Meeting a Potential SEO Client for the First Time
Ross Dempsey is the Head of Marketing for Glasgoweb, an SEO company in Glasgow who also offers web design, PPC and graphic design services across the UK. Ross’ particular expertise lies in SEO, PPC, Social Media and Analytics.
In this guest post Ross shares 10 tips for SEO agencies on how to put your best foot forward when meeting a potential SEO client for the first time:
Whenever we get a call regarding a potential new SEO project our team will always set up a meeting and we can almost guarantee that our new potential client has several meetings set up with other companies too. So how do you win that big SEO contract? There are no guarantees but here are our top 10 tips of how you should spend your time to get that new client.
1. Introduce Yourself and your company
First things first you need to provide a background of your company. While they will have been to your website it’s unlikely they will have read every page in great detail. You also need to divulge the experience in SEO that you personally have. We always send the person who would manage their account in the future and they will want to know their experience so that they can trust you with their SEO investment.
2. Let them know the benefits that improving SEO will bring
Many people don’t realize the benefits and potential customers that SEO can bring so it’s important to let them see the potential rewards. Take a few of the keywords you would want to target and use the AdWords keyword tool to show the amount of people that are searching for these terms. Ask how many search results they look at when using a search engine and how often they look beyond the first few results to allow them to see the potential traffic they are missing out on.
3. Show them where their competitors are in terms of SEO
Once you’ve got their attention and they’re beginning to think about the possibilities SEO can bring, you need to show where they are in comparison to their biggest competitors. Explain a few terms like domain authority and linking root domains; then show them how they compare and what the benchmark is. This allows them to see the amount of work you will need to do.
4. Discuss their on site optimization and website in general
Show them some on page grading’s of how their website pages are seen by the search engines for the keywords you should be targeting and let them know the changes that need to be made to allow the SEO to take off.
If their website is nowhere near as good as their competitors don’t avoid the topic, discuss this with them. We’re not trying to upsell our web design packages here, simply put if we are taking on a long term partnership with a client we want them to grow their sales and profits and be rewarded from us improving their online presence and their site needs to be good enough to do so.
5. Be Professional
This goes beyond turning up looking smart with your laptop and notepad. Many people have had someone working on their SEO before and think they have done a great job while you may know otherwise. Don’t belittle their former employees or your competitors that carried out the work, just show them the facts and allow them to make the realization themselves!
6. Show them some of the work you are doing for other clients and the success it has brought you
By showing them some of your work such as infographics, blog posts and the vital statistics of your current clients’ sites they will see the quality of your work and how your SEO has helped your other clients businesses. This gives them faith in your ability and allows them to realize if you’ve been successful with other clients, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be successful again with them.
7. Wow them with your knowledge
This doesn’t mean fry their brains with information overload of things they don’t understand. We find that there are many people that read one blog post on SEO and consider themselves an expert. Last week for example, I took a meeting and one of the guys tried to prove his knowledge of SEO because he’d read a post on SEOMoz about Panda Updates. I politely agreed and gave my point of view then went on to say that our team has posts featured on SEOMoz, he was suitably impressed and this may have been one of the deciding factors in them choosing us!
8. Carry out your research beforehand and have a rough price ready on the day
People ultimately always want to know the price of your services. Every project is different so it’s important to carry out research beforehand to give them a rough idea of price. You don’t want to put your team in a position where you’re struggling with your time to meet goals you set because you’ve pushed too hard to undercut your competitors and didn’t know how competitive the keywords were. Yes this price may change on the day as you find out more about their targets but it’s important to have something prepared when they ask about it.
9. Follow up with an in depth quote
It can be a lot for them to take in in one meeting so we find it useful to provide everything you have discussed in a quote along with the price. By providing a professional quote they can also see that you are for real and realize the amount they are paying you is going to be worth it.
10. Be Honest
This is the most important tip we can give, be honest with them. By doing so you will build up trust and a relationship. Don’t make promises that you can’t guarantee and make it known that there are no guarantees with SEO. That way when they have meetings with your competitors and are promised number 1 spot for every term they’ll know that they’re talking nonsense and that in fact, you’re the guys for the job!