We are now 2 weeks in and nothing has been done

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Mark Ketzler: I give clients milestones. So even if the first week was site audit, competitive analysis etc. The customer knows what activity is going on. Also provided is a weekly status report. I would ask for these going fwd.
  
  1w
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  Dana Gessert: First week they should have at least given you an audit to let you know what they will be doing in subsequent weeks.
  
  It is sad but from what you explain I don`t see this ending well. Wishing you all the best.
  
  Also, I must add that expecting much traffic ( unless your agreement is more off PPC than SEO ) is not realistic.
  
  You are unlikely to see real SEO benefit until after the first 3 months if it is a fairly new website.
  
  But trust me, SEO is far cheaper than PPC long term if you are working with the right person.
  
  1w
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  Rudolf Ladyzhenskii: Initial phase of SEO is always the most time-consuming one. It is very common for companies to spread this cost against minimum contract term. If this is your first month, then it is possible they still do their research, writing texts, preparing "plan of action". Although I would expect to see some output already, like site changes and Google ads campaigns setup.
  
  $1000/month including google ads is actually pretty good price!
  
  Also, SEO and ads are evolving process. After initial setup, there is no point to do this every day, except monitoring. Normally one would do some changes, then monitor the performance for a week or two, then tweak and so on. There is not set recipe one can follow. Each business/site is unique and it is always "trial and error"/"a-b testing" process.
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Thank you very much for your reply. Our google ads spend is on top of that. We have heard nothing at all from the person - the only thing they have done is link google ads account to us. I have done all the SEO and we are ranking number #1..this person is just doing tweks and adding a landing page etc. We also don`t have many competitors hence I dont know why this is taking so long for them to do anything - alot of the hard work was done by me. Thanks again for your reply, it was very helpful
  
  1w
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  Ash Nallawalla: Melissa Harv What do you mean by //I have done all the SEO and we are ranking number #1.//?
  
  I think this sounds like a contract where you will complain and they will make excuses and you will back off for a month. Next month, rinse and repeat. Eventually, you will cancel and they will have made some money from you.
  
  1w
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  Rudolf Ladyzhenskii: Melissa Harv What is the point of engaging SEO company in your case?As for Google Ads -- make sure you are an administrator/owner of the account. And do check the changes history. AdWords allows you to see history. Then you will know if anything was done
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Rudolf Ladyzhenskii Hey, hes connected it to his adwords account, so can I still see the changes?
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Rudolf Ladyzhenskii Hey, I did what you said and went into Google Ads. I was under `Configure Google Ads link group` and I accidently pressed link accounts (under my private email login) and now it says "What`s next? It may take up to 24 hours for your…
  
  1w
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  Rudolf Ladyzhenskii: Melissa Harv I do not think you did anything wrong. If I remember correctly, you linked your AdWords account and Google Analytics account.Now, most agencies insist on running customer ads under their own (agency) account. This means if you decide to move somewhere else, you will loose all access to your ads and history and will have to start from scratch. I would suggest talking to them and insist that you want to have your own AdWords and Analytics accounts and they will have access to it. This way, all data is yours.
  
  1w
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  Tim Capper: If this is a family business (as in local) I would have expected GMB and local ads to be running in the first week.
  
  On site would require audits, planning and possibly copy being prepared, so not really expecting to see anything on site itself.
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Tim Capper Thanks Tim, when is a reasonable time frame to expect the audits and planning by?
  
  1w
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  Tim Capper: I personally would have had a plan in place when finalising a start date. Two weeks max for a local business.
  
  1w
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  Robert Hildreth: There are things that need to be done weekly plain and simple. You should be given an idea of the process and updates on progress. For example we give a breakdown a monthly report and even 2 free months upfront because you can’t even see the progress for 2 months I can only tell you what we are doing. You can update the Google my business page and add pics which helps slightly to start though
  
  1w
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  Buth Main: It is a project management issue. Do you have a plan, milestones, goals, KPIs?I know that job takes time and many SEOs/marketers don`t like to do that (I hate that, this is why I work with a project manager). This is why there are three options: 1) you manage the project as a project owner 2) you hire a marketer who can handle a project manager`s job 3) you hire an agency and you pay for project management.Anyway, now it`d be better to talk to a marketer about these issues. He/she can be a good guy, who knows this job, but he/she doesn`t like project plans.
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Buth Main This is brillant thank you, Im going to email him tomorrow and get a milestone and plan in place. I thought it was weird tho the ads aren`t running from day 1 and the website has zero tweks, doesn`t take that long to log into a website and start adds a draft landing page etc..
  
  1w
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  Ash Nallawalla: Melissa Harv Ads cannot run from day 1. Depending on the relationship, the agency should show you the ads and campaign plan before going live.
  
  1w
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  Buth Main: Melissa Harv Running a simple ad in Google Ads takes 6-8 hours. But a good marketer should provide marketing research, audit landing pages. It takes several days. Then, as Ash Nallawalla wrote, a marketer set ad campaign. After that, you should review the ad campaign and approve it. I always begin my projects from a marketing audit. It helps me to understand the target audience, product/services and to create a marketing hypothesis/concept. It takes time, but I can`t misfire. Even if my hypothesis proved to be wrong, I can find issues and fix them.
  
  1w
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  Adeel Zafar: There should be detailed reporting every week that what they have done in week.
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Adeel Zafar thank you, im going to email tomorrow and ask for one
  
  1w
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  Adeel Zafar: Melissa Harv You can divide work like: > First they must do detailed market research & competitor analysis to understand the market.
  
  >2nd: They must provide a 3/6 month strategy which should explain what they are going to implement in the next months.
  
  >3rd step: do detailed keywords research
  
  >4th: fix technical things, i.e technical SEO, speed optimization etc
  
  5th: optimize content with right keywords
  
  6th: do onpage seo
  
  7th: keep building backlinks too continuously.
  
  Every SEO expert work does things differently but still, general things will be the same.
  
  Hopefully you will have a clear idea now that which things should be done.
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: Adeel Zafar Brilliant!!! Thank you so very much this is perfect
  
  1w
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  Alan Peter: Adeel Zafar most digital agencies I have worked at provided monthly reports. You could ask for weekly but expect the time to actually create the report to be costed in to your pricing, as it takes time. Unless already stated in your contract that you w…
  
  1w
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  Adeel Zafar: Alan Peter you are right. Everything should be according to contract. But still, its not take much time to just update client that which things they have done.
  
  1w
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  Alan Peter: Oh in reality it takes minutes yes, quick list and maybe direct people to data studio or whatever they use. But I am pretty sure most agencies would make that at least one hour chargeable work. And in the UK the minimum hourly rate for an agency is going to be at least 30-50 GBP per hour...at least...so a weekly report, unless agreed before, could be an extra couple of hundred quid on top of the 1k per month. I am not saying I agree with this approach, but just think that some agencies, or at least the ones I have worked in, would do this. One of the many reasons I decided to not work in SEO in the end
  
  1w
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  Richard Hearne: Adeel Zafar there should be weekly reporting on a month-to-month retainer?
  
  1w
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  Adeel Zafar: Richard Hearne The main thing is trust & understanding between client & freelancer/agency.
  
  But I think the client must have some idea too that what`s going on in a project. If not detailed reporting, there must be a quick update every week.
  
  1w
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  Richard Hearne: For $1, 000 p.m. retainer I don`t think most SEOs could justify spending so much time and effort sending over weekly updates. Sorry. YMMV.
  
  1w
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  Richard Hearne: Palin and simple - it sounds like expectations aren`t being managed.
  
  1w
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  Richie Rich-Moore: Local ads with $1, 000 budget? While doing SEO? While boosting gmb?
  
  1w
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  Richie Rich-Moore: A weekly report is insane
  
  1w
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  Melissa Harv: I being told its normal by 50% here, so which one is it? Its been 2 weeks and no report
  
  1w
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  Richie Rich-Moore: Melissa Harv Melissa Harv I’m not sure who your SEO company is. if they are reputable or not. We are hardworking and do reports every month upon request. Reports do take time. A good SEO charges 60-80 dollars per man hour. so, at 1000 a month you will or should receive 12–15-man hours a month dedicated to your campaign. If you require a report one per week, and it takes 1 hour a week to produce that report your limiting your productivity. If you had started this work with our company, you will know already, upfront what to expect as far as work completed, and what the blueprint of the process is. How did you find your SEO company? Where are they located? How much experience do they have? How were they trained? Did they show you examples of completed work that helped boost ranking? OR did they just pull up google rankings and say they are the party responsible for the top rankings in that specific serp? TBH I see that you have buyer’s remorse and I understand that. My question is this because of lack of trust? Because if it is… this Vender/Client relationship will never work out.
  
  1w
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  Dougie Silkstone: Melissa Harv 50% here are idiots (no offense guys, its true) that haven`t billed 1k usd in their life.
  
  Truth is youre paying a very small 1k retainer for work with no milestones, what do you expect?
  
  Go to an agency and for 1k they`ll stick the junior on it for 2 days a month and send you a data studio report to keep you quiet.
  
  6d
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  Tyler Dee: Many firms charge a minimum of 1k per month for ads alone but you get what you pay for. If you`re getting SEO and Ads for 1k per month, my guess is this person is desperate for work or very new to what they`re doing. In either case, it is ok to ask for a timeline with an itemized set of deliverables. The first portion of both jobs involves a lot of research and work that may not be readily visible. I would just establish a communication cadence and keep in mind that there probably aren`t many people who would take up comprehnsive ad and seo work for 1k per month.
  
  1w
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  David Morgan: I`d hate to be the guy that says this. It`s not the amount that`s the issue as it is the lack of results that you`re seeing.
  
  If you`re paying for ad work to be done, even if you have gotten no leads but a bunch of traffic then it`s for the most part working in a bare minimum way.
  
  And that would have been known before week 1 was up. The value behind adworks is that it`s nearly instant feedback.
  
  The apology here is you might of been robbed from folk who seen a easy way to take the candy.
  
  1w
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  Shane Richardson: We give a clear roadmap with deliverables and at the end of the month they get access to that including all the seo work done, or as much as we can share.
  
  Reporting is 1x per month. Weekly is just an overkill and is like watching your chicken bake thi…
  
  6d
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  Cozma Dan: Melissa Harv You hired an SEO guy and expect ads, project management, lots of work done and high traffic in his first 2 weeks.Based on the size of your business, 2 weeks would take to learn about your business if you don`t know anything about it and find ways to grow.You don`t want to formulate any strategies and plans in the first day.Google ads take also time. In some cases you have to wait for Google to deliver bit by bit - you can`t push them.Google ads performance should be assessed in about 2-3 weeks from start.You pay $1, 000 for a one-man-band and expect results like you employed a team.For this amount and his time allocated to your business, 2 weeks might take the research only.Again, it depends on your business, niche, size etc. Communication is key, good luck!
  
  6d
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  Wendy Hwang: Cozma Dan agreed. And since the pay is what is is for the scope, it’s likely he has other clients and has to fit you into his pipeline. This is again just pointing out the difference of outsourcing vs in-house hiring and execution plans. Instead of growing resentment, communicate with him. Ask what milestones and timelines you should expect from him and his process. Express you expect to have clear communication. This is all just part of the early relationship building stages
  
  6d
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  Jordan Pearce: Fire them
  
  5d
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  Jordan Pearce: “Audits” are the lazy and unqualified SEOs excuse to delay shit. Find someone else
  
  5d
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  Adam Bauer: We set proper expectations. Our SEO agreements give us the first two weeks of each month to complete half of the work for the month and then wrap it up the second two weeks. It’s just the way we’ve been able to organize the work. We also run all client reports the first five days of every month, no matter when the agreement starts.
  
  Our PPC is on a very different schedule…
  
  5d
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  Rob Wells: It`s been only two weeks? Try 4 months to 6 months
  
  4d
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  Oliver Oskar: 1k? Lol. Dont hire at such a rate for all your services listed
  
  4d