Picking the right clients to do SEO work for

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the business world is the importance of working with the right clients. More business is not always a good thing if your client causes you headaches. A few months ago I took on a new client who, right off the bat, I had a bad feeling about. I didn’t want him as a client, I was already incredibly busy at it is, but he convinced me about what a great client he would be. The first rule of thumb is that anybody that claims to be low maintenance is definitely not. That should have been my first sign to run like hell. But no, I didn’t listen to my intuition. Over the course of the first three months I listened to him critique the site design, suggest changes and then make new changes on an everyday basis. He’d suggest a change, then make another one which contradicted his earlier change and he had no shame about it. He would also constantly call, asking if the changes he’d requested had been made. “Um, no, not yet. You just sent me that email 3 minutes ago and those changes will take a  few hours”. Incredibly impatient man. So, eventually I finished his site. “This is the only website I’ve ever liked, and I’ve seen thousands. I love it”. So after the site was finally finished, I began optimizing his site. Within just 7 weeks, I got him to the 1st page of Google and Yahoo for all his main keyword phrases. I highly doubt it was no coincidence that right after he found out how high he was ranking, he called and said “Please cancel all the services you’re doing for me”. Many clients don’t believe that SEO is a regular monthly thing. However, if you don’t continue to improve and work on a site, it will tank in the rankings. I was perfectly fine with that to say the least. I didn’t want to work for this miserable man anyways. I sent him my final bills, he said he would pay them (with the exception of one charge) and then a few days later decided not to pay. I know he never intended to pay, he was trying to weasel out of it. “I’m going to have another SEO firm check your work”. “What’s there to check?”, I replied. “You’re on the 1st page of Google and Yahoo for all your keywords”. No response of course. Long story short, he turned around and sued me for all his money back that he’s paid me. Well, at least the $7,500 limit that small claims court allows (out of the $8600 he paid me). He actually owes me money since he never paid me a cent for optimization. He’s done this before with other people (I spoke with his last service provider and he did the same thing with her). Funny thing is I knew that this guy would pull something like this. He is an extremely unhappy man, constantly talked about his poor child hood, and has many things to say about many people. The great thing is that his rankings have completely tanked and have now dropped out of the top 300 results in Google. Never have I been so happy to see someone’s rankings drop. One of his competitors, my current client, now ranks # 1 on Google for every one of the keywords he wanted. Thank you, idiot, for the motivation you have provided me. My clients will ALWAYS rank above his site (especially now that his site fell out of the Google rankings). Moral of the story is to choose the right clients to work with, document as much as possible through email and paper trails in case something like this happens to you.