I had a client complain recently that we expected them to have too much involvement in the optimization process. What all did we ask of them? To look over the keyword research we performed and tell us if they approved of the information we gathered as well as our recommendations. They simply needed to look at our analysis and tell us if we got anything wrong (irrelevant keywords, etc), or if everything looks good and we can go forward. That’s it.
Because they didn’t want to be involved in the process it took us THREE months to get through the keyword research phase of their campaign. Funnily enough, instead of complaining about the process and level of involvement required, they could have simply responded with, “Everything looks good.” Those three words would have allowed us to get through the five phase keyword research in a few days rather than months.
I hate to say it (well, not really, but it always sounds good o put it that way), but we don’t own our clients. We do the prep work, lay out the course and even implement the strategies, but the final decision of what is or isn’t to be done always lies with the client. Had we gone forward targeting words the believed to be irrelevant, I imagine that they would complained about that and told us we should have consulted them first.
Oh well, everybody needs a scape goat!