consultants that were blatantly ripping off a publicly traded client I would say keep your mouth shut at this time.

Why?

They trust their SEO consultant or he has an insider on his side, so talking trash about him now could easily cost you the job.

Land the job first and establish trust with the client.

Once you’ve established your credibility and you’re positive this SEO is as bad as you currently think, then slowly start to enlighten the client over a period of time.

If you can make changes that result in a demonstrable improvement in traffic and sales then feel free to tell the client what you REALLY think about the SEO and not one minute before.

My $0.02 and YMMV

Oh yeah, you also need to beware of corporate fiefdoms.

If you tinker with the SEO without permission and you weren’t hired to do the SEO you’re stepping in someone else’s backyard without permission.

Doesn’t matter if you do good or bad, in some places I’ve worked that breach of corporate protocol alone is enough to get you into serious trouble and/or terminated because the results don’t justify the break in the chain of command in their little minds.

That’s just another in a long list of reasons why I avoid corporate life because no good deed goes unpunished.

You are one calm dude.
As you describe that guy’s attitude I would have beaten the sheet out of him and then quit the job.
Or settle the problem outside the office But it would have gotten physical either way. I hate wannbes!

Loudmouths like that one out-earn 10 real experts who do have a bit of decency.

And those idiot clients diserve to be ripped off!

who says, metatags aren´t needed?
metatags are the very basic information for google.

you´ll know how they should be inserted?
Go aks yourself, you´re a software-engineer.

A pr7 is a goog indicator for the majority of a site.

This was for free, and you´re surely no seo-expert.
You pay so much? Then I´m sorry for you.

peace!

Khalid – a really interesting topic for discussion and a bold post. When we did lots of client work (we still do some, but only 1-2 contracts a month), we were charging first $200, then $350, then $450 and finally, $1000 an hour. The issue for me was efficiency. I always felt that if I could explain things quickly, simply and intelligently, the client’s marketing and technical staff could quickly grasp it and implement. Even if we did 10 hours for $1,000, the ROI was always there.

Thus, in your post, the issue for me isn’t so much the cost, which is fairly reasonable, but the time. You have to be a particular brand of charismatic and disconnected to pour that many hours into the project. And, to be honest, I can’t believe the client is still seeing a positive ROI on a quarter-million dollar spend (or at least considering spending 1/3 of that or less on an in-house SEO).

Oh wow… Look at the individual who commented just before me. That’s really something – you’ve certainly attracted a rare crowd with this post.

@ak: Yeah META Tags are basic enough for 10bucks/hour. Not 350$ ffs. And sience when does PR have to do with high rankings? It has a lot to do with a whole other bunch of factors but will never guarantee you steady rankings.

OH God! Put them wannabes in one place and I’ll handle them… for free.

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@Rand, thanks for stopping by. I think the price a firm charges for a service is dependant on few factors:
- The RIO the client gets from the service
- Number of firms offering “precieved” comparable quality of service
- Brand name
- Current ongoing market price

Although ROI is extremely important, I do not think it plays a huge role in determining the price. Even if a consultant is making the client millions of dollars, there is a point where the client is not going to pay anymore in terms of an hourly rate.
When SEOMOZ charges $1000/hour, I do think it is reasonable for a certain kind of a client/projects. I am sure the client is getting his money back.

What I had expected from this consultant was really more sophistication in his approach to SEO. I do not think 350 an hour is unreasonable if you know what you are doing.

The problem I’ve seen with some consultants in several industries is that they don’t take the time to REMAIN educated after learning their niche.

This guy obviously knew what he was doing… back in 2002.

I am glad to see someone else is going through the headaches of a new platform, on a large scale.

Obviously, someone in a position of authority knows nothing about SEO at that company. I will do the job at half that rate. Where do I submit a bid?

It’s because of individuals such as the consultant you’ve described that gives the Search Marketing industry a bad rap. Charging $350/hr is perfectly valid for the return on investment, that will last indefinitely (atleast for on-page seo).

I think that corporations are facing a divide in either spending huge amounts of money on an SEO that claims to know his/her stuff, or approaching the entire concept of SEO with great skepticism.

Great post though!

Cheers

Dev Basu

Well he certainly should have asked a lot more questions than that. However, I will say that saying that the Meta description field should be left blank on sites with thousands of pages is just wrong (sorry Rand). Before Google hid their supplemental results, one of the easiest ways for big companies to have thousands of pages was to have identical descriptions, which often happens when you leave description tags blank on large sites because Google pulls elements from the boiler plate template that are identical. It’s much better to populate those fields with an intelligent algorithm that uses elements of the Page Title and page content. So the questions about whether a CMS platform can individually populate Meta keywords (which are still used by MSN and Yahoo by the way) or Meta description are valid. However, there are numerous other questions with regard to URL structure, potential duplicate content issues, breadcrumb navigation, javascript / flash questions, whether or not you can customize global navigation without affecting page names or titles and a few more. But to say that leaving the description tag blank is the best method of SEO for large sites is not true.

Wow .. $350/Hr thats dirt cheap .. Who was that guy btw ??
Don’t please tell me that he was from India.. you can hire fulltime dedicated SEO at $350/Mo in India and i bet he can do better than this guy for sure …

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The SEO guy sounds like an absolute joker. To be honest, I would tell the company – make it clear you’re not saying it for any strategic reason, just because you don’t want them to throw their money down the drain. They will definately thank you for it!

IncrediBill hit the nail on the head. The consultant is probably somebody’s boy. Also the fiefdom issue is huge, and the bigger the company, the larger it can be.

Ride it out, and when results are lackluster, instead of saying “I told you so”, offer to help in a constructive way.

At an old position, I had a VP who would basically let you do anything you wanted, including hanging yourself. In the grand scheme of things, $700k is nothing, and the harm he could potentially impart is minimal (at this point). Let him hang himself.

“should let search engines handle meta description as opposed to trying to handle that themselves”

Meta-descriptions are a necessity in my book. Lack of meta descrips or having identical ones across a site can cause problems getting indexed.

Interesting story though. It is amazing how some consultants can sell their services so well, but be so bad at what they do (in all fields).

Dan Perry>
“IncrediBill hit the nail on the head. The consultant is probably somebody’s boy. Also the fiefdom issue is huge, and the bigger the company, the larger it can be.”

Agreed. You don’t know anything about this guy right now. If he’s getting payed that much,
he’s got to know SOMEONE. There’s a reason he’s
there. Could be nepotism, could be his dad is a senator, who knows exactly. Why jump to action unless you’ve got all the facts?

I´ve got a theory about getting a sinful site-description extracted out of your websites body without meta-description (works only with google I guess, should be handled with care if using adsense and isn´t tested yet.

…

tells the adsense-bot what content is relevant, and it looks like, google uses this information for the description in the search-results.

[...] kan je nu als SEO-er voor een bedragen rekenen aan een klant? Khalid van InvespBlog schreef over een SEO consultant die $350 per uur rekende op een jaarbasis van 2000 werkuren. [...]

After considering comments by Marianne, Johnon and IncrediBILL, I’ve changed my mind. They’re right, you shouldn’t say anything to the client because you don’t know enough of the context. My original answer was based on my gut reaction and what I’d want to do, not on what is politically expedient.

Sometimes it really is better to bite your tongue, do your job, send the invoice and be done with it. At least you get a funny story out of the whole thing. If you offer an unsolicited opinion, however, you might just be whacking at a hornets nest.

Since it was a 20-minute meeting it would seem the application of meta data is enough topic to take up that time and a lot more.

True, keywords and descriptions are not what they used to be with the SEs, but as you said, the algo changes in a flash. Leaving these elements out of key pages may be somewhat fashionable but in my estimation it is stupid.

It is the clueless, isolated application of the keywords and description that is the problem.

I suspect he included title bars in this discussion as well, greatly changing the picture. Or did you assume the title text would just act as an index or just give the company name?

In my experience, engineers always push some sort of automation, regardless of its appropriateness. In this case, of course, that would be needed for the thousands of pages, but perhaps your SEO guy was focusing on handcrafting the top 50 pages, for example.

I’d throw your case out of court for lack of evidence, man.

It sounds like a software engineer scorned to me. I am not one to stand up for SEO’s. I am not saying this guy wasn’t dirty. But one thing I have learned being a longtime IT person… “software architects” are overpaid software engineers. I can find offshore workers that can produce the same product for considerably less

Being a principal decision maker for a large company if a low level vendor brought a complaint to my desk like this… I would just assume they are not capable of playing nice with others and go with someone else.

The world is full of persons that charges more and can undercut you. That doesn’t make their service any less than yours. Just remember that it is only your perception.

I say mind your job and keep your mouth shut. Not saying somethings does not give a perception. If you say anything a perception will be made. If you product is good and delivers that is all you need to do to be successful. You don’t need to worry about what others are doing and getting paid. If you build a good product you too will be able to charge any amount.

IT Executive … you are the reason why this world is as is. Dumb people who instead of admitting they are wrong, are willing to pay more and get nothing but stick to their choices.

Maybe you charge yourself more for nothing and have to stick for your kind… amateur. (Executives know sheet of the real world!)

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Hi

I think you should keep quiet and let it be as it is. You cannot change the scenario of SEO industry by telling truth to the client. If you go around, you will find plenty of ppl of such kind. So lets not do something that will put his job at risk. You give your valuable seo suggestions to the client as well as to that person. This is what you can do at the best.

Regards

Are you trying to make the guy lose his job? better to post about some useful seo stuff instead, or me be fixing the render issue for your blog comments.

At this point in time all you can do is to keep quiet and gradually win your client’s trust then later tell them what’s on your mind and gather hard evidence to backup your claim. I know how it feels to be working with opposing minds.

Where do people find clients like this? Is it really all word of mouth? I’d quit my job in a heartbeat if I had a client like that.

[...] Where optimizing a site might have cost $350 in the 90’s, now we see SEO’s charge $350 per hour, some even [...]

I am the SEO and PPC manager for a medium sized web agency. (not the one in my title). I also do some freelance work. I like to work with smaller companies and “one man shows” to help them get where they need to be. I also prefer to consult and teach them what they need to do instead of hiding a bunch of grunt work behind smoke and mirrors. SEO has become so much more than page mechanics, its now almost more about guerrilla marketing, psychology, and social buzz. This makes it fun, but guys like you are talking about have poisoned this market, it sucks. They sell nothing but outdated misinformation and soak up as much cash as possible before moving on. They leave an ocean of suspicious and pissed off companies in their wake. Its really too bad.

But since he is charging $350 an hour, he probably makes a decent income. I (however I don’t agree) understand that he is trying to make as much money as he could. Business is business.

If you sell newspapers, and people are willing to buy them for $50,00. Why wouldn’t you sell them for $50,00?!

If I were you, I’d be honest with my company and client, let them know in a respectable way that they could be being taken advantage of, unfortunately. I would explain why I thought this, tell background of your own experience in SEO, and show the client some resources where he can read for himself the true and valuable SEO work (like forums, DigitalPoint, SEOChat, and WarriorForum). Then you can rest easy knowing you did the right thing and now it’s in his hands, whether he wants to continue paying that high a price for what he’s receiving or if he wants to make any changes. That’s my opinion and that’s how I would handle it. Great story though, thanks for sharing.

Wow this made me sick.. not sure if it made me sick because this guy was doing this or that I wish I was you who feel into this position to steal some of this 700K SEO budget by getting this guy “removed”.

If I read you post I think I know a “little” more about SEO than this guy. Think I’m gone ask 1000 a hour. Because like some people think, if it’s that expensive it has to be good.

[...] new SEO’s. Where optimizing a site might have cost $350 in the 90’s, now we see SEO’s charge $350 per hour, some even [...]

SEO is an always evolving thing.

SEO is not an exact science. So, the price will depend of the “performer”

As with all commodities, SEO is worth what the customer is prepared to pay. Maybe the guy being commented on didn’t want to give away too much. A ot of SEO comes down to the donkey work of link-building that can be done very cheaply if you have the right knowledge.

Hi Khalid,
I think – It will better to inform your company about little more about SEO and Some technical stuff – you know. So, that they can clear the planing from the Expert Guy.
Anyway – price always depends on performer – If he can bring business $1000 per hour for a company – So, They will happy to pay little. And an SEO process can do that with right planning and process

Hi Khalid,
I think – It will better to inform your company about little more about SEO and Some technical stuff – you know. So, that they can clear the planing from the Expert Guy.
Anyway – price always depends on performer – If he can bring business $1000 per hour for a company – So, They will happy to pay little. And an SEO process can do that with right planning and process

[...] doesn’t reflect quality of the service, as you can read hear about an SEO who takes 350$ an hour just for stuffing the keywords. Okay… He probably did more than that, but still, the company is paying him almost 1/50 of [...]

I like the title. I have tried to get to Digg first page but can never achieve that..

very motivating and inspirational post….will definately boost to newbies in seo…:)

I keep running into this article. I seem to get sucked into reading it every time. I don’t know if I am offended or envious. The amount of corporate waste I deal with on a daily basis is amazing. Its so easy to spend money when it isn’t your own. I hate to say it but I much prefer dealing with a room full of people who are easily baffled by a few choice terms, than I am dealing with a one man show whos entire life is tied up in becoming #1 for wedding photography in Cincinnati.

$350 too expensive :S

$350 isn’t really that expensive. Heck, Jim Boykin is charging some clients $500+ per day.

That’s a day light robbery!

“$350 isn’t really that expensive. Heck, Jim Boykin is charging some clients $500+ per day.”

???

$350??? Geez, that quite something. If you work 10 hours a day then…. drool

I once heard a Senior seo consultant that the best way of getting relevant links was to make spam on wikipedia. Soooo funny…

$350 an hour… interesting post

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