This might be my last SEO contract

[bedede]

Depending on client's feedback this might be my last contract.

I convinced a client to handle his SEO. His website have +20 million pages. Long tail keywords are targeted. He wants me to come up with a strategy to get visitors from those long tail keywords or he wants me to find him a reliable SEO agency. However, I'm having difficulties at both options.

He doesn't want to spend more than $1000 monthly and he wants to reach "15,000 daily traffic" in 6 months safely.

Because he cares about his safety a lot, I'm planning to build all natural social profiles, do guest posting, custom link acquisition and viral content generation.

Do you recommend any methods to rank long tails? Any other advice?

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Details:

Why so many pages:
Site has over 1 million articles and +20 million article listing pages.
Article listing pages are actually combinations of categories (long tail keywords are here).
Some article listing pages have pagination, up to 200 pages.

Content:
Each article listing pages display articles in a "unique and relevant" way with an algorithm. It's like Joe says "auto-generated content generated from a unique database he owns"

On page seo:
The on page optimization is actually good.

15,000 hits:
The site have at least 2 million pages dedicated to kwd phrases with "very low competition". So let's say %1 of them are ranked and they are getting 5 clicks/mo on average. 2,000,000*(5 click/mo)*0.01 = 3333 visitors/day.


About the client:
I choosed to work with him because in the country I live cost of living is much lower than US and he is a local client. If he see real results he will bring me much more customers by his connections. I told him the budget is too low repeatedly but he won't increase it.

 

[NameHere]

You say onpage SEO is already good? Silo the pages, PBN (that you make, not rent) to get some juice going..?

That isn't professional advice, just speculative suggestion.

 

[arganrecords]

I think a project is not exactly easy, considering a mole that big of low-quality content.

So you've to be good in Seo and make right things. Make guest posting isn't easy because you've to choose the best blog/sites with good Trust Rank, and you can't see this data from numbers but from experience.

You plan it's good but have you thinked about get helped from some Seo agency? I don't know what's your level of experience but seems it's too big work for you.

 

[popcrdom29]

I agree with the above poster, this job will be much too big for one person to handle. With over 20m pages and keywords, there will be an enormous amount of work to be done. An agency would be his best bet but with that amount of work I don't think an agency will do it for $1k a month. I know I wouldn't. In my opinion, you're looking at at-least $5k per month of work.

So you have some decisions to make - accept the job for extremely low pay and possibly not meet his expectations or pass it off to an agency who will probably charge him much more.

Good luck.

 

[Stevoid]

The amount of KWs and long-tails that you need to target here is insane... and the client's budget is far too low. You need to raise your price not only for your own financials, but also to show the quality of your service to the client. He's selling you short and doesn't value your skills.

 

[justanotherkid]

I think you'd be better off signing with smaller, more reasonable companies because even though you're making a small profit.... the amount of labor could be spent elsewhere to make a much higher profit

If you're willing to do that much work op why don't you just make your own sites because 1k/month is earn able with adsense I think

 

[ThopHayt]

He wants 15,000 daily for under $1,000 lol? What is his current traffic, this client might be an idiot. Deal with idiots by setting their expectations correct FIRST, then work on SEO.

 

[LostConnection]

For that price I wouldn't even touch that kind of a project... That amount of work is massive, and as someone already mentioned, the pricte tag when an agency would do this would be over 5k.

Besides, he is a clear idiot for setting a target that high with a budget that is not even a quarter of a proper(ish) budget for something like this.

 

[b1step-ahead]

1k a month to produce 450k visits a month, that's 0.002 cpc. Most legit agencies that care about their rep prob wouldn't take this job. What's the traffic now? If you want safe growth like you mentioned a 5-7 % per month growth is a safe target. Seems to be a bad deal.

 

[DarthGambino]

Here's a suggestion; Call a few agencies, get a free estimate from them for the work that needs to be done. Now take those 6k+ estimates to him, tell him this is what he's looking at, hit him over the head with the price, and how no agency will do it for less, end of story. Look him directly in the eyes and let him know how serious you are.

NOW tell him that YOU can do it, and for HALF the cost! No one is going to be willing to do that kind of work for 1k, but you can be his savior for only 3k, half of what agencies will charge. YOU are in control, you have to know it & show it. If he then won't shake your hand, easy choice; walk out.

Hope this helps. Good luck hope you land it

 

[DarthGambino]

Any updates? Did you land the contract mate?

 

[Zwielicht]

1k a month to produce 450k visits a month, that's 0.002 cpc. Most legit agencies that care about their rep prob wouldn't take this job. What's the traffic now? If you want safe growth like you mentioned a 5-7 % per month growth is a safe target. Seems to be a bad deal.

I was thinking about this as I was reading his post, too. It seems like the client is taking advantage of him or the client doesn't understand that a budget that small will not produce the results he desires.

OP, you can either do what DarthGambino said and show him what other agencies charge to show the client that he's getting a deal, or you can just refuse to work with this client entirely and transfer him to another agency. I would personally drop the client since I've dealt with clients like that in the past and they're more problematic than they're worth. If you do not provide him with his fanciful results, he'll most likely begin searching for another SEO agency on his own without telling you.