11 Ways To Show Your Clients The Importance of SEO
So, you understand how important SEO is, but you need someone else to understand it. Maybe it is a friend, a colleague or a client. Whoever it is, what can you do to get them to understand the true value of search engine optimization?
Well, here are 11 ways you can help others become familiar with SEO, its importance and its value so that maybe they will begin to invest more time, effort and resources in organic search.
#1: Emphasize the Significance of Cumulative Growth
One of the best things about SEO is the fact that it shares something with the rest of inbound marketing: cumulative growth. The majority of marketing efforts, particularly outbound efforts, only result in temporary results. For example, with a PPC marketing campaign, you will receive quick results; however, as soon as you stop investing in the campaign, your source of leads will be lost immediately.
With SEO, this is simply not the case. Over time, your rankings may decrease since new competition will enter the field, but you can expect to hold your gained position in the search engine result pages (SERPs) for quite a while after you earn that first page position for a certain keyword without having to put more investment into it.
So, what type of results can you expect? Well, here is a brief look at what to expect: you can spend $1 now and expect to add $0.10 to your monthly income. After about a year, you can expect a ROI on that initial $1 to be about 1.2, then 2.4 after the second year, 3.6 after the third year, etc.
When trying to sell the importance of SEO to a client or anyone else, it is important that you utilize data to solidify your argument. With this type of data, it is obvious that it is a smart decision to invest in SEO to maximize ROI.
#2: Dispel SEO Myths
It is not at all uncommon for people to have heard about myths related to SEO. With that in mind, it is important to have these in mind and be ready to talk about them. In fact, it would be better if you bring them up before they are mentioned by your client.
There are two main misconceptions surrounding SEO, which are as follows:
- SEO is not marketing. SEO is indeed a specific type of marketing, and it is important that you present and treat is as much regardless of the importance of a technical basis to the discipline.
- SEO is a spammy and unethical method of marketing. There is no basis for this claim. In fact, search engine optimization is one of the most effective forms of marketing as long as you follow the guidelines that are set forth by the search engines.
#3: Inform Them About What Could Get Them Penalized
Believe it or not, a lot of people pay more attention to threats than actual opportunities. Being ignorant of SEO can result in clients stumbling into manual actions. This can result due to creating duplicate content, paying for links, allow user-generated content to pull down the overall quality of the content, allowing the website to be hacked, and making similar stumbles.
Though these manual actions tend to occur as a result of intentional attempts to influence search results, algorithmic filters can hit websites, which were simply unaware of the guidelines of the search engines. These cases are somewhat rare; however, by taking the time to warn your clients of the potential dangers of paid links, duplicate content and similar problems, you can emphasize the importance of applying knowledge of SEO.
#4: Look to Existing Data for Organic Search
If you really want to get someone’s attention, simply look to how much money someone else is currently making from the search engines. Businesses will often attribute their income to marketing efforts in their financial reports and focus their ROI in terms of money in and out.
So, by focusing on the details of the data for them and showing just how much of another business’s income is actually coming in each month from search, you can show just how much of a ROI there is from the company’s marketing efforts. In some cases, there may not even be an actual investment.
This will open up an excellent opportunity to recommend an investment in organic search.
#5: Estimate the Performance of Competitor Search
No one enjoys getting beaten by their competition. It is impossible to 100 percent measure the value of your competitor’s organic search efforts, but you can estimate it. Using tools like SEMrush, you have the ability to estimate their traffic for certain keywords. This tool also has the capability of estimate that traffic’s financial value.
While you are at it, you can focus on conspicuous efforts, such as keyword use and link building, which will help to demonstrate that the competition is using their knowledge of SEO to achieve their results. Competitive research makes it clear that SEO is important to a business and that it produces real, legitimate results that matter.
#6: Go into Detail about the Side Benefits
One reason that people are reluctant about investing in SEO is due to the fact that it is so dependent on search engine behavior, which means you have no control over it. This is a wise and natural reaction. This is why it is crucial that you stress what the SEO process is actually like.
- Keyword research = Market research
- Link building = Spreading awareness of the brand and capturing referral traffic
- Creating content for search engines = Content marketing, relationship marketing and list building
Emphasize the cohesive value of search engine optimization and focus on its benefits outside of the actual search.
#7: Explain That the Whole Funnel Is Involved With SEO
Someone who is not very familiar with SEO may think that they do not need to invest in organic search unless they are currently ranking for their brand. This is not uncommon, and it actually goes to show just how embedded the concept of the whole sales funnel is around SEO.
SEO will help you capture demand when a web user is not entirely familiar with your brand. SEO can also assist in getting leads to transfer through various stages of the sales funnel.
It is your job to ensure that others realize that there numerous opportunities available to capture demand and that these opportunities have zilch to do with the stage that these customers are in throughout the sales funnel and whether they are searching for your brand name.
#8: Use a Specific, Detailed Game Plan
If you want to sell SEO to a client, you must have a well thought-out, strategic game plan. You can’t just preach about the importance of SEO, as you must also be able to explain the resources that are needed for SEO and why they’re necessary.
Make sure that your game plan is detailed with goals, deliverables, resources and tasks. Speak in your client’s language so that they can understand what you’re saying and make sure that you are clear and concise as you talk about the steps that will be taken moving forward.
#9: Don’t Overlook the Sales Team
As you are formulating your game plan, you should not forget to include the sales team, as you will need them for SEO to work well. Communicate with the sales team as you are creating your game plan to ensure that your plan is the best that it can be before presenting it to a client.
#10: Show SEO Mistakes That Could Negatively Impact Performance
It was mentioned earlier to forewarn clients about penalties, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that you should also point out possible mistakes that they could make and what the consequences would be if they were made.
It is important to keep a watchful eye on organic search and drops in overall search performance. When there are drops, the decreases need to be attributed to certain actions. Then, a game plan needs to be developed to recover and move forward.
This brings SEO into a reality where practical implications are obvious.
#11: Provide Proof of Concept
There is nothing better than results – for anyone. Take your SEO strategy – the smallest and cheapest version of it – and implement it to demonstrate exactly what can be achieved with basic resources. Demonstrate to your client what has been done so that they can see for themselves the power and value that SEO truly has.
Conclusion
In order to prove how valuable SEO is and to show the wealth of your SEO knowledge, you must take action and sell the idea of SEO by utilizing the above information. The above tips will help get others pay attention to SEO and what it means, which will hopefully lead others to wanting to invest in it.
For more information, or to get started with an SEO campaign, contact us at WebDetail to start a detailed discussion!
