Customer no pay money for SEO job

hey all,

Usually I charge a client SEO campaign per quarter basis. Of cause will get half payment upfront and balance will be collect later.

anyone face before client did not pay you or did not paying you the balance?

How you handle your client there after?

Assume you handle client domain DNS, handle client's GSC access.

What action will you take to make your client regret?

Well if you can stop the service just stop it and resume when the client has paid.

my first real job around 2009 was an seo technician. the owner was a bit of a nutter but for other reasons.

for all customers, he required ownership of the domain + server to even begin work.
had a simple contract saying we will deliver xyz things, ranking is not guaranteed, estimated timeframe, etc.
there was section in there saying if customer does not pay, we turn off the website until payment is made. when customers did not pay, he was very quick to turn everything off.
naturally every customer who did not pay, ended up paying immediately once they saw their site was turned off. couple people threatened with their lawyers but it never escalated further than threats. those guys all paid.

only reason i imagined he could get away with this is due to the contract. if you are in a litigious country i would be a little cautious. or going forward, modify your contract as needed.

i've seen many stories of customers not paying -- turning their website off really is your only recourse. what else can you do -- send it to collections, undo the work?

I always draw up a contract with the following information: 30% of the order price, penalties for late payment and commercial court jurisdiction.
In my country, commercial courts are not run by "real" magistrates, so disputes are settled much more quickly and at a much higher cost to bad payers. What's more, non-payment can be considered an emergency.