Convincing clients that search engine optimization (SEO) is a worthy investment can be a huge challenge. You’re expected to show results quickly. But SEO takes time, and Google Algorithm updates don’t make it easier.
Plus, clients are sometimes the biggest roadblocks to your success. (Think of all the times you waited on feedback, approvals or managed direct interference with your strategies.)
Still, you need to establish yourself as a partner that drives revenue if you expect to retain your clients.
Unfortunately, most SEOs cling to keyword and traffic data to justify their value to clients. And they often speak in terms clients don’t understand, relying heavily on jargon during meetings. Occasionally, they’ll tie traffic to conversions, but not always.
Either way, this isn’t enough.
If you’re going to retain your SEO clients long-term, you need to position your organization as a strategic asset to their business. In short, you need to get a seat at the table.
Here’s how.
The Biggest Mistake Marketers Make With SEO
Too often, agencies and internal teams glaze over discussing return on investment (ROI) from organic traffic. Instead, they focus more on keywords, technical SEO issues and content opportunities when determining whether or not SEO is worth it to a client.
This is the wrong approach. The cold reality is that SEO is an investment, and you need to be focused on ROI from the start.
If you don’t already know the conversion rates from organic traffic, you should dive into the analytics.
Google Analytics (GA) is a great starting point but, its not recommended to rely directly on it for sales details.
Instead, you should compare your client’s overall organic traffic against what the internal sales dashboards or customer relationship management (CRM) state. Afterward, you can compare those metrics to what you see in GA.
There will likely be some discrepancies between them. But, combining the two data streams can help you paint a clearer picture of conversion rates on the client’s website.
If you don’t have any goal tracking set up on the site, now’s the time.
You can quickly set up goal and event tracking in Universal Analytics (UA) and GA 4 with Google Tag Manager (GTM).
If your client doesn’t have a CRM, then things get tricky. You can recommend a CRM, or you can work with them to figure out how they track conversions.
Either way, you need to start with a baseline of data. This will allow you to illustrate how effectively your work drives sales.
The Sales Call Is Critical to Successful SEO Campaigns
SEO is like an onion; it has a lot of layers. As a result, it’s easy to get distracted by keyword opportunities and lose sight of what SEO is: a support network for sales.
SEO done right guides prospects from cold traffic to hot leads.
But, you can’t do that with keyword research alone.
You need real insights into the prospects’ challenges, pains and objections. And the best way to get that is to speak directly with the client’s sales team.
Without jumping on a sales team call, you’ll have to infer (basically guess) what the client’s prospects need from their website performance and competitor analysis.
That’s not good enough.
Instead, SEO should work closely with the sales team to better understand what keeps prospects up at night, what objections they may have to purchase and why they reached out in the first place. Plus, you’ll get real insights into their buyer’s journey.
This ensures that your SEO roadmap leads to assets that drive more sales.
You don’t just want content for the sake of content or traffic. You want sales assets that build “trust bridges” between site visitors and your client.
Even better, you want assets the sales team can send to prospects during the sales cycle. It’ll make the sales team’s lives much easier (and their work much more successful) if they have a range of assets they can lean on during the process.
Blogs, white papers, infographics and other content that quickly conveys the client’s experience and unique selling proposition (USP) are key.
Leading an effective sales call is the key to creating assets your client needs.
