Sometimes you just have to know when to call it quits with a project or client, and yesterday I reached that point. I committed these SEO consulting blunders all on one project. It sounds bad, I know, but read on, you'll soon understand. For the obvious reason of privacy, my client will go unnamed, but here is the breakdown of what took place, in the ever-popular top ten list format:

10) Taking on any client that comes around.

I'll be honest, I have a full-time job as a Marketing Analyst for an online university, but I really want to work as a full-time-at-home-self-employed internet business consultant...right now I moonlight as one. So, when the opportunity arises for an independent project, I jump on it (as long as it is legit and not in an unhealthy industry). I do this for good experience, practice, referral building, some extra money...all the normal reasons for doing so. I tell you this: I won't do that again. I'll be sure to investigate a little more into my potential clients' expectations, feel out their communication skills, maybe get some references from them, and possibly have them take a Jung Typology test to see what I'm dealing with.

9) Providing excessive details.

Here I thought I was doing a service to my client describing, in thorough detail, the preliminary analysis, the next steps, and the work I performed...followed by some analytics and later some heated rebuttals (more to follow on this last one). I later came to believe my client read little to nothing of what I wrote.

8) Not clearly communicating goals. 

I never knew how easy one could twist or misinterpret a statement until this project. I said "aiming for top 20, then top 10 rankings"; of course I'm aiming for those, that's the point of SEO, right? Never did I guarantee anything. Here is one of the narrowly averted blunders. I saved every correspondence with my client. I had every word I every typed verbatim and was able to extract my statement about top rankings. No guarantees, just a statement of goals.

7) Incomplete documentation.

This was to be a very small project, some content/page element optimization and a link building campaign. Little was optimized on the site when I was first invited to work on it: same title tag on every page, poor use of header tags, generic content, and few incoming links. So, I didn't want to spend too much time on analysis. Because of this choice, in one part of my initial review, I only researched a dozen or so of the shorter-tailed key phrases for this client's business and nothing was coming up in the top 50.

A few weeks went by and I had been successfully collecting data with Google Analytics. I noticed plenty of search terms resulting in page hits, but none, unfortunately, of the key terms I initially researched. So, my mistake here was not researching and documenting performance for longer-tail terms. How I could have known some of these key phrases that were converting to page views is beyond the scope of my psychic nature. I wish I could share some of them, but I believe it would reveal my ex-client's identity.

6) Providing too little details.

I know, the exact opposite of #9, but it's also true. I had 3 weeks' worth of site analytics and failed to share much of it with my client, including that visitors from nearly every state had been to the site, the list of key phrases driving traffic and their respective search engine, as well as much of the other data Google Analytics provides. I asked for his Google account so he could review the stats, but he said he didn't use it anymore, failing to see my purpose in asking. The focus was so much on getting one sale converted from a keyword (I told you it was small), that the traffic alone seemed not interesting to my client.

5) Giving a time frame of less than two months for results.

Although search terms were driving some traffic to the site and I do believe some of it had to do with changes I made (looking at the SERPs and converting terms), to say anything might possibly happen in one month was just downright unnecessary. I did say it could take longer, but selective reading is all too common and a major factor in this whole fiasco of an SEO project.

4) Not clearly setting a limit on my work or time.

This person was a friend of a friend, someone I had met previously on multiple occasions. I wanted to help him out, so I didn't charge very much and didn't set a time frame because I thought, "Hey, piece of cake, I'll do A, B, C, and D, and that will be enough to generate some good results for x amount of dollars." Nope. Not a chance. This person was more scrutinizing and intrusive than anyone I'd ever worked with. I don't blame them for wanting to know details and their ROI, and I had provided a detailed summary on work performed. However, multiple times they had outside parties express opinions that they didn't see or understand what I had done.

The first time, his outside web designer friend didn't understand the "gobbledy-gook" code; part of it was the Google Analytics script. The other part was special attribute tag specific to his web-hosted e-commerce software. That special "gobbledy-gook" attribute tag generated beautiful breadcrumb titles with many pertinent keywords that matched on-page content.

Later, someone else (not naming names) messed with the site, and those great title tags were overwritten and the site returned to the same title on every page. Then (get this), after that happened, my client had some other "web-savvy friends" check out the site and said they couldn't see much of anything I had done. Of course not! For starters, the unique title tags were no longer in place, the front page was updated with new images, so no alt text was added, yet, and these people may not even had noticed the changes in generic terms to more specific ones (let alone any off-page factors). I really couldn't believe it. I felt totally misrepresented as an SEO practitioner after having spent so much time on this project that I actually made less per hour than I do at my full-time job. My client sent me a list of comments made by these people, and I nearly soiled myself. I was beet-red in the face, I'll have you know...and I'm a pretty calm and peaceful guy most of the time.

3) Undervaluing the job.

All I have to say is I should have charged 5 times what I did for what I've gone through; however, I wouldn't have this great experience to learn from and write about and I imagine some good has come from it all.

2) Not expecting criticism or questioning (and taking it too seriously).

I always put grand effort into my work, especially when people are paying me because of need to see a respectable return on their investment. I am accustomed to performing well and getting complimented on a job well done versus receiving criticism; this experience came as a shock to me. I deserved it, though; not in a negative way, but as an important learning experience. It was just especially shocking because of how little I was actually getting paid compared to the work put into it; and that my efforts were accidentally overwritten, causing outsiders to question my legitimacy as an honest, hardworking business professional. (Actually, as the kind-hearted person I am, I helped get the title tags fixed and they are once again unique and SEO-friendly.)

1) Not giving up.

Okay, I said the person was my ex-client, but not exactly. I've tried to say that the project was over without tarnishing a relationship; I don't think he gets it. I even offered a refund because I believe in total customer satisfaction, and if this person was to be dissatisfied in any way, I feel it might hurt my reputation if he spread untruths about my work. He didn't take me up on that offer (which I am thankful for). The reason the project has not officially ceased is partially my fault. Every time he writes back, I respond with more help. I send a new report backing performance. I give my client a reason to reply. Hell, during the writing of this post my Gmail Notifier popped up and a message came from him stating that he "appreciates me," and that he just got a good sale from someone who said they found him by "searching the web"(my client added a 'request for referring source' text box to the check-out and that was the customer's input).

So I guess not giving up is both a blunder and blessing, but boy, did I learn some serious lessons. I hope what I've shared with you helps you avoid some of these mistakes. I am happy to admit them; it makes me feel noble, as they are experiences worthy of sharing.