‘It’s ridiculous’: Tradie pays $20,000 to SEO firm, website gets four views per month and zero sales
A tradie who paid nearly $20,000 for a new website has slammed the “ridiculous” situation after getting just four views per month.
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A Victorian tradie who paid an award-winning digital marketing firm nearly $20,000 only to receive zero leads and just four visits per month to his website has slammed the “ridiculous” situation.
Jason Rainsforth from Dependant Electrical in Melbourne’s south-east signed on with Supple Digital in August 2023 for a 24-month contract, which included a new website and SEO marketing with “40 location-based keywords”.
The 32-year-old had just hired a new electrician to his small team and “had the cashflow to invest in some SEO”.
But after nearly a year Mr Rainsforth not only had received no leads through his website, but his Google rankings had “actually gone down”.
“This month was four views, the highest we’ve had was 14,” he said. “We’re paying over $1000 a month. It seems ridiculous for something that’s just not working.”
Mr Rainsforth pays $1150 per month, bringing the total to nearly $20,000 to date.
Last July he requested Supple Digital review the website and SEO strategy to fix the issues — only to be asked to “purchase more keywords from us for an extra $500 a month”.
“We had a Zoom meeting … it’s hard, I don’t really talk the language — I’m an electrician, I’m not an SEO strategist,” he said.
“It hasn’t changed since then. I was definitely shocked to see we weren’t even on the first page of Google.”
When Mr Rainsforth this month finally asked to simply cut ties and exit the contract early, Supple Digital requested he pay out at least 50 per cent of the remaining fee.
“It’s just disappointing,” he said.
“I do understand there are a lot of electricians in Melbourne, a lot of plumbers, not everyone can be at the top. But for us to go down in the rankings, I just feel ripped off, stuck that I can’t get out of the contract.”
Dependant Electrical turns over about $20,000 per month, meaning SEO marketing now accounts for a significant chunk of his expenses.
“It has been hard for us,” Mr Rainsforth said.
“I feel like it’s quite a substantial amount to pay for us to go down in the rankings. It’s the most I’ve paid for SEO.”
About 90-95 per cent of his business is from referrals through Beacon Lighting, with the rest coming via word-of-mouth.
“We wanted to future-proof [the business with SEO marketing], we’d like to get busier and put on another electrician,” he said.
While Mr Rainsforth acknowledged the contract with Supple Digital did not guarantee results, at the time he came on board he was provided examples of other clients who had “gotten great results in the recent past”.
One Melbourne plumber had seen their website traffic increase “from five visitors to over 700 visitors per month” and was ranked “on the first page of Google” for a number of keywords, a Supple Digital representative wrote in an email.
“Please see ‘cheap plumber near me’ keyword — he is ranking on page one in the questions section because of the SEO content,” they added.
Supple Digital did not respond to requests for comment.
“The bottom line is the relationship is not working,” said consumer advocate Adam Glezer from Consumer Champion, who is representing Mr Rainsforth.
“The prime objective of Jason’s SEO marketing campaign was to increase business but he has not been getting results. Close to $20,000 later, he is still unaware of any leads he has generated over the last 17 months.”
Mr Glezer said businesses “should always be putting their client’s interests first”.
“In too many situations, the number one objective appears to be getting every cent they can rather than doing what’s in the client’s best interest,” he said.
“Common sense should prevail in situations like this. $20,000 over a year-and-a-half is a significant cost to a small business. If the expenditure is not generating results, it can have a huge impact on cash flow.”
Supple Digital, founded in 2012 by university friends Nishant Shah and Hardy Desai, has been recognised in The Australian Financial Review’s fastest growing companies list, the Deloitte Tech Fast 50 and the Optus MyBusiness Awards.
“We are all about empowering business owners to take charge of their own online presence,” Mr Desai told The Daily Mail in 2017.
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) receives around 80 disputes a year related to digital marketing and other services providers.
Ombudsman Bruce Billson said research commissioned by ASBFEO found around one third of small businesses have had a dispute with their digital marketing services provider and nearly three quarters lasted fewer than 12 months in the relationship.
A lack of digital literacy among small business owners “prevented them from proactively asking relevant questions about the services being provided by digital marketing service providers”, the research found.
“Half of small businesses said that their providers pushed them to buy expensive and irrelevant services, often with exaggerated claims about promised sales boosts, with the contracts making no mention of these ‘talked about’ outcomes and [tending] to focus on expected activities,” Mr Billson said.
Originally published as ‘It’s ridiculous’: Tradie pays $20,000 to SEO firm, website gets four views per month and zero sales
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