How Do People Find The Website?
Thursday, July 12th, 2007A client has recently opened his restaurant at the northern end of Australia’s Gold Coast.
It’s in a beautiful setting next to a conservation area placid lake and trees overlooking a spectacular golf course. The owner told me that his restaurant is the perfect location for breakfast lunch or dinner, with fantastic fresh European cuisine. Every Sunday apparently they provide the most fantastic breakfasts starting at 7am, and are open all day
You can sit and relax on their magnificent deck overlooking the Lake, Golf Course and their own special group of kangaroos.
We’ve started the website, and getting it linked in the search engines
Update
After a few weeks the website was getting excellent serach engine rankings, but the owner still had not paid his bill
As time went by, and we pushed for payment for the work that he had done, he kept on telling us that he would get around to it. We discussed a contra deal, and things started to look up. We were planning a Christmas Function. However, there were more pressing matters for the restaurant. First there was Fathers Day to prepare for. Then Indy was coming up at Surfers Paradise - it would be a huge weekend. Then the Melbourne Cup lunch - would it be on or off - Threatened by the equinine horse flu things were not looking good.
Latest Update
Finally it was getting very close to Christmas - and they still hadn’t come up with a price for our function. Anyway, [according to the client] the website wasn’t really bringing in much business for them, so he wasn’t in a real hurry to pay.
We could all see where this was going - that’s what happens when you try and help struggling businesses get going - they never get going enough to pay their bills. Since [in the clients words] the website wasn’t really making much difference to their business, we closed it down
Suddenly the phone was ringing, we were being sent strongly worded emails, and lawyers were being consulted.
“You can’t shut down our website - you can’t tell people the site has been suspended because the account hasn’t been paid!” Why not? Has the bill been paid? - No!!
Oh, Ok. Suddenly the website is worth something - to the extent of $7000 apparently. Well, pay the bill!
“I’ll pay the bill if you restore the website” Ok, so we did that. Then suddenly the website being closed was going to set back the restaurant $70,000 in lost business. “You’ve shut the website down at the busiest time of year - what are you doing? Trying to send us broke?”
Maybe we missed something here, because the bill still hasn’t been paid. But apparently the restaurant is looking at losing $70,000. If you were in that position, surely you’d beg, borrow, or do whatever you needed to do to come up with a few hundred bucks to restore your website, wouldn’t you?
The crazy thing is that all that work in achieving high search engine rankings, good traffic flow, and new leads for the restaurant, has been destroyed, because they won’t pay a lousy few hundred dollars.
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