Phoenix Website Design – Tips in Being an SEO Consultant (Part 2)
In Tips in Being an SEO Consultant (Part 1), I started tackling about how SEO is a vast field. As a SEO practitioner, you don’t magically transform a website. When consulting, you are trying to be working relationship with your clients. It is essential for you to be transparent on your knowledge not just for the short term, but in the long run.
So, here are more tips for you in order to be great at teaching your clients about SEO:
- Be confident in your expertise.
- First, you can monitor the online activities. Next, you can set up Google Alerts notifications for specific keywords. You are the expert in this field so be confident on telling your clients what to do. Thus, things like confidence and decisiveness will help you win the client’s trust. Make sure you get the information you need. Also, check if there are any changes and new goals in the business. Study the entire landscape of the business and research on their direct competitors.
- Anticipate the questions that may be asked of you.
- Of course, it is impossible for you to know the answers to all of the questions. After all, SEO is a huge world that is connected to other fields like web design, email marketing, social media.
- An SEO consultant should not sugar-coat. Instead, you should be clear and transparent to a question directed at you. There might be way too many questions asked, and you don’t know that what to address first. There’s no time to answer everything in one short meeting, right? However, answering your client’s questions directly will help you gain their trust. Come up with an answer to frequently asked questions. Most importantly, don’t respond with ambiguous responses. Lastly, don’t just say something just to impress your clients.
- Again, provide the best answers to questions that may be asked. If you don’t know what to answer, be honest and study their pressing questions. Be sure to get back to them ASAP!
- Encourage them to follow your recommendations.
- Remember, you are merely an SEO consultant in this equation. Thus, you will have no control on the recommendations you suggested. It is still up to the business if they will decide to execute your plans.
- In order to achieve certain goals, you need to promote certain recommendations over others. Here’s what you can do:
- Learn to prioritize: Your recommendations don’t have equal rank. Some needs are urgent, some aren’t. You have to draw a line on what items are part of the priority list and what aren’t. Doing it this way, your clients have an idea what to do expect on each item.
- Plan the execution: Next, you have to strategize a plan. Emphasize on the importance of your plan, and remind your clients of the consequences when not following your recommendations.
- Provide possible alternatives: Yes, your client may not follow your plan because of reasons beyond your control. Are there other ways to achieve the same result? Perhaps the client just wants a more cost effective or efficient way of addressing the issue? Can you skip it or is it really priority?
- These will the ways to encourage the clients in taking action and seeing the fruits of your recommendation. If your plans are surely to achieve the goals, then, you have to push and motivate the client to jump.
Next? Read the Tips in Being an SEO Consultant (Part 3) for more.
