Having an online business and ignoring the significance of search engine optimization means leading towards failure. SEO agencies face tough situation when it comes to dealing with the tough clients who don’t understand the whole process and expect results over the night. Despite that fact, SEO agencies need to be careful about the project setup in order to make that a big hit at search engines and a great support for your portfolio.
Breaking The Cycle Of Sadness
You might have encountered SEO clients with more expectations, less budget and less time to deliver the top quality results, and you are wholly solely responsible for the project; the cycle of sadness surrounds you all around. How to break that cycle of sadness? Here are the simple ways to do that!
- > Ask more questions from the client to get a clear picture of the project.
- > Ask the client’s work examples (content, PR, outreach relationship) to know their definition of excellence.
- > Know and prioritize the opportunities by a quick sample audit of client’s site.
- > Ask an expert colleague to crosscheck your numbers and hours for the project delivery depending on the nature of the project.
- > Keep all the project details documented and centralized. Clean up the data and keep it easy to find and easy to read.
- > Inform the client about things you aren’t comfortable to do.
- > Be personable in your responses to client’s queries and add a touch of humor in communication to get an open response from the other side.
- > Be professional while dealing with the client.
- > Be effective in your strategy, timeline, and project delivery.
- > Be helpful by staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and strategies used in the SEO world.
- > Be transparent and feel comfortable while sharing bad news with the clients.
- > Be practical despite having various tasks down the list.
Defining The Project KPIs And ROI
Primary business objectives are first to be defined along with the terminology used for description. Ask about their primary marketing metrics and their link to the primary business objectives. Soft ROI metrics include mitigating risk, hiring and training employees, providing data for the new strategy, all constituting ROI, but the impact is difficult to measure.
Getting Started With An SEO Project - What SEOs Have To Do?
- > Get full project brief before signing the contract.
- > Get budget to do preliminary research before starting the project.
- > Define few topic points to build credibility and show how prepared you are for the project.
- > Ask in depth questions, instead of just the surface ones. Also, take notes.
- > Define the next steps you will take along with the date when you are going to deliver the detailed project plan.
Retaining The SEO Clients
Here are the things mentioned to increase the client retention rate:
- > Do research at the start to know that you are at right track.
- > Define clear roadmap for the project that both parties agree on.
- > Built out for 3-6 months should be there to ensure what you will provide to the client over the time.
- > Get quarterly reviews from the client in the areas of account management, project management, communication, output, and satisfaction level.
- > Keep an eye on the things changed in the client company.
- > Keep the tracking and measuring process simple for the client.
- > You should build stronger relationships with the organization’s stakeholders.
- > Go for the things that make the relationship stronger with the clients, enhance the work value, and make the project better.
Talking To The CEO About Big Budget Needs
Inform them through email what kind of budget requirements you have for their project. If it’s face-to-face meeting, then use slide presentation to express new ideas in front of the executives.
Determining Whether A Client Is Right Or Not
To know this, better to have a first call with the client for a minimum of 30 minutes. Make it sure that following of things you have cleared during that call to have a better understanding of the client business.
- > URL of the client’s domain
- > Quickly review their site to know the SEO level
- > Brief history of the client’s company
- > Look at the PR or news section of the site
- > Know your role in the company
- > Since how long the executive is there in the company
- > What is the main need behind going for SEO services now?
- > The kind of work previous SEO companies have done for the client
- > The reason behind switching to new SEO agency
- > The count of SEO agencies previously hired
- > Expectations from the new SEO agency regarding work and results
Refusing The Project That’s Not Right For You
If you accept any project that’s not right for you, all it will result in an unhappy client. It will also lead to money wasting and disgruntled employees, finally affecting the company culture. So, if you understand that the project isn’t right for you, don’t feel hesitated in refusing that. However, never refuse in a way that the client couldn’t come back to you; instead leave an open door in the communication.
Conclusion
While signing on a new client, it’s more like creating a new contract. Keep an eye on the changing expectations of the SEO clients, so that the results could be stunning. Considering all of the points mentioned above, you could make your SEO project selection much better and to make the project success a possible dream for the client.
About the Author: Emma Johns, writer of the post, is from Dundee, UK. She is currently working with a firm that caters to the SEO Dundee needs of the local clients. The major fields of her writing interest include all forms of internet marketing, with focus on the latest trends in SEO and SMM.
