Help: Company Working Against Themselves

I was hired early this year to help improve on/off-page SEO and social media marketing for a local business. They have zero knowledge about anything to do with SEO and websites.

They use the original Wix editor, with over 1500 products on their store. When I started, all product descriptions had duplicate content, no meta descriptions, intense keyword stuffing on the homepage and worst of all, literally no budget for marketing - other than $20 here and there (rarely) to spend on Facebook ads.

I have worked on several ideas to help UI on our website, such as interactive filters, etc. All of my ideas have been shut down, they don't want to switch platforms and I end up paying out of my own pocket to market our products and our SEO campaign.

When I started, they hired a local SEO agency for backlinking, in turn, they were exposed to a very visible PBN (not identified by Google, as of yet). Giving us duplicate backlink profiles as other local companies that used the same agency.

Now for the help from you.

How do I get them to understand their website isn't going to sustain itself by incorporating bad practices? Our competitors use updated websites that pass core web vitals, but their website has been the exact same for 7 years without any major change and no maintenance, other than when I started.

They admit they don't know anything about SEO, but when I make a suggestion like switching to another website-building platform or simply implementing a tool to help customer conversions, they shut me down.

I end up paying out of my own pocket to market our products on different platforms and starting our own SEO campaign in fear of losing my job because they don't want to make any changes. I love my job, it's what I want to do, but I can't help someone who can't help themselves.

They own a network a websites that they tried to manipulate ranking for their 'money site'. For example:
- Site A (.com) is the main site
- Site B (.xx) is a local site for products only served locally. (same brand name as Site A)
- Site C (.xxxxx) is a catalogue website that has no products, but directs users to Site A, (I made sure to add n0follow)
- Site D (.xx) is another site that is marketed for same niche but different models, same products on Site A.

They don't use VPNs and all websites are under the same GSC and GA account.

I know this is a lot of information to take in - but I'm hoping someone can help motivate me in ways to conquer this issue of mine.

kudos for your dedication and going above and beyond with your own pocket money for marketing.when it comes to convincing them, maybe try a soft approach. Share success stories of businesses that revamped their sites and saw major improvements.

Just leave and start your own website and do things alone.

I have no idea why you are with these people... If they have been in this business for years and are not even interested to learn marketing or SEO at least the very basic fundamentals then they likely don't care.. I mean how many other options are there?

I'd just leave and start on my own.. they provide no value to you so why you are carrying this baggage with you?

Here are a few things I learned after I had a few of these toxic clients:

You are hired for your expertise. If a client wants to keep doing their own thing and ignore your advice, it will blow up in their face, but you'll have to clean it up. When you do fire them eventually, they will only have bad things to say about you, and they'll blame you for every bad thing that happened and for lack of results.

Take your healthy head out of this sick bed, and the earlier the better.

OP I read the first half of your post and came to the conclusion that you should dump that client immediately.

Just one question: are you an employee of this company or are you an external service provider?

Alpha1404 said:

Just one question: are you an employee of this company or are you an external service provider?

Click to expand...

For context, I am a full-time employee, I was just about to make a comment on this and you replied.

Amongst SEO and marketing, I was hired to also do their graphic design, filming and photography, etc.

So unfortunately, I can't just drop them - I'd be quitting and I got newborn twin boys to look after, lol.

prebillionaire said:

For context, I am a full-time employee, I was just about to make a comment on this and you replied.

Amongst SEO and marketing, I was hired to also do their graphic design, filming and photography, etc.

So unfortunately, I can't just drop them - I'd be quitting and I got newborn twin boys to look after, lol.

Click to expand...

You should start looking for another job. You can't pay for your company's marketing budget out of your own pocket.

The fact that they hired you to do so many different things, and especially things that require such different skill sets just show how low they prioritize your role.

You can't tech them common sense, they're going down, and when they crash you want to have good job at a company that values you.

Especially if you have twins on the way. You must work in a place that has a future.

prebillionaire said:

For context, I am a full-time employee, I was just about to make a comment on this and you replied.

Amongst SEO and marketing, I was hired to also do their graphic design, filming and photography, etc.

So unfortunately, I can't just drop them - I'd be quitting and I got newborn twin boys to look after, lol.

Click to expand...

Short answer : I will say the same as @roydan : leave it.

Long answer :
As an employee, you don't have to pay the company's expenses out of your own pocket.

And as you say, your job description is as long as a day without bread. What kind of bullshit is that? It's like a job description for a start-up in France, you're asked to do so many things, without even listening to you or respecting you or paying you properly.

Nevertheless, as you have two little ones at home, I can imagine that the situation isn't easy.

So I'd recommend you start looking elsewhere, because they look really phony to me.

Meanwhile, you do your job "normally", you make recommendations, they don't listen to you and prefer to pay twice for the same service. But don't let it go to your head. Prepare your CV, go for interviews and so on.

Hang in there

So, in short, you're literally paying for their SEO and they even disagree to make your required changes for they own good?
Why would you even keep things that way, you shouldn't even agree to work with in the first place,

Just state that they will need a minimal estimate budget to pay for X, Y & Z as well as to pay you,
Keep things professional, direct and clear. If they refuse, just dump them and move on

Just leave! Even if you promote their website, they won’t take credit for it.