Client asked me to rank for 'best roofing in Denver' with a budget of $200

Last month a guy who runs a roofing company called me up. He wanted to be on page one of Google for 'best roofing in Denver' by tomorrow. I told him that keyword has like 5,000 monthly searches and the top results are all big national companies spending thousands a month on SEO. He said his budget was $200 total and he thought I was overcharging. I tried to explain that even a basic local SEO setup takes a few hours of work and that $200 barely covers one round of technical fixes. He got mad and said his nephew could do it on WordPress for free. Three weeks later he called back asking why his site wasn't ranking and if I could fix it for the same $200. Some people just think SEO is a magic button you press instead of actual work. Has anyone else had clients show up with budgets that small and expectations that big?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_fiona1mo ago

$200 total? I mean, that's not even gas money for driving to a site to take photos for a case study. His nephew must charge in pizza and high fives.

samk771mo ago

Must be nice, my nephew charges me in awkward silence and burnt toast.

laura_chen411mo agoTop Commenter

Idk, $200 for a whole case study seems pretty reasonable to me. @the_fiona is right that driving around and taking photos adds up quick. But honestly, my cousin paid me $150 once and I messed up the wifi setup so bad he still jokes about it. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather pay someone who won't burn the toast than save a few bucks.