What to Expect From a Comprehensive SEO Campaign

Very few small business owners have time at the end of the day to fully educate themselves about the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) let alone do the work themselves. Most would like to leverage the web to their advantage and are willing to pay a fair price to professional SEO's willing to do it for them. The key is they need to see deliverables and they need someone to take a little time to explain the terminology and work involved.

Before signing on a new client there is a process. First, there is the initial contact. During this consultation it needs to be determined if the SEO can help the potential client achieve their long terms goals. If it is determined that the web site owner could benefit from an ongoing campaign to increase web visibility a detailed proposal explaining what should be expected is constructed. The client is then free to take that proposal out for competitive bid.

What Does an SEO Proposal Look Like?

An SEO proposal begins with a project overview detailing the deliverables. It may look something like this:

Project Overview

1. Set up and Install Google Analytics

2. Competitive Analysis

3. Keyword/key phrase selection and implementation

4. Copy enhancement to ensure keyword density and dynamic appearance

5. Convert site to HTML or remove all Flash content

6. Facebook, Twitter and You Tube (if video is available) accounts set up and populated. Links to social network from your URL established.

7. Social Bookmarking and Directory Submissions

8. Article Creation and Submission

9. Link building - industry specific

10. Ongoing tasks - link building, directory submissions, social bookmarking, article creation and submission, targeted marketing, traffic reporting, traffic driving, guest blogging

This overview is followed by a more detailed explanation of each of the services listed above. These explanations allow room for defining terminology like keyword density and the heuristics surrounding them.

What Clients Should Expect

The most important part of any relationship, business or otherwise, is communication. An SEO client should expect phone calls to be returned promptly, emails to be answered and periodic detailed listings of work accomplished. They should have a chance to review any distributed information regarding their business before it hits the internet and they should have the right to reject it - even after completion.

Within the first 30 to 60 days the client should expect to see improvements in rankings for specific keywords (which have been agreed to by both the client and the SEO). These keyword represent what a potential customer may type in their browser to find the products or services being offered.

If the keywords are properly researched and implemented an increase in the web sites traffic should be expected. Traffic should increase steadily over the remainder of the campaign. If high bounce rates are noticed appropriate changes and their costs should be discussed. These changes would not be included in the initial SEO pricing. Not all SEO's are experienced programmers so often time the work will need to contracted (personally, I would confirm upfront that the SEO could perform such tasks if need be). Additionally, if click through rates to targeted areas are weak conversion rate optimization should be considered.

Any marketing campaign will reach plateaus. When this occurs it should be determined what areas of the market remain untapped and what new measures can be taken to address them without losing the ground already gained.

Within three months of beginning a comprehensive SEO campaign, the campaign should begin paying for itself with the creation of new business. If this is not the case the entire strategy needs to be reevaluated. It is not time to throw in the towel but, it may be time to reconsider the person doing the work.

What Does it Cost?

SEO should be tailored to fit your budget. A campaign similar to the one described above should run around $250/month after the initial work is completed. Normally, the front end costs (including the first months SEO work) are under $1,000. I have seen people charge anywhere from one to ten times this amount so it is important to get competitive bids.