SEM Blog: Website Marketing Blog

To the average person, SEO is like Voodoo. You have no idea how it works, it doesn’t always work, but you know a friend who knows a friend who got results from hiring an SEO firm/freelancer.

While this means that these people will clearly need your help to properly build and maintain an SEO based website, the reality of it is that they may drop you at any point if they can’t grasp exactly what you’re doing and how it benefits them. Put yourself in their shoes, unless they are the owner of that specific company, they’re going to need to answer to someone else as to exactly what is going on results wise in exchange for that (hopefully large) sum of money they’re paying you. Giving your client not only a detailed review of what you’ve done and are doing for them but also a reference point to where they can read and/or you can show them exactly why it’s important and the benefits attached to it will allow them to translate the message to whoever they may need to in a more broken down and palatable way.

Many people worry that this breeds the idea that your client would then in turn attempt this on their own, not true. The majority of beginner SEO individuals spend hours upon hours reading up online and becoming overwhelmed without actually producing the desired results. By providing them with just the necessary information, you guarantee that they’ll be able to translate what you’ve explained to them and even grasp it themselves, but that they’ll need a lot more info before they can make the jump to self sufficient, and besides, that’s a lot of work for them to take on for probably less pay. By making them sound smarter, you secure your job.

Make sure you take advantage of the information you’re providing them. Post it on your site and give it to all your clients. Reference it in any updates you may send them. Chances are, if its got info in it about SEO and it peaks their interest, they have a friend who they’ll pass it to who may just be your next client. While the site could definitely pick up some search engine traffic from these pages as well, the referral aspect will be the most powerful part.