SEO

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

Published

2 years ago

April 15, 2022

Entireweb News Bot

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

Related Topics:Client Dealing Hell Signs Surefire Youre

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SEO

Google On Hyphens In Domain Names

Published

13 hours ago

April 16, 2024

Max

What Google says about using hyphens in domain names

Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about why people don’t use hyphens with domains and if there was something to be concerned about that they were missing.

Domain Names With Hyphens For SEO

I’ve been working online for 25 years and I remember when using hyphens in domains was something that affiliates did for SEO when Google was still influenced by keywords in the domain, URL, and basically keywords anywhere on the webpage. It wasn’t something that everyone did, it was mainly something that was popular with some affiliate marketers.

Another reason for choosing domain names with keywords in them was that site visitors tended to convert at a higher rate because the keywords essentially prequalified the site visitor. I know from experience how useful two-keyword domains (and one word domain names) are for conversions, as long as they didn’t have hyphens in them.

A consideration that caused hyphenated domain names to fall out of favor is that they have an untrustworthy appearance and that can work against conversion rates because trustworthiness is an important factor for conversions.

Lastly, hyphenated domain names look tacky. Why go with tacky when a brandable domain is easier for building trust and conversions?

Domain Name Question Asked On Reddit

This is the question asked on Reddit:

“Why don’t people use a lot of domains with hyphens? Is there something concerning about it? I understand when you tell it out loud people make miss hyphen in search.”

And this is Mueller’s response:

“It used to be that domain names with a lot of hyphens were considered (by users? or by SEOs assuming users would? it’s been a while) to be less serious – since they could imply that you weren’t able to get the domain name with fewer hyphens. Nowadays there are a lot of top-level-domains so it’s less of a thing.

My main recommendation is to pick something for the long run (assuming that’s what you’re aiming for), and not to be overly keyword focused (because life is too short to box yourself into a corner – make good things, course-correct over time, don’t let a domain-name limit what you do online). The web is full of awkward, keyword-focused short-lived low-effort takes made for SEO — make something truly awesome that people will ask for by name. If that takes a hyphen in the name – go for it.”

Pick A Domain Name That Can Grow

Mueller is right about picking a domain name that won’t lock your site into one topic. When a site grows in popularity the natural growth path is to expand the range of topics the site coves. But that’s hard to do when the domain is locked into one rigid keyword phrase. That’s one of the downsides of picking a “Best + keyword + reviews” domain, too. Those domains can’t grow bigger and look tacky, too.

That’s why I’ve always recommended brandable domains that are memorable and encourage trust in some way.

Read the post on Reddit:

Are domains with hyphens bad?

Read Mueller’s response here.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Benny Marty

SEO

Reddit Post Ranks On Google In 5 Minutes

Published

1 day ago

April 15, 2024

Max

Google apparently ranks Reddit posts within minutes

Google’s Danny Sullivan disputed the assertions made in a Reddit discussion that Google is showing a preference for Reddit in the search results. But a Redditor’s example proves that it’s possible for a Reddit post to rank in the top ten of the search results within minutes and to actually improve rankings to position #2 a week later.

Discussion About Google Showing Preference To Reddit

A Redditor (gronetwork) complained that Google is sending so many visitors to Reddit that the server is struggling with the load and shared an example that proved that it can only take minutes for a Reddit post to rank in the top ten.

That post was part of a 79 post Reddit thread where many in the r/SEO subreddit were complaining about Google allegedly giving too much preference to Reddit over legit sites.

The person who did the test (gronetwork) wrote:

“…The website is already cracking (server down, double posts, comments not showing) because there are too many visitors.
…It only takes few minutes (you can test it) for a post on Reddit to appear in the top ten results of Google with keywords related to the post’s title… (while I have to wait months for an article on my site to be referenced). Do the math, the whole world is going to spam here. The loop is completed.”
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Reddit Post Ranked Within Minutes

Another Redditor asked if they had tested if it takes “a few minutes” to rank in the top ten and gronetwork answered that they had tested it with a post titled, Google SGE Review.

gronetwork posted:

“Yes, I have created for example a post named “Google SGE Review” previously. After less than 5 minutes it was ranked 8th for Google SGE Review (no quotes). Just after Washingtonpost.com, 6 authoritative SEO websites and Google.com’s overview page for SGE (Search Generative Experience). It is ranked third for SGE Review.”

It’s true, not only does that specific post (Google SGE Review) rank in the top 10, the post started out in position 8 and it actually improved ranking, currently listed beneath the number one result for the search query “SGE Review”.

Screenshot Of Reddit Post That Ranked Within Minutes

Anecdotes Versus Anecdotes

Okay, the above is just one anecdote. But it’s a heck of an anecdote because it proves that it’s possible for a Reddit post to rank within minutes and get stuck in the top of the search results over other possibly more authoritative websites.

hankschrader79 shared that Reddit posts outrank Toyota Tacoma forums for a phrase related to mods for that truck.

Google’s Danny Sullivan responded to that post and the entire discussion to dispute that Reddit is not always prioritized over other forums.

Danny wrote:

“Reddit is not always prioritized over other forums. [super vhs to mac adapter] I did this week, it goes Apple Support Community, MacRumors Forum and further down, there’s Reddit. I also did [kumo cloud not working setup 5ghz] recently (it’s a nightmare) and it was the Netgear community, the SmartThings Community, GreenBuildingAdvisor before Reddit. Related to that was [disable 5g airport] which has Apple Support Community above Reddit. [how to open an 8 track tape] — really, it was the YouTube videos that helped me most, but it’s the Tapeheads community that comes before Reddit.
In your example for [toyota tacoma], I don’t even get Reddit in the top results. I get Toyota, Car & Driver, Wikipedia, Toyota again, three YouTube videos from different creators (not Toyota), Edmunds, a Top Stories unit. No Reddit, which doesn’t really support the notion of always wanting to drive traffic just to Reddit.
If I guess at the more specific query you might have done, maybe [overland mods for toyota tacoma], I get a YouTube video first, then Reddit, then Tacoma World at third — not near the bottom. So yes, Reddit is higher for that query — but it’s not first. It’s also not always first. And sometimes, it’s not even showing at all.”

hankschrader79 conceded that they were generalizing when they wrote that Google always prioritized Reddit. But they also insisted that that didn’t diminish what they said is a fact that Google’s “prioritization” forum content has benefitted Reddit more than actual forums.

Why Is The Reddit Post Ranked So High?

It’s possible that Google “tested” that Reddit post in position 8 within minutes and that user interaction signals indicated to Google’s algorithms that users prefer to see that Reddit post. If that’s the case then it’s not a matter of Google showing preference to Reddit post but rather it’s users that are showing the preference and the algorithm is responding to those preferences.

Nevertheless, an argument can be made that user preferences for Reddit can be a manifestation of Familiarity Bias. Familiarity Bias is when people show a preference for things that are familiar to them. If a person is familiar with a brand because of all the advertising they were exposed to then they may show a bias for the brand products over unfamiliar brands.

Users who are familiar with Reddit may choose Reddit because they don’t know the other sites in the search results or because they have a bias that Google ranks spammy and optimized websites and feel safer reading Reddit.

Google may be picking up on those user interaction signals that indicate a preference and satisfaction with the Reddit results but those results may simply be biases and not an indication that Reddit is trustworthy and authoritative.

Is Reddit Benefiting From A Self-Reinforcing Feedback Loop?

It may very well be that Google’s decision to prioritize user generated content may have started a self-reinforcing pattern that draws users in to Reddit through the search results and because the answers seem plausible those users start to prefer Reddit results. When they’re exposed to more Reddit posts their familiarity bias kicks in and they start to show a preference for Reddit. So what could be happening is that the users and Google’s algorithm are creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

Is it possible that Google’s decision to show more user generated content has kicked off a cycle where more users are exposed to Reddit which then feeds back into Google’s algorithm which in turn increases Reddit visibility, regardless of lack of expertise and authoritativeness?

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Kues

SEO

WordPress Releases A Performance Plugin For “Near-Instant Load Times”

Published

2 days ago

April 14, 2024

Max

WordPress released an official plugin that adds support for a cutting edge technology called speculative loading that can help boost site performance and improve the user experience for site visitors.

Speculative Loading

Rendering means constructing the entire webpage so that it instantly displays (rendering). When your browser downloads the HTML, images, and other resources and puts it together into a webpage, that’s rendering. Prerendering is putting that webpage together (rendering it) in the background.

What this plugin does is to enable the browser to prerender the entire webpage that a user might navigate to next. The plugin does that by anticipating which webpage the user might navigate to based on where they are hovering.

Chrome lists a preference for only prerendering when there is an at least 80% probability of a user navigating to another webpage. The official Chrome support page for prerendering explains:

“Pages should only be prerendered when there is a high probability the page will be loaded by the user. This is why the Chrome address bar prerendering options only happen when there is such a high probability (greater than 80% of the time).

There is also a caveat in that same developer page that prerendering may not happen based on user settings, memory usage and other scenarios (more details below about how analytics handles prerendering).

The Speculative Loading API solves a problem that previous solutions could not because in the past they were simply prefetching resources like JavaScript and CSS but not actually prerendering the entire webpage.

The official WordPress announcement explains it like this:

Introducing the Speculation Rules API
The Speculation Rules API is a new web API that solves the above problems. It allows defining rules to dynamically prefetch and/or prerender URLs of certain structure based on user interaction, in JSON syntax—or in other words, speculatively preload those URLs before the navigation. This API can be used, for example, to prerender any links on a page whenever the user hovers over them.”

The official WordPress page about this new functionality describes it:

“The Speculation Rules API is a new web API… It allows defining rules to dynamically prefetch and/or prerender URLs of certain structure based on user interaction, in JSON syntax—or in other words, speculatively preload those URLs before the navigation.
This API can be used, for example, to prerender any links on a page whenever the user hovers over them. Also, with the Speculation Rules API, “prerender” actually means to prerender the entire page, including running JavaScript. This can lead to near-instant load times once the user clicks on the link as the page would have most likely already been loaded in its entirety. However that is only one of the possible configurations.”

The new WordPress plugin adds support for the Speculation Rules API. The Mozilla developer pages, a great resource for HTML technical understanding describes it like this:

“The Speculation Rules API is designed to improve performance for future navigations. It targets document URLs rather than specific resource files, and so makes sense for multi-page applications (MPAs) rather than single-page applications (SPAs).
The Speculation Rules API provides an alternative to the widely-available <link rel=”prefetch”> feature and is designed to supersede the Chrome-only deprecated <link rel=”prerender”> feature. It provides many improvements over these technologies, along with a more expressive, configurable syntax for specifying which documents should be prefetched or prerendered.”
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Performance Lab Plugin

The new plugin was developed by the official WordPress performance team which occasionally rolls out new plugins for users to test ahead of possible inclusion into the actual WordPress core. So it’s a good opportunity to be first to try out new performance technologies.

The new WordPress plugin is by default set to prerender “WordPress frontend URLs” which are pages, posts, and archive pages. How it works can be fine-tuned under the settings:

Settings > Reading > Speculative Loading

Browser Compatibility

The Speculative API is supported by Chrome 108 however the specific rules used by the new plugin require Chrome 121 or higher. Chrome 121 was released in early 2024.

Browsers that do not support will simply ignore the plugin and will have no effect on the user experience.

Check out the new Speculative Loading WordPress plugin developed by the official core WordPress performance team.

How Analytics Handles Prerendering

A WordPress developer commented with a question asking how Analytics would handle prerendering and someone else answered that it’s up to the Analytics provider to detect a prerender and not count it as a page load or site visit.

Fortunately both Google Analytics and Google Publisher Tags (GPT) both are able to handle prerenders. The Chrome developers support page has a note about how analytics handles prerendering:

“Google Analytics handles prerender by delaying until activation by default as of September 2023, and Google Publisher Tag (GPT) made a similar change to delay triggering advertisements until activation as of November 2023.”

Possible Conflict With Ad Blocker Extensions

There are a couple things to be aware of about this plugin, aside from the fact that it’s an experimental feature that requires Chrome 121 or higher.

A comment by a WordPress plugin developer that this feature may not work with browsers that are using the uBlock Origin ad blocking browser extension.

Download the plugin:
Speculative Loading Plugin by the WordPress Performance Team

Read the announcement at WordPress
Speculative Loading in WordPress