Questions for New SEO Clients
When you are developing a SEO Strategy for a new SEO client, there is a lot of information you will want to gather from them quickly and thoroughly so that you can direct your work most effectively. So, what are the most important questions to ask? This depends on the information you want to gather. In our experience, the information that is most essential can be summed up in the following categories:
- Implementation
- Access
- Strategy
- Goals and Objectives
- Challenges
- Team
Implementation: No matter how thorough your work is, your client won’t get their expected results if they don’t have the capacity to implement your recommendations. Make sure you ask specifically about implementation plans, such as: do they have the resources to make the changes you recommend to their site? Who is responsible for what parts of the implementation strategy? How will tickets be assigned and tracked? Where should core documents and data be stored?
Access: You will need access to data in order to develop your SEO strategy, and you want to make sure you can get that access from the get-go. Make sure you know what information and data you need access to, and make specific requests for this access. Do they have an existing or past SEO strategy that you can review? How do you access their analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics? Do they have a content calendar you can access and review? What other data is available, and what are they currently implementing?
Goals and Objectives: Make sure that you have a very clear understanding from the client of what their expectations are from the SEO process, and how they expect to measure success. How will the client determine whether or not you are successful? Do they care about increased traffic, search rankings, conversions, or gross revenue? You want to ensure that you and the client are in agreement about how success will be measured and what your targets are.
Strategy: You and the client are going to collaboratively develop a strategy to improve their SEO, so you want to develop a plan that will work for them and will meet their needs. It’s an excellent idea to ask questions about their past SEO strategies or agencies: what about their existing or past processes is working and should be retained? What do they want to change? You also want to have them think about the keywords you will emphasize in your SEO Services, and make sure you are in agreement about what their top keywords are. Also, gather information about your client’s target audience and top competitors, so you can review those competitors for valuable information.
Challenges: It’s important to know what challenges you may face in this process so that you can account and correct for them. For example, is the company’s website running on a platform that isn’t ideal for their SEO goals? Does content have to be approved at multiple steps before it can go live?
Team: Finally, get to know who is working on the company’s end of the project and what their roles and responsibilities are. Your SEO work will go more smoothly if you are able to collaborate effectively with the right people at the needed time, and who you can contact when questions come up.
Developing a relationship with a new SEO client can take some time, but you can make that process as painless as possible by being organized in your approach. One you have that relationship built, your job will go smoothly.
