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25 Surefire Signs You’re Dealing With A Client From Hell

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25 Surefire Signs You’re Dealing With A Client From Hell

We’ve all heard the stories… and sadly, most of us have lived one or two of them, as well.

They range from high maintenance and unreasonable to demanding, insulting, and just plain rude.

They’re the clients from hell.

I have my own client from hell story or two – okay, more than two.

Getting out of these situations can be a nightmare.

So how do you avoid getting into them in the first place?

Don’t ignore the red flags!

Check out these 25 major warning signs that you might be dealing with a client from hell.

1. They Insult You

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” is an early warning sign that your expertise won’t be respected.

And that’s if you’re dealing with a client from hell who has a little bit of self-control.

The worst of the worst won’t hold back when it comes to using colorful language.

2. They Email You On The Weekend & Expect A Response

Some clients use the weekends to get ahead on projects.

While it’s okay to send emails during this timeframe (using a scheduling tool like Boomerang is better), it’s not alright for them to expect an immediate response.

Head off this potential issue by discussing “office hours” with each client.

These are specific times they can expect a response (e.g.: 9am-5pm, Monday-Friday), as well as your average response time for emails (e.g.: 24-48 hours during the week).

3. They Text You & Expect An Immediate Response

Be wary of the client who’s always trying to text you.

Besides the fact that it’s annoying and bleeds into your out-of-office time, it’s always easier to manage responses (and items in need of follow-up) contained within an email inbox.

Avoid this potential issue by stipulating methods and frequency of communication within your contract.

For example: “With your current plan, you can schedule one included strategy meeting with me per month and unlimited access via email. Any additional meetings will be billed at a rate of $xx/hour.”

4. They Give Zero Direction & Have Endless Revisions

Although it may be your job to develop ideas, that doesn’t mean that your client doesn’t have to chime in regarding some sort of template or framework for the final deliverable they’re looking for.

If they insist that you move forward regardless, you’re looking at endless revisions – perhaps not covered by the scope of work initially quoted.

Head off this potential issue with some sort of intake process that includes questions designed to get this information from your client.

Before starting on any new project, define the total number of revisions included in your rate in the contract.

If you still think that you may be in the process of signing a client from hell, make sure to get payment upfront.

You don’t want them stiffing you if they’re still unhappy when the project is completed.

5. They Send Passive Aggressive Emails

Elements of a conversation sometimes get lost in written communications.

You might think that a client is giving you lip, but it could also just be the way they come across over email.

But, if you’re getting more “Please advise” messages than “Great work!” it might be a sign that you’re dealing with a client from hell.

If you detect what you think is passive-aggressiveness on email, don’t wait – get on the phone and sort it out.

If you can’t come to a conclusion over this new medium, it might make sense to part ways.

6. They Have Issues Signing A Contract

Is there a bigger red flag than this?

If they won’t sign a simple contract agreeing to the scope of work and can’t give any specific reasons as to why you’re better off ditching this prospect before they become a bona fide client from hell.

7. They Consistently Pay Late

Even the clients who are the easiest to get along with can become a client from hell when they fail to show you the respect that you deserve.

If you’re dealing with someone who fails to pay on time, it will stress you out and take your focus away from more important things.

Avoid this potential issue by getting payment upfront, whenever possible.

Clearly define payment terms in your contract, alongside a late fee, so that there’s no question as to when your client has agreed to pay you.

8. They Want You To Use (A Bunch Of) Their Tools

Sometimes, working with a new client means an onboarding process that includes being invited to a new project management platform and accounts where you can glean the data that you need to complete the job they hired you for.

Acquiescing to using a few new client tools is to be expected, but being required to learn a bunch of new systems can be extremely time-consuming and hard on your focus.

Head off this potential issue with a great discovery process.

Add this question to your prospecting, “If we were to work together, are there any specific tools I would need to become familiar with and use on a regular basis?”

Based on the client’s answer, you can either build in the cost of getting to know/using these tools – or disqualify them as being a potential headache to deal with.

9. They Have You On A Minute-By-Minute Schedule

…and they want you to report back to them in kind.

These clients from hell will make working with them so annoying that their overbearing nature will inevitably get in the way of getting any work done!

Head off this potential issue by charging a project rate instead of an hourly rate.

Being able to budget for the whole deliverable (as opposed to being worried about variability) will put potential clients from hell at ease – giving you room to breathe and do your job.

10. They Say You Charge Too Much

Maybe you do charge too much, as far as their budget is concerned.

Regardless, someone who puts you down and doesn’t think you’re worth all the hard work you’ve put into developing your skills isn’t someone you’re going to want to have to deal with on a regular basis.

Avoid this potential issue by making your rates (or ranges/minimums) publicly known on your website.

This will deter the clients who don’t have the budget to work with you while advancing the sale with those to whom your rates are not an issue.

11. They Act Like They’re Doing You A Favor By Giving You Crappy Work At Ridiculously Low Prices

Does it even really need to be said?

Avoid this type of client from hell.

Head off this potential issue by staying away from content mills and freelancer platforms like Upwork.

12. They Threaten Your Reputation

Despite your best efforts, there will be situations where a client absolutely hates a deliverable and decides that, instead of giving you the opportunity to make it better, they’d rather publicly smear you.

Set the record straight if a client decides to publicly shame you.

Publish your own account of what happened with simple facts – let readers come to their own conclusions.

That said, you can get into trouble if you initiate any public shaming, so be prepared to drop it if your client keeps their negativity confined to within your private conversations.

13. They Act Weird When You Talk Money Details

If you’re getting a sense that a prospect has issues with your pricing but they’re not coming out and saying it – try directly addressing it.

If you’re still sensing some weirdness, but want to give working with them a try, make sure to charge upfront.

14. They Can’t Answer Simple Questions About Their Business

Even the most pleasant people become clients from hell when they can’t articulate the information you need to know to do your job.

If you’re dealing with someone who has a lot of ideas but doesn’t have the focus to execute any one of them well, it’s a red flag you need to consider.

15. They Don’t Have Time For Small Talk

The best clients start every call with a little idle chit-chat.

This is what separates an awesome client from a client from hell.

If they can’t connect on a human-to-human basis and instead dive straight into business, it’s going to be a tough work environment.

16. They Have Impossible Demands/Requests

“I want to create the next Google” is probably not something that they can achieve based on working with you alone.

That’s not to say that you’re not awesome, just that they have extremely unrealistic expectations.

You might be able to bill them for a few months, but when they realize they won’t ever get what they really want and think that you’ve misled them, the fallout will be more stressful than the pay could ever be worth.

To avoid this potential issue, talk about key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals before work begins.

17. They Don’t Listen To Your Expertise, Then Blame You When Things Go Wrong

So many clients from hell can be described as those that take your deliverable and gut it of all the things you implemented for the direct purpose of achieving their goal.

Your work, now an unrecognizable mess, is no longer optimized for its initial purpose.

Even though it’s not your fault, a client from hell will blame it all on you when things go wrong.

And that should be the last project you complete for them.

18. They Expect Immediate Results From A Long-Term Campaign

Some clients may think it’s “BS” to have to wait for SEO results and may quiz you on progress every day. I mean how long does SEO take?

Head off this potential issue by educating your client as to typical results and when clients can expect to see them.

If there are still issues, you might have to have the “I think we may not be a fit” conversation.

19. They Expect You To Always Be On-Call

Besides immediate responses, they also expect immediate deliverables.

Avoid this potential issue by defining turnaround and rush fees for any accepted projects in need of a turnaround in a shorter time frame.

Stress the importance of your prerogative to reject work within a short turnaround time, especially if it would bleed into your personal life.

Establishing boundaries is important for achieving an ideal work-life balance.

20. They Need You To Be Their Tech Support In Addition To The Job They Actually Hired You For

This is especially relevant when you provide digital marketing services but your client has no idea how it all works.

Head off this potential problem by defining the cost of providing tech support/exceedingly in-depth explanations as to what you’re doing, or ask questions to suss out a potential technophobe client from hell during the discovery process.

21. They Take Credit For Something You Did, To Someone Else At Their Company

Not unlike a corporate job, this type of client from hell can really take the wind out of your sails.

If you’re not interested in credit, this may not be a problem.

Regardless, dealing with a liar can bleed over to include other troublesome client-from-hell warning signs.

22. Unscheduled Calls & Constant Meetings

All clients are different and some may require weekly meetings to stay on top of things.

If that’s defined in your contract and you’ve accounted for it in your pricing, there are no issues.

A client from hell is someone who’s especially needy and hasn’t given you the opportunity to account for all this extra hand-holding in your contract.

If they’re constantly calling you and require additional meetings on top of what’s stipulated in your contract, you’ll want to cut your losses sooner rather than later.

23. They Make You Feel Like You’re In Competition With Other Freelancers/Vendors

If a client is unhappy with the work you create, their feedback should make that obvious.

If they’re unhappy enough to threaten to outsource your role to someone else – let them.

You don’t need someone acting like you’re no good but stringing you along, anyway.

24. They Ask You To Compromise Your Ethics

With increasing privacy/security standards like that of GDPR, it’s more important now than ever to be compliant with the work you’re doing for clients.

If you inform a client that a specific action clearly goes against your ethics, but they ask you to complete it anyway, you’d better get out before you’re implicated in their bad behavior.

25. Their Edits Take Your Work From Great To Tacky

Even if they don’t blame you for what their Frankenstein edits have done to your deliverable, it’s hard to be proud of something that you’ve created if it doesn’t achieve the potential you knew it was capable of.

If a client constantly puts you in a position where your work is transformed into something tacky, you’re better off spending your time looking for someone who appreciates you as you are.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, as much as we try to avoid dealing with such horrific clients, you may need to fire a client.

When this time comes, be direct and try to maintain cordial relations.

Use this as a learning opportunity and focus on attracting more of the type of clients that grow your business.

More Resources:


Featured Image: fizkes/Shutterstock




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State Of Marketing Data Standards In The AI Era [Webinar]

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State Of Marketing Data Standards In The AI Era [Webinar]

Claravine and Advertiser Perceptions surveyed 140 marketers and agencies to better understand the impact of data standards on marketing data, and they’re ready to present their findings.

Want to learn how you can mitigate privacy risks and boost ROI through data standards?

Watch this on-demand webinar and learn how companies are addressing new privacy laws, taking advantage of AI, and organizing their data to better capture the campaign data they need, as well as how you can implement these findings in your campaigns.

In this webinar, you will:

  • Gain a better understanding of how your marketing data management compares to enterprise advertisers.
  • Get an overview of the current state of data standards and analytics, and how marketers are managing risk while improving the ROI of their programs.
  • Walk away with tactics and best practices that you can use to improve your marketing data now.

Chris Comstock, Chief Growth Officer at Claravine, will show you the marketing data trends of top advertisers and the potential pitfalls that come with poor data standards.

Learn the key ways to level up your data strategy to pinpoint campaign success.

View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.

Join Us For Our Next Webinar!

SaaS Marketing: Expert Paid Media Tips Backed By $150M In Ad Spend

Join us and learn a unique methodology for growth that has driven massive revenue at a lower cost for hundreds of SaaS brands. We’ll dive into case studies backed by real data from over $150 million in SaaS ad spend per year.

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GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After ‘Unexpected’ Delays

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GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After 'Unexpected' Delays

OpenAI shares its plans for the GPT Store, enhancements to GPT Builder tools, privacy improvements, and updates coming to ChatGPT.

  • OpenAI has scheduled the launch of the GPT Store for early next year, aligning with its ongoing commitment to developing advanced AI technologies.
  • The GPT Builder tools have received substantial updates, including a more intuitive configuration interface and improved file handling capabilities.
  • Anticipation builds for upcoming updates to ChatGPT, highlighting OpenAI’s responsiveness to community feedback and dedication to AI innovation.

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96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic From Google. Here’s How to Be in the Other 3.45% [New Research for 2023]

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96.55% of Content Gets No Traffic From Google. Here's How to Be in the Other 3.45% [New Research for 2023]

It’s no secret that the web is growing by millions, if not billions of pages per day.

Our Content Explorer tool discovers 10 million new pages every 24 hours while being very picky about the pages that qualify for inclusion. The “main” Ahrefs web crawler crawls that number of pages every two minutes. 

But how much of this content gets organic traffic from Google?

To find out, we took the entire database from our Content Explorer tool (around 14 billion pages) and studied how many pages get traffic from organic search and why.

How many web pages get organic search traffic?

96.55% of all pages in our index get zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% get between one and ten monthly visits.

Distribution of pages by traffic from Content Explorer

Before we move on to discussing why the vast majority of pages never get any search traffic from Google (and how to avoid being one of them), it’s important to address two discrepancies with the studied data:

  1. ~14 billion pages may seem like a huge number, but it’s not the most accurate representation of the entire web. Even compared to the size of Site Explorer’s index of 340.8 billion pages, our sample size for this study is quite small and somewhat biased towards the “quality side of the web.”
  2. Our search traffic numbers are estimates. Even though our database of ~651 million keywords in Site Explorer (where our estimates come from) is arguably the largest database of its kind, it doesn’t contain every possible thing people search for in Google. There’s a chance that some of these pages get search traffic from super long-tail keywords that are not popular enough to make it into our database.

That said, these two “inaccuracies” don’t change much in the grand scheme of things: the vast majority of published pages never rank in Google and never get any search traffic. 

But why is this, and how can you be a part of the minority that gets organic search traffic from Google?

Well, there are hundreds of SEO issues that may prevent your pages from ranking well in Google. But if we focus only on the most common scenarios, assuming the page is indexed, there are only three of them.

Reason 1: The topic has no search demand

If nobody is searching for your topic, you won’t get any search traffic—even if you rank #1.

For example, I recently Googled “pull sitemap into google sheets” and clicked the top-ranking page (which solved my problem in seconds, by the way). But if you plug that URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, you’ll see that it gets zero estimated organic search traffic:

The top-ranking page for this topic gets no traffic because there's no search demandThe top-ranking page for this topic gets no traffic because there's no search demand

This is because hardly anyone else is searching for this, as data from Keywords Explorer confirms:

Keyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer confirms that this topic has no search demandKeyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer confirms that this topic has no search demand

This is why it’s so important to do keyword research. You can’t just assume that people are searching for whatever you want to talk about. You need to check the data.

Our Traffic Potential (TP) metric in Keywords Explorer can help with this. It estimates how much organic search traffic the current top-ranking page for a keyword gets from all the queries it ranks for. This is a good indicator of the total search demand for a topic.

You’ll see this metric for every keyword in Keywords Explorer, and you can even filter for keywords that meet your minimum criteria (e.g., 500+ monthly traffic potential): 

Filtering for keywords with Traffic Potential (TP) in Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerFiltering for keywords with Traffic Potential (TP) in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

Reason 2: The page has no backlinks

Backlinks are one of Google’s top three ranking factors, so it probably comes as no surprise that there’s a clear correlation between the number of websites linking to a page and its traffic.

Pages with more referring domains get more trafficPages with more referring domains get more traffic
Pages with more referring domains get more traffic

Same goes for the correlation between a page’s traffic and keyword rankings:

Pages with more referring domains rank for more keywordsPages with more referring domains rank for more keywords
Pages with more referring domains rank for more keywords

Does any of this data prove that backlinks help you rank higher in Google?

No, because correlation does not imply causation. However, most SEO professionals will tell you that it’s almost impossible to rank on the first page for competitive keywords without backlinks—an observation that aligns with the data above.

The key word there is “competitive.” Plenty of pages get organic traffic while having no backlinks…

Pages with more referring domains get more trafficPages with more referring domains get more traffic
How much traffic pages with no backlinks get

… but from what I can tell, almost all of them are about low-competition topics.

For example, this lyrics page for a Neil Young song gets an estimated 162 monthly visits with no backlinks: 

Example of a page with traffic but no backlinks, via Ahrefs' Content ExplorerExample of a page with traffic but no backlinks, via Ahrefs' Content Explorer

But if we check the keywords it ranks for, they almost all have Keyword Difficulty (KD) scores in the single figures:

Some of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks forSome of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks for

It’s the same story for this page selling upholstered headboards:

Some of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks forSome of the low-difficulty keywords a page without traffic ranks for

You might have noticed two other things about these pages:

  • Neither of them get that much traffic. This is pretty typical. Our index contains ~20 million pages with no referring domains, yet only 2,997 of them get more than 1K search visits per month. That’s roughly 1 in every 6,671 pages with no backlinks.
  • Both of the sites they’re on have high Domain Rating (DR) scores. This metric shows the relative strength of a website’s backlink profile. Stronger sites like these have more PageRank that they can pass to pages with internal links to help them rank. 

Bottom line? If you want your pages to get search traffic, you really only have two options:

  1. Target uncompetitive topics that you can rank for with few or no backlinks.
  2. Target competitive topics and build backlinks to rank.

If you want to find uncompetitive topics, try this:

  1. Enter a topic into Keywords Explorer
  2. Go to the Matching terms report
  3. Set the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to max. 20
  4. Set the Lowest DR filter to your site’s DR (this will show you keywords with at least one of the same or lower DR ranking in the top 5)
Filtering for low-competition keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerFiltering for low-competition keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

(Remember to keep an eye on the TP column to make sure they have traffic potential.)

To rank for more competitive topics, you’ll need to earn or build high-quality backlinks to your page. If you’re not sure how to do that, start with the guides below. Keep in mind that it’ll be practically impossible to get links unless your content adds something to the conversation. 

Reason 3. The page doesn’t match search intent

Google wants to give users the most relevant results for a query. That’s why the top organic results for “best yoga mat” are blog posts with recommendations, not product pages. 

It's obviously what searchers want when they search for "best yoga mats"It's obviously what searchers want when they search for "best yoga mats"

Basically, Google knows that searchers are in research mode, not buying mode.

It’s also why this page selling yoga mats doesn’t show up, despite it having backlinks from more than six times more websites than any of the top-ranking pages:

Page selling yoga mats that has lots of backlinksPage selling yoga mats that has lots of backlinks
Number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages for "best yoga mats"Number of linking websites to the top-ranking pages for "best yoga mats"

Luckily, the page ranks for thousands of other more relevant keywords and gets tens of thousands of monthly organic visits. So it’s not such a big deal that it doesn’t rank for “best yoga mats.”

Number of keyword rankings for the page selling yoga matsNumber of keyword rankings for the page selling yoga mats

However, if you have pages with lots of backlinks but no organic traffic—and they already target a keyword with traffic potential—another quick SEO win is to re-optimize them for search intent.

We did this in 2018 with our free backlink checker.

It was originally nothing but a boring landing page explaining the benefits of our product and offering a 7-day trial: 

Original landing page for our free backlink checkerOriginal landing page for our free backlink checker

After analyzing search intent, we soon realized the issue:

People weren’t looking for a landing page, but rather a free tool they could use right away. 

So, in September 2018, we created a free tool and published it under the same URL. It ranked #1 pretty much overnight, and has remained there ever since. 

Our rankings over time for the keyword "backlink checker." You can see when we changed the pageOur rankings over time for the keyword "backlink checker." You can see when we changed the page

Organic traffic went through the roof, too. From ~14K monthly organic visits pre-optimization to almost ~200K today. 

Estimated search traffic over time to our free backlink checkerEstimated search traffic over time to our free backlink checker

TLDR

96.55% of pages get no organic traffic. 

Keep your pages in the other 3.45% by building backlinks, choosing topics with organic traffic potential, and matching search intent.

Ping me on Twitter if you have any questions. 🙂



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