Every digital marketer knows that if they offer SEO services as a freelancer or an agency, it is not very easy to convince people to do business with them as it is not always a walk in the park. Hence, creating a compelling SEO proposal that your prospects will want to buy from you is crucial.
What is an SEO proposal?
An SEO Proposal is a simple, written, detailed pitch you send to your target client to win an SEO contract. The SEO proposals are provided in response to a request for the proposal, which a potential client issues.
The secret to a good proposal is making the best impression with the opening lines, and it is essential to have the best initial pitch.
What do clients look for in an SEO proposal?
Creating an SEO proposal that will quickly win over the hearts of the targeted clients is not easy. It has become more demanding as most potential clients also perform independent research. They are also accustomed to receiving different competitive proposals for every RFP they issue.
You should be aware of the following details-
· Goals and objectives of the client’s business.
· Areas of specialty that suit the project.
· Timeline for the project.
· Project budget.
· The target audience of the client.
Following are some tips for writing a winning SEO proposal-
1. Ask your prospects some questions.
- The very first step in the proposal writing process has nothing to do with writing. Instead of that, you should ask your prospects several questions. Your primary goal should be determining what your competitors need help with.
You might expect to get out the following with SEO-
· More leads.
· Good quality traffic to your website.
· More sales.
· Phone inquiries.
· Greater ROI.
Suppose the prospect lists a bunch of metrics, such as SERP position for specific keywords or increasing organic traffic without any relevant business goals. They also might need some education before proceeding further.
You should also know who your ideal customer and what their most significant pain points are related to your product/service. You will get the demographics of the excellent customer and their challenges or pain points.
You should also know about your top three competitors and who they consider their fierce competition.
2. Do not try to be repetitive
It is a known fact that writing a great SEO proposal is likely to take hours, and if you are still looking for a unique proposition for each of your prospects from scratch, it could not work that easily. Instead of that, it is essential to concentrate on building an SEO proposal template that you can quickly edit whenever you are looking forward to pitching a new client.
3. Write a very detailed summary of the template
The executive summary is the most crucial part of your SEO proposal. You might have an idea that your prospects are busy, and maybe the executive who makes the final decision has no time to read the entire document; hence the executive summary should be such that it should give an insight of your proposal.
It is very important to begin your executive summary by first highlighting the pain points of the prospects and you should also be able to convey that you understand their business and that you are aware of the goals they are trying to reach. It is very important to focus on what goals your leads will be able to achieve by incorporating your SEO solutions into their business.
You should give your prospects a rough outline of the tactics in 2-3 lines.
4. List your deliverables
You should lay out the specific services that are included in your offer-
· Link audit and site audit.
· Keyword research- try breaking down the entire process of keyword research and the keyword research tools you will use.
· Competitor analysis- You should describe the process that you are going to employ for tracking the competitors of the clients and their SEO strategies.
· Link building- You should explain the process you will follow for link building and the tool you will use for backlink analysis.
Many individuals avail of the services of SEO Perth which is a digital marketing agency that provides different types of services to its clients.
5. Show them that you can get the job done
There are many ways to demonstrate to a client that you can achieve their business goals by developing and implementing an SEO strategy. You can also show them some examples of the work you have done before. It can also come in the form of customer testimonials and reviews etc. Following is the structure you should follow-
- · A simple introduction of who the client is.
- · A description of the situation of your client.
- · A rundown of the services you offered to solve the problem.
- · A customer testimonial telling how they have achieved more leads.
6. Build a timeline
SEO requires consistent efforts and it also might take a few months until you get any real results. You should split your Timeline between one-time activities such as developing healthy backlinks, optimizing keywords, and many other things.
7. Make an offer they can’t refuse
It is very important to make lucrative offers to attract your customers. You can also highlight your value by referring to the section as engagement fees or investment instead of calling it pricing. It is also important to offer several different packages to make sure that your client can pick and choose exactly what they need. You can also present this information in a tabular form so that it is easier for the prospect to compare and weigh different types of alternatives.
8. Make a legal fine print
It is very important to add a terms and condition section to your SEO proposal to make all the terms and conditions clear to your clients and so that there is no confusion afterwards.
9. Do not make them guess what they have to do next
You should communicate clearly what happens next if the prospects decide to close the final deal with you.
