What things should you know providing SEO services?

The digital market is overloaded with different optimization companies and individual consultants. That is why retailing optimization services can be tough. You need to have a brilliant reputation and good portfolio for winning leads. 

Searching for the query “optimization agencies in the US,” you will face numerous companies with different services and pricing policies. It is always difficult to predict what is on a company's website. A lot of searches judge an optimization company by its website. However, a good outer shell does not tell about the high quality of providing SEO services, and vice versa a simple landing page can belong to the skilled optimization team. 

It is not only difficult for users to find a suitable optimization company, but it is also tough for SEO service providers to attract paying customers that are ready to cooperate. The more you know, the easier it can be to sell search engine optimization services to businesses. 

You should think not only as an SEO specialist but also as an online merchant, raising the popularity of the SEO services you provide. Quality SEO sells itself, but many businesses, especially those with a limited marketing budget, need to be sold on the benefits of good old-fashioned SEO. 

In this article, I’m going to explain to you how to make your optimization services popular on the web and get the high return on investment.

How to sell optimization services? 

As I have mentioned earlier the more you know about search engine optimization, the better an overall customer relationship will be. You should understand the mechanism of website optimization and processes that required by both the client and those providing optimization services. 

It essential to cooperate with the clients who understand the basics of SEO and can follow your advice when it is required. You should have the healthy business relationship with your clients, providing them with regular reports. 

Transparency should be the primary rule of your optimization business. It helps to build a good SEO-client relationship that is based on trust and mutual respect. 

If an optimization firm providing SEO services can’t be entirely transparent with clients about what they are doing to get better organic rankings and visibility, then they should not expect to make these clients regular.  

Your clients should know how the progress is being made. You may not send all technical details and website changes to your clients, but you still need to provide them with well-understandable reports. 

All in all, optimization agencies should be prepared to be transparent and completely honest with their clients.

What aspects should you know selling optimization services?

The following concepts are common knowledge among skilled SEO specialists:

• If a website does not show up for a particular query or keyword, it does not mean that SEO consultants did their job wrong. There are numerous reasons why a website is not ranked high as a keyword. It could be anything from customization to the way the keyword phrase or search query is worded. Moreover, nobody can give you a guarantee of TOP rank position by the competitive search term. 
• The primary task of optimization company is not only getting more relevant traffic to a site but also get more leads or sales for a business. 
• Professional SEO consultants should know how Google ranking system works. Moreover, they need to be aware of the last industry changes and updates to integrate your site with them. They should have an understanding of typical search results page. 
• Google provides users with three main types of search results - paid ads (PPC advertising) which are based at the TOP of SERP; local maps (local businesses that have a Google My Business account); and organic results (all other search results on SERP). To appear in each of these sections, you need a different marketing strategy. 
• SEO is a long-term process that cannot be done overnight. You can’t promise anybody to improve their visual business presence in a week or even month. An overall optimization strategy takes from six to twelve months, and your clients should be aware of these terms. Clients should understand that some competitive niches could take years to obtain strong online visibility. 
• Quality and unique content is a key to optimization success. So, your customers either need to hire a professional writer or let your company handle this task.
• Quality website optimization requires not only on-site aspects improvement but also off-site optimization procedures such as link building. 
• The primary authority factor Google takes into account is how websites link to each other. So, the more link you had from relevant sources, the better you ranked in the search results. Many optimization companies are engaged in link manipulations that may cause negative consequences for their client’s websites. Make sure you use only organic approaches to link building SEO. Otherwise, you will end up with a ruined reputation. 
• Conducting an optimization campaign, make sure you follow Google Webmaster guidelines. The usage of SEO techniques that do not comply with Google’s Webmaster guidelines may result in a penalty and ranking drops. Those consultants that use optimization tactics that violate Google guidelines such as copied content, irrelevant backlinks, hidden texts, over-optimizing web pages, and so on, will never make their clients prosperous.
• Organic search traffic can be drastically changed in two cases - penalties or ranking algorithm change.
• It is essential to verify a client's website to Google Search Console as it will give you access to the data on their website. Moreover, you need to get access to your client’s Google Analytics account to monitor statistics. Furthermore, to make updates on a sit, you need to have access to website’s content management system. 
• As the professional SEO consultant, you need to know everything about client’s website (any SEO that’s been done in the past, targeted audience, penalties, and other marketing activities). 
• Mobile website version is a MUST for modern businesses. So, you need to make sure you can provide your clients with this option. 
• SEO is a part of a sophisticated internet marketing campaign. So, you need to be broad-minded and experienced in other marketing strategies like SMM, PPC advertising, and others. A good social media presence is imperative for good search engine rankings. It is an excellent chance to outsmart niche competitors and attract targeted traffic to a client’s website.

How to work under different optimization projects?

In this paragraph, I am going to review the entire optimization process and the elements that include in this process. All optimization projects can be divided into three primary groups - brand new websites that require SEO from scratch; existing websites; existing sites going through web design. Let us have a closer look at these projects to understand how we should execute each of them:

Brand new web sources

Brand new web sources that have been launched recently require an elaborate optimization campaign. As the website’s overall structure is developed, an experienced SEO should be involved. SEO from scratch is one of the most complex optimization campaigns that requires your constant involvement. 

Too often SEO specialists are brought in right before a website is launched. The SEO will quickly discover that there are significant structural website issues that need to be fixed or that the site won’t provide a way to add more content on a regular basis. 

It means that SEO should be involved an early on during the process, long before a website is built. 

Existing websites

Work on an existing website requires following steps:

• Comprehensive website audit and niche research;
• TOP niche competitive analysis;
• Building an optimization plan;
• Make a list of the issues that need to be fixed, updates or changed;
• Keyword research campaign;
• On-page SEO services - website structure improvement, interlinking, content writing, HTML tags optimization, visual content optimization, etc.
• Review the website's link profile;
• Review of the links that point to a site from another source. Using link disavowing tool if necessary;
• Come up with a strategy for acquiring new links to the website;
• Implement the results of SEO audit as a part of the monthly ongoing retainer SEO services. 

How to communicate with your clients?

Have you ever wonder what do you need to tell your clients to convince them to keep working with you? 

There is a list of things you should tell your clients to avoid any misunderstandings:

• You can not guarantee that a website will rank on the TOP of Google search results page. No SEO magic can help you with it. 
• Sometimes web designers build websites in ways that do not comply with optimization practices. It is the job of SEO specialists to resolve these issues to make a site visible to search engines. 
• SEO cannot be made overnight. It requires a significant amount of time to get results, especially in the competitive spheres. SEO may take months or even years to see its full potential. 
• Ask your clients be transparent with you and share with you all their business pitfalls. Moreover, if they are going to make any changes on their website or do anything that might affect the site’s SEO, you should be aware of it in advance.