Not all website clients play ball the way that they should, the following conversation between an ex-website client and a website design company demonstrate when the client tries to ‘hoodwink’ the website design company by denying that they completed the required work on the site. This situation rarely happens and is avoided if a clear project plan is created / agreed upon and adhered to. Staged payments at agreed milestones ensure tbat both parties (website client and website design company) get exactly what they want and get it on time. There is always the chance a website project can turn out bad and there will always be ‘bad’ people that refuse to pay for work completed but luckily those type of people normally dont stay in business long. The moral of the story is dont upset your website design company as they are normally (at least in our case) expert at SEO and know the ways the search engines work in your favour or how they can work against you. The following exchange happened after an invoice was re-sent to a client after no-reply was received for 2 months.
[website client] What have you done on our web site? You haven’t accessed it since at least 5 months, Which fees are outstanding and what are you doing for the website? How can you do SEO without having access to the website? SEO is about optimizing words and phrasing or thats. at least what I thought
[website designers] The Website Project we completed was for a full site rewrite and SEO program, you had paid for the site rewrite but not the SEO program, we have already optimised every one of your 500+ pages for the search engines. I priced this work just to break even and not to make any money from you as you were talking about doing multiple other websites and wanted to do these with you. Think you should agree you got a massive amount of work from us for such a little money. Now I would you to complete your side of the agreement and make a like a fair payment for our work.
Yes we can do some more on-site work as there are some more tweaks and fixes that have been required since you changed the access details and we are willing to do that but that is only a days work. The vast majority of the work is done on your site. and the proof is in your visitor number / ranking increases.
We have improved your ranking and visitor numbers substantially and have before, during and after reports of this, I have a ranking reports to show the progress and your visitor numbers have trebled in the last year alone.
I hope we can finish this program and that both of us can go away happy from it, just to restate that we have done the vast majority of the work already and only need 1 day to finish the work, if you do not want us to complete this work I can reduce the invoice by two hours work (£50) and give you a list of things that need finishing and let you pay the remaining money and we can finish up with this project. I would like you to pay the outstanding money and for us to finish work on the site to complete this ‘long’ project that has shown many improvements for your site in terms of website visitors and increased enquiries directly from the website.
[website client] How can you do anything one the web site when you don’t even have access to the website? SEO is about optimizing pages? You said you would create a web site for us and at the end you produces 10pages and I did all the rest.
[website designers] The pages were optimised (each and every one of them!) and your improvement in rankings show this, we spend many many hours creating your website and optimising every single page and for you to say we done 10 pages is just stupid.
I certainly am not joking about this, you need to review all emails and work we have done and see where you site is now compared with where it was before we started work, we only want what is fair here and if you dont want us to complete the work, as stated below, we will accept a lower figure and give you a list of whats needed extra onsite. Your comment about us doing 10 pages is really pathetic and expected more of you. If you dont intend paying for our work we need to know now.
Your refusal to answer my emails, pay the outstanding balance and suggest that we didn’t complete our work on your site has left me in a very awkward position. You have pushed us to give you one last chance to pay, I suggest you pay today as we have just noticed that on our site is something that you originally had on there from your original website build that we have found to be IP Protected / copyrighted that you have been using on your site for the last year, you have 3 days to pay the outstanding balance if you do not then I will report this to the IP holder. Even at this stage if you find and remove what you need to I have taken a copy and backup of your site, the copy I have taken is classed as ‘evidence and / or proof’ of your illegal use of the IP / copyright. The IP holder ‘will’ ensure they collect their payment of you which I have found out will be £1900 (or local equivalent) plus legal costs.
I really hope you take this seriously and sorry you have decided to treat a ‘friend’ and valuable business relationship like this, we have done so much for your company and website and now when you look at its rankings compared with 2 years ago you have made massive gains interms of search engine rankings.
Once you pay the balance I can tell you what you have got illegally on your site so you can remove it.
I will send a paypal invoice or you can pay via the bank (details below) which I expect to be paid (this will be minus the £50 which covers the 2 hours work we need to do on your site but cannot as you changed access details)
[Website client] Why you never reply to what did you do on the SEO. I can come and visit you to sort this out. Please don’t play around with me, our business needs the website to work correctly and to attract customers. Please tell me what you have done with no access to the website. Its strange that you never reply to this? Why did I do 90% of the pages when you where supposed to do them?
This email was also forwarded to my lawyer inLondon and he will contact you soon about this.
[website design company] Regarding SEO I have optimised all pages and have a full report ready for you once you pay your outstanding balance. I have replied to all your emails.
And dont think for a second that I am one bit worried about your lawyer. We have completely and professionally dealt with you and your website project. It’s you that has left me with no payment for the work we have carried out. I have full details of what we agreed and what we have done.
You have the option to pay your outstanding balance and the details are below, your choice is simple pay the outstanding balance or not, you have 3 days.
