It's tough to provide leading SEO services to other small businesses. You've got to worry about expectations, account management, results, changing strategy, and keeping up with all of Google's changes. But, with our help, it can be done! Watch the video below to learn about how you can confidently offer small business SEO services to happy customers who stick with you through it all.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Hello and welcome to our seo services small business video. I'm Chad Hill and I have Adam Stetzer here with me as well.
Good afternoon, Chad. I know a lot of our viewers really want to sell more services. A lot of our resellers are out there on the streets selling SEO services small business every day. So we're just getting started. So I really want to talk today about small business SEO services, the right way. We see a lot of how to not do it. Let's try to get people off on the right foot and talk about what a small business seo service should do to earn customers and keep customers.
Great question. I think that always starts with setting expectations. So typically what I want to do is make sure that SEO service small business is the right service for the customer. We have a hammer here, and everyone wants to say that SEO is always right. But there are some times where pay per click or email marketing might be a better fit for their needs. SEO is definitely going to give you the best ROI in the long run, but you do need to have a client who has some runway or some time to allow the program to start and to get the rankings that will ultimately bring the traffic. So that's where I want to start.
Yeah. That expectation setting process when you sell a SEO services small business is actually tricky because even if you feel like you've probably set expectations and stated very clearly that SEO is a longer term process, I know most people just don't hear it. And I know in the pursuit of closing a deal, it's very easy to cut the corner on wanting to be super direct about just how long it takes.
Everyone's read how great the return on investment on SEO is, and that's true. And our data supports that. But that doesn't mean it happens in under six months. It may take a lot longer. So I think having that very frank discussion, making sure this is the right product and then setting those expectations really is important. You're right.
The next thing you want to think about is actually finding the keywords. So typically you're looking for keywords that both have enough monthly search volume that ranking on that key word is going to be meaningful to the customer's business. But at the same time, isn't so competitive that you're up against companies that have been on page one on Google for years and years that are going to be pretty hard to break through and get your client up into the top of the rankings. So finding the right keywords for the volume that is meaningful but not so competitive that you're not going to be able to rank on them.
This is related to the first point, really, in terms of setting expectations. And I'm sure what you're going to talk about in a second, which is keeping that seo service small business client engaged and happy. My recommendation on keywords is a spread.
Pick some that are difficult but will actually generate a lot of business when you finally get there, but will probably take a long time. But make sure you pick a few that are really long tail, low competition, and therefore low volume. They won't have a lot of economic value for the client, but they'll be related and they'll most importantly by able to demonstrate the process works.
So, at this point, a couple months into your engagement the client's feeling like, oh, that sales pitch was true. I'm seeing it work. Now, they're still going to say to you I'm not getting all the clicks. But you say, yeah, but the SEO process works. Now hang in there. And they'll have the patience to stay for that money term that you're going after.
So the next thing you really want to look at is then making sure, in terms of seo services small business, you want to make sure that the tactics you use to accomplish or get the rankings are the right ones. There's still a lot of people surprisingly in 2013 that are selling comments and other quantity based packages that have hundreds of links that really aren't going to really bring-- aren't valuable links. So the quantity is high, but the quality of those links is very low.
And we all know that that's not going to stand the test of time in terms of being a way to keep your small business seo service website ranked in the search engines. Or, for that matter, will even help small business seo services in the search engine optimization marketplace of today. So we believe the best way to find ways to earn links is through content marketing. You want to create meaningful, insightful articles and blog posts that can be placed, syndicated to other websites and earn links back to your client's website. That's the best way to earn links that are going to last, that are going to stand the test of time.
And that's a difficult thing to explain in the sales process to potential seo services small business. And I know a lot of people stumble on this because the consumer is often uneducated. So to them the idea of more is better just seems logical. But insiders in the SEO industry, particularly paying attention to 2012 to the massive updates to the algorithm from Google, know that the quality is way more important. And every year it gets more and more important. So you're right, Chad. Selling content marketing versus selling link building is a big difference.
As a leading small business seo service, you want to sell SEO the right way, talk about content marketing, and try to educate them on why quality is more important than quantity. And don't slip into those traps of look at this huge package of spammy blog comments which, surprisingly in 2013, seo services small business are still out there doing that as a core of their SEO strategy. That's not what we believe is the right way to really build a long term relationship. Sell it the right way and maintain that small business seo service with a lot of good results.
Absolutely. And then the final thing you really want to look at then is, when you're selling SEO services the right way you also want to build in account management from the get go. We see all too often people who sell an SEO service plan to a client and then basically get the customer signature, even get someone working on it, but then they don't really follow up and check in with that customer on a regular basis.
We believe the right interval for checking with a customer is on a monthly basis, with SEO especially, because there's sort of a longer interval between seeing the updates and how rankings might change month to month. So we believe, check in with the customer once a month, and that's going to be the best way to retain a customer once you sell them on small business seo services.
And be prepared for the occasional unpleasant phone call, right? Account management isn't always pretty. That's a truism in all business. So right up front in the sales process I like to be talking to the client, well look, one day you might be really questioning the value and you might call me a little upset or not like exactly how we created content or where we secured a link for you. Things are going to go wrong.
And so, talk about that upfront. And I like to think about that as an inoculation strategy. Tell them, that's going to happen but I'm going to be here and I'm going to respond and be a good partner with you to try to fix it the best we can and focus on your seo service small business results. And if you can have that kind of relationship you'll weather the storms that come in any business project and have a long term customer.