[Baharra]

I have a client that I have proposed a complete redesign with a focus on 20 main pages for both rewritten copy and complete SEO. The entire site consists of 80 pages and is currently laid out with tables. I want to change the site to be laid out with CSS.

My client's main focus is on search engine rankings and beating his competitors in the rankings.

My original quote was in the $15,000 range.

He wants me to work inside a $3,000 budget.

Any ideas on what to do here? He has proposed that I focus completely on the homepage with a new design, copy and SEO and see how that goes while leaving the rest of the pages in the old layout. I think that's insane.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[seen.to]

Negotiate and if the client won't reach a price that you are happy with then wish them luck finding someone else and move on.

[luxbrand]

Explain to him that search engines are a lot smarter these days and will trawl through the entire site and rank it as a whole and not just the main landing page.

[KarateRobot]

Your expectations and his need to match up, otherwise it will be difficult to work together throughout the entire contract. Based just on what you've described, it sounds like he is the one who is being unreasonable, so if you can't bring him around to your way of thinking, I would politely decline the job.

[adras]

How long will everything take to complete?

[cjgraphix]

It's not even like those numbers are close. It would be one thing if clients budget was a bit closer to yours, but that's a 12k dollar difference.

Chances are the insanity would only continue through the entire process, so better to walk away now.

[andre08]

I went through the same 2 months ago, If you dont feel happy about doing it for 3,000 dollars and you think you might regret it I suggest you let is pass, that is what I did. Think of it like this, clients think that they can establish prices for the work but when they face someone who is confident of his/her capabilities and knowledge in the field and then receive a "NO, SORRY" as an answer, they will realise that what they are offering is irrelevant.

Worst case scenario the client goes with another designer and pays double or more for the same work based on his previous relationship with you and you can sleep happy knowing you kept your head up and said NO and at the same time helped the next victim (designer) get more money for sure!! as the client would not offer the same as he offered first round.

It is a chain reaction, the more rejections the client receives the higher the pay will get. My advice to designers is STAY TRUE, AND LEARN TO SAY NO.

Hope it helps! and wait, you'll get your chance to meet a reasonable client.

Andres.

[Agricola]

I wouldn't touch anything that had any kind of condition for a guaranteed search engine ranking, even if I spent weeks working on optimizing all the text on every page, so that sentence word and phrase to make Google have an orgasm there is no guarantee that Google will rate it high anyway.

If the client is say John SMith and a Solicitor in London then chances of a high page rating are slim, however if he calls himself MR Felix Oscar Swaddle Bottom who owns a company making erotic plaster cast statues of fairies on toadstools , chances are you can quite easily get a top 3 google placing.

Best you can do is just tell client you can create a google friendly (X)HTML page etc but the rest is up to google and no guarantees of position. Only time you can guarantee a ranking is if you pay Google lots of money to be listed as a sponsored link or whatever.

[sukino]

Frankly, first talk to him and justify the price you quoted. If he refuses to listen or agree, being such unreasonable person, you are much better off without this customer. It is pointless to waste too much effort for such a small payment.