Thoughts from an experienced SEO Consultant.
First impressions and all that…
We obviously get a lot of contact with business owners and marketing managers. Through this contact I am able to say that they tend to fall in to two categories when it comes to SEO and this tends to set the flavour of the meeting – but not the outcome.
You get those who …
Hands in the air – have to admit I know nothing about SEO
Then you get those who…
Waffle on about this and that throwing in the odd mention of tags and links
The former are great as they allow you to present the facts – often they actually know a little about SEO but had the respect to realise that they probably don’t know as much as the person they are talking to. In the same way that I would never be to disrespectful to imply that I know all about a clients business or profession.
The latter present a real problem as you have to sit and wait for the opportunity to try and inject some real facts in to the conversation whilst not actually telling the person that they are talking a load of c**p.
I guess that the above is just down to the character of the person you are dealing with.
OK so what’s the big deal you say and how does this help my business?
Well in thinking about the above two scenarios I started to realise that it is better to try and put them into two different categories and structure the meeting accordingly.
1) Those who have previously tried some form of SEO for their Business
and
2) Those who have never tried SEO of any form but have heard that it is time consuming and expensive
So this is the first meeting between the business owner or representative and me the SEO Consultant.
The business owner has given up some time to to allow me to present my offer.
I have probably spent some time trying to get to this point – it’s my only opportunity.
The business owner falls into either category 1 or 2 above – in either case they will have a bad view of SEO – so we are starting from a difficult position. Agh you say what about those who have tried SEO and seen success? Well I only talk to those who I can see will benefit from my SEO Business Services so it won’t be an issue.
Taking each category in turn.
1) Have tried SEO before without much success
Here we have to understand why their previous SEO failed (in general terms) and then convince the Business owner as to why our approach is different. In most cases it is obvious that there was little strategy to the previous work. SEO isn’t just about trying to rank on page 1 for various keyword phrases. It is all about getting traffic to your website that converts to business or sales. The latter is key. We ensure success by increasing traffic to the important pages and monitoring how well it converts – conversion is key.
The aim of the discussion is to steer away from talking about SEO techniques and move towards discussing the value of a customer or sale in real terms. Without this basic understanding it is impossible for a good SEO consultant to be able to say whether it is worth doing serious SEO for a client. – If this is the conclusion then the proposal is likely to be for a one off optimisation task to make sure the site is working at its best.
2) Have never tried SEO for Business
Here we are starting from the position of having to convince/prove to the business owner that SEO would provide benefit to the business. The conversation again has to move from discussing how SEO works to understanding the value of a new client or product sale. It is a key parameter in developing the correct SEO strategy.
In my experience business owners have little problem in paying for things if they can see a real benefit. If that benefit is increased business or sales then it is an easier mountain to climb.
Give Your SEO Consultant a Hard Time
Yes put us to the test! Our SEO Services for Businesses – generates business for clients. If we can’t see that this can be achieved we will not take on the work.