Good SEO clients are hard to come by!
For those of us in the digital marketing industry, selling a website is fairly straightforward and easy. A website is a visual representation of a brand and the foundation of its online presence. Business owners with a professionally designed website use it to showcase their products and services for a good reason. However, we know that a website can only do so much and that some sort of marketing (whether it be SEO, social media outreach, etc) is necessary for expanding a brand.
Even explaining the concept of SEO has the potential to just confuse your client. If you are lucky enough to have a solid foundation of SEO clients, keeping them happy is easy to do if you have the necessary mindset and the necessary tools at your disposal. In this brief guide I’ll explain some of the most basic ways to keep your clients on board and satisfied!
For those of you looking for an tips on getting the most out of the company you hired to perform SEO services, a good place to start is here.
Don’t promise the world; Give reasonable expectations. Jumping the gun by saying, “Oh yeah we can get you to the top spot on Google and increase your revenue by 30% in as little as 2 months,” is a TERRIBLE way to start an SEO campaign. In the mind of the client, by the time 2 months is over they expect to see themselves #1 on the Google SERPs and see a bump in revenue, and why wouldn’t they? You promised them, right?
Any good SEO consultant knows that it could take upwards of 3-4 months to START to see organic results, and possibly a few months after that to really see the desired ones. But if you lay out all of the facts and timelines in the beginning while keeping the expectations within reason, you won’t be forced to have unpleasant phone calls explaining why you weren’t able to keep your end of the bargain.
Learn everything you can about them as people and as a business. We at Planet 8 Digital make a point to get to know our clients on a first-name basis. With frequent phone calls, email correspondences, and even in-person meetings it’s possible to be talking with clients more than you do your own family! With an exchange of services and monetary compensation, learning every detail about your client helps everybody in the long run. And in the event that your clients’ campaign sees a decrease in results compared to the previous month, that unfortunate phone call will be much easier to make if you are on good terms; which brings me to my next point:
Be honest. It shocks me when businesses try to hide results from their paying customers, especially when those results aren’t favorable. Just think about it, wouldn’t you want the company you hired to perform a service to be 100% honest with you? You should have answered, “Yes!” If the performance of your client’s marketing campaign is lower than you anticipated, odds are there is a reason and they have the right to know! If you lie or hide the truth once, who’s to say it won’t happen again? Your client will find out eventually and I can guarantee you that phone call will not be a pleasant one.
Don’t force them into contracts. Contracts are a great way to ensure your agency has revenue continuously coming in but the results you are able to provide should keep your clients paying– not a piece of paper signed months ago. At Infinity, we don’t lock our clients into year-long contracts and in fact, a number of our clients have had bad experiences with other agencies who have forced them to sign on for at least a year.
We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard, “We didn’t feel like a priority,” from new SEO clients who were locked into a contract at other agencies. With us, you get personalized care and attention because we truly don’t consider ourselves successful until your return on investment is positive!
Give them the results that are relevant to them. There’s no doubt you may have some clients that have a hands-off approach who just let the internet people work their magic. If that’s the case, when you’re assembling reports it may be a good idea to show them the big picture items that they truly care about. There’s no cookie-cutter reporting, it’s all about understanding every client’s needs.
You may have clients that call 3 times a week wondering what their performance has been over the last few days. If that’s the case, then it may be in your best interest to assemble a comprehensive report and review it with them step by step. Again, what is important to your client’s marketing campaign should be indicative of what’s on the report.
Good SEO clients are in it for the long haul
We at Planet 8 Digital have been fortunate enough to keep dozens of satisfied SEO clients. Our longest client has been with us since the beginning and what keeps them coming back is the fact that we treat them like an extension of our Planet 8 family. Don’t ever let your clients know what it feels to receive cheap SEO service! Afterall, wouldn’t you rather do business with a company with whom you could have a chat about non-work related things?
What are your tips for keeping your clients happy? I’d love to hear from you!
