Many SEOs including myself work 40+ hours a week at an SEO agency  in which their sole responsibility is to kick ass in the search engines.  We don’t have to worry about cold calling, rubbing elbows or writing up SEO proposals.  While I’m personally thankful for this luxury many SEOs also realize that this is just as much of a hindrance as it is a blessing.  You know exactly what we’re talking about here.  The promise of top rankings, horrible keywords selections and even the pre mapping of a websites’ structure.   Instead of mumbling, grumbling, and even name calling this guide has been created in order to fix this situation.  This guide is not to pick on sales people but to help inform them so that they can sign even  higher quality (longer lasting) deals.  It’s a WIN-WIN situation where the SEO and sales person don’t have to be arch nemesis anymore.

Keep An Open Line Of Communication With Your SEO

Who knows more about SEO then the person who will be “fulfilling” all these SEO contracts that you write up?  If you keep an open line of communication with your SEO they can keep you informed with the ever evolving Google algorithm and SEO best practices.   Sales people are good at selling and SEOs are good at pulling rank.  Get actively involved in your SEOs theories.  Push them, ask questions and better yet force them to explain why things work they way they do.  The more educated you are about SEO the better service potential clients get and the happier the SEO is to work with said client.

Throw “Guaranteed” Out the Window

Let’s get this out in the open.  Nothing in life is guaranteed.  This is especially true in SEO.   There is nothing more unfair to both the client and the SEO then to guarantee anything to a potential client.  A lot of clients have issues with realistic expectations to begin with but the sales person guaranteeing them anything just gives them more ammo to use IF a campaign were to go south.  Instead of talking about guarantees why not share with the client some of the SEO tactics you recently discussed with your SEO?  Talk about the benefits of title tags, internal linking, building new pages, and even adding a blog to a website.  These techniques are widely known in the SEO circles but your client is probably unfamiliar with these on page attributes and the value they add to their search engine rankings.   Sell the client on the knowledge both you and the SEO carrying out the campaign has NOT a guarantee that they can rank for _________ keyword by the end of the month.

SEO Takes Time – Emphasis Short and Long Term Goals.

Naturally one of the first questions to come out of a potential clients mouth is going to be “How long until I rank?”.  This is a tricky question which could determine whether a client signs a contract or not.   Telling them they will get results immediately and you might get a signature immediately. However this action will lead you to dealing with a (rightfully so) unhappy client when results aren’t delivered as promised.  Telling them 3 months, 6 months or even a year could frustrate the client and make them reconsider signing any deal.  Consider talking to the SEO consultant about keyword selection, competitor research and even short term and long term goals before meeting with the client.   This information can then be conveyed to a client in such a way that meets their immediate ‘needs’ while still making them understand that SEO isn’t a short term solution.

If the client is adamant about a short term solution then this may be a good time to talk about PPC.  It is extremely important to emphasize that PPC is a short term (and costly) solution that can be utilized while the SEO campaign is underway.

Realistic Keyword Selection & Setting Expectations.

For the sake of simplicity lets just say TEN websites can rank on the first page for any given search term.  Not all websites are treated equally and not every website deserves to rank highly in the search engines.   It’s the SEOs job to determine which keywords are appropriate for this client to target.  These keywords aren’t generated randomly but  determined only after researching the clients website, their competitors site, and the overall competition of the clients niche.  Setting realistic expectations for which keywords are obtainable is one of the most important aspects of successful search engine optimization.

Discussing inappropriate keywords with a client in the forefront of a project only hurts the relationship between client and SEO consultant.  If the client has their eye set on certain keywords and the SEO consultant has to break it to them that their website can’t achieve said results it makes them look lazy, incapable or even unethical.   Client expectations is one of the biggest issues when dissecting why  SEO projects fail.  Just as it is the SEO responsibility to determine reasonable keyword selections, its the sales persons job to convey this information and set realistic expectations.

Determine Clients Involvement.

Building off of SEO expectations the sales person needs to talk to the client about what level of involvement they want to take on with this SEO campaign.  SEO isn’t as simple as writing perfect title tags, adding < h1> tags and internally linking all pages of a website.  Successful SEO now involves frequently updated content, social media, offline marketing, link building and so much more.   Is the client willing to write content through a blog that’s added to his website? Are they willing to sponsor a youth sports team? How about responding to customer questions on Twitter or Facebook?  If the answer is “NO” then the expectation has to be set up front that extra costs will be associated with someone that can fulfill these tasks.  It’s unrealistic to sell a client on SEO these days with the idea that the SEO consultant will be “tweaking” code on your website so that Google ranks you.   The client needs to determine if they are willing to put in the effort needed to achieve and sustain their SEO results.  SEO is no longer as simple as writing a check.  The sales person needs to convey this message clearly.

Are You A Sales Person? What Can SEOs Do To Help?

This entire post is written by someone (myself) who isn’t afraid to state that they have little sales experience.  The above guide to selling SEO for sales people is written to help set realistic expectations for the client and to be conducive to running a successful SEO campaign.   Can you share with the SEO community from your perspective (as a sales person) what YOU need from us? I invite you to respond to this post by writing your own.  You don’t have a blog of your own? Contact me and we’ll work out publishing it here on NickLeRoy.com.

SEO Consults and sales people should not be enemies.  In the end they want the same thing – to make their clients happy and to make a couple extra bucks.  Together we can do this more effectively!

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