Ohad mentioned in a comment that many people are impatient, and expect almost instant or very quick results in Google rankings. I’ve never SEO’d sites for a client, but I think if I had customers like this, I’d want to warn them right upfront that they need to display some patience. It’s already an established fact that you can’t “guarantee” results anyway, but it’s even more obvious that you can’t guarantee that Google (or any other search for that matter) will do things fast.
Ohad mentioned that he gets his clients started on a PPC campaign, which makes complete sense. This way he can get them started on seeing results and he can also take a good look at what type of traffic really converts on their website. This should make all but the most stubborn client satisfied. It costs them a bit more, but it gives them immediate results and a glimpse into what search marketing is really about. If you can make the PPC campaign pay off for them, they will be a lot less likely to be impatient by the SEO part.
If you’re doing an SEO only campaign for a client, then you need to make some different benchmarks to keep them involved
If the client decides she’s willing to be patient for SEO (she’s probably lying anyway), you need to still show the client plenty of results while waiting. Maybe you can’t show them any immediate number ones, but you can prepare reports that show how many new pages are indexed, how many additional pages you’ve added for them, the amount of incoming links you’ve acquired, etc.
If you take the time to explain the process to them, then they should be pretty happy to watch the organic traffic grow over time, especially as it relates to their increasing revenue and profitability. It’s all about managing expectations and keeping the customer level.
What other techniques do you think work well for managing SEO client’s expectations?
Darren,
I am still wrestling with the concept of selling an SEO only project to a client.
As customers learn that PPC campaigns offer ROI that can be easily measured, SEO efforts still remain voodoo as far as actual numbers are concerned (indexed pages do not count but sales). While it’s nice to tie the customer to the process of SEOing their site, I still haven’t figured out the right sales approach for this.
Sales of SEO is another field in itself. Sure their are no guarantees, but getting a track record is one of the best ways to sell yourself. In the end, if the site is designed to sell, SEO will have a higher ROI than PPC.
Education of the client is another important tool to selling and reselling your SEO services.
I agree that SEO has a higher ROI than PPC. I think many people would see the wisdom of the SEO strategy if they can afford to let their online campaign develop over the course of a months and not days.
But people looking for instant results will want to see something.
I think you need to answer questions before You Start
Before you start any search engine optimization campaign, whether it’s for your own site or that belonging to a client, you need to answer the following important questions:
1. What is the overall motivation for optimizing this site? What do I/they hope to achieve? (e.g. more sales, more subscribers, more traffic, more publicity etc.)
2. What is my/their time-frame for this project?
3. What is my/their budget for this project?
4. Who will be responsible for this project? Will it be a joint or solo effort? Will it be run entirely in-house or outsourced?
Answering these questions will help you to build a framework for your campaign and establish limitations for the size and scope of the campaign.
Nice comment, Bill.
Those questions couldn’t hurt at all. And they will end up defining how well you do. Especially the part about the budget. And just how dedicated you are to maintaining the monthly budget too.