How to Say "Your Site Sucks" Nicely

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News Source: http://www.usereffect.com
Published: Feb 26, 2008 - 08:28 am
Story Found By: annie7 1549 Days ago
Category: SEM

No matter what your area of expertise, there comes a time in every web developers life when you have to tell a client that their site, to put it plainly, sucks.

14 Comments

Comments

from pietkruger 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Great Post , Thanks!

from PocketSEO 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

This is a constant issue. It’s good to have some online resource to point the client to, like "Top 10 mistakes in Web design".

from JohnWeb 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

I still like to refer to the MSSA penalty, it takes the edge off, but gets the point across and opens the door for conversation.

from mvandemar 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 3

Wait... what’s wrong with simply saying "Your site sucks" again...?:)

from Halfdeck 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

For some, the game is still how to make as much money as you can with the crappiest website you can get away with. When I say "your site sucks", I still expect to hear "but this guy is ranking above me with a crappier website, so why can’t I?" For these folks, improving a site is their last resort. "Improving content" often doesn’t mean writing a cool article; instead it means tweaking page layout, TITLE, and keyword density to make it more "SEO-friendly." The main incentive is to spend as little time/money as possible to make that sale.

from BrickMarketing 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Ah, very good blog. It is certainly a sore spot for some clients. We know that telling them that any previous work that was put in for their business’ online presence was all done in vain is a bit too forward so there’s certainly "nicer" ways to put it. Good post!

from whojaybe 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

LOL! I may have to use some of these techniques! Thanks!

from DrPete 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Thanks, Ann. I didn’t even notice this one made it on Sphinn. I tried to take 11 years of venting at clients and turn it into something useful.@BrickMarketing: That’s always the hardest, when you know a client has already spent thousands of dollars (or tens of thousands) and gotten nothing for it. I hated those situations where we’d hear "We really like you guys, but we already spent our $25K budget on some idiot so now we’d like you to do the same amount of work for $2,000".

from bwelford 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Good article on a difficult topic. Perhaps if you can get the client to talk about their goals for the website, they may reveal their own dissatisfactions with how it’s doing. You can then make suggestions on topics they’ve introduced.

from wrock 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Great Post... ThxThe article had some great reading and a few comments stuck out in my mind such as on in particular from andymurd"A good way of saying "your site sucks" is to compile uncontestable statistics, for example:* Your site has an average of 2.3 H1 tags per page* 30% of your pages have no meta description* You post to your blog once per day but it’s RSS feed is a week old* Your landing page takes 8 seconds to loadWhen you’ve got a few statistics like that, it’s easy to offer solutions."Sticking to business and key topics such as research findings on their website is a great example. I like to be very prepared before I approach a meeting with a client about their website. Starting Point: 1. Establish Relationship with Client (Find Goals) ** What is the purpose of their website is it to be only used as a portfolio or do they sell a product or service that they are trying to increase lead generation or product sales. 2. How long have they had the site, normally I have this data by looking at the WHOIS data, but it breaks the ice. 3. What have they currently done to their website? Examples being: - Do they have in-house designers?- Have they worked with a Search Engine Marketer in the past?- Do they know their current daily & monthly traffic trends?- Do they use Google Adwords or any other PPC CAMPAIGN? 4. I normally also run a few reports to get prepared for the meeting such as walking through their site at a top level. - I look for many things such as title tags, content, flash, redirects, server speed, spelling errors, back links, outbound links, top level rankings, and run spider simulators through the website to see how a normal search engine robot would view the site. - I normally spend about 1hr on the review before I can really give an accurate answer about a website. The worst think I think you can do is to go into a meeting and guess, about a company’s website vs. just spending a small amount of time to see if there is anything that needs to be done or that can be done to improve the company’s bottom line. One thing to be think about is when you have all of this data and start pushing numbers at the executive of a corporation be prepared to backup your reports. Normally starting out with a high level executive summary is what I like to prepare for the top of the document. Also I like to have the company website on the projector so they can see what we are discussing step by step of the report.

from annie7 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@DrPete: you are more than welcome!@wrock: very good points:Establish Relationship with Client (Find Goals)

from isabella 1549 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Pete & Annie- Thank you both for a great post! It’s always nice to read one with humor now and then. I am new to Sphinn & blogs like this will keep me & my team coming back! Regards, Isabella 760 Media

from DrPete 1548 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Wow, 45 Sphinns. Thanks, everyone. The number of beers I owe the SEO community at this point would easily intoxicate a small country. Unless, of course, that country were populated entirely by SEOs, in which case they’d only have a mild buzz and could still get up at 6am the next morning to go to a conference.

from crazycat 1548 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Good ways to say it nicely. When I’m in a forum discussing site reviews, there are others that don’t keep their comments ot themselves and say what they want. It’s better that we suggest or give resources.

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