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How would you deal with certain questions of seo clients?

by nik0 Banned
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
People are e-mailing me with their website and ask me to find them lucrative keywords related to their niche while mentioning they have other seo companies working on their site.

What would your answer look like on such e-mail? Would you put effort into it for free hoping they will become a paying client, or would you immidiatly charge up front for the work related? I'm also willing to think along with the client, many can confirm that, but when I read such mail and there are already other seo companies involved then it gives me an odd feeling.
#clients #deal #questions #seo
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

    People are e-mailing me with their website and ask me to find them lucrative keywords related to their niche while mentioning they have other seo companies working on their site.

    What would your answer look like on such e-mail? Would you put effort into it for free hoping they will become a paying client, or would you immidiatly charge up front for the work related? I'm also willing to think along with the client, many can confirm that, but when I read such mail and there are already other seo companies involved then it gives me an odd feeling.
    Here is what is likely to happen. You put in all the work to find good keywords for them, and then they take those keywords to the people they are already working with and say they want to target them.

    I would do one of two things.

    1)Suggest that they ask their current SEO to do that for them, and if the SEO cannot or is unwilling to do it, that might be an indication it is time to find a new SEO.

    2)Or, do the keyword research. Find 20-30 or more keywords, and send them 3-5. Tell them something like, "Here are 3 examples of over 30 keywords I found in my research. If we start working together, I'm excited to show you the other 30+ keywords I found. I think you will quickly see that these could be a big boost to your business."

    If they are insistent they want to see the other keywords upfront, I would probably charge at that point for them. I never charge for this kind of stuff with prospects, except when their is already another SEO involved with the work. Learned the hard way a couple of times.
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  • Profile picture of the author HBurner
    I would recommend not to give any free keywords rather ask them a small fee for samples like 5 keywords and for complete list you can charge more later.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
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    I wouldn't work on the same keywords/sites If I knew another SEO was involved. How could you possibly know what the other guy is doing? For all you know the other guy is 10 SEO gigs on Fiverr, lol.
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    • Profile picture of the author TerryL
      I would charge per hour for keyword research, whether another company was working on the SEO or not. I wouldn't just give it away for free. That's pretty presumptuous of any business to ask you to do work for them for free, unless you offered it first as an introductory offer or bonus or something.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        I replied to the mail before I started this thread and what I did was put his main keyword in the Google Adword tool and e-mailed him the first 100 results with the message that he is more informed in his own niche and that he can pick out the keywords he likes and that I could do further analysis on those. In case he mails back I'll tell him the price for the further analysis.

        Actually I have no clue why he mails me when he has 2 seo guys working on his site. I'm glad he told me though cause now I don't have to waste much of my time on this and like Mike said as well, he'll probably just runs with the keywords.

        I'm not so much of charging upfront for small work, I had another client that I spent quite a bit of time on emailing back and forth and doing some pre-research, he had some idea's and I was honest that it wasn't the best idea so he cooled off a bit, but the next day he recommended me to a business associate who is now a client of mine, so it can sure work in your advantage. Ofcourse I could've told him that it was doable but that would be plain lieing and he would never do business with me again or recommend me to others. I like to build a relationship with my clients and I don't care to invest a bit in that.
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        • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          I replied to the mail before I started this thread and what I did was put his main keyword in the Google Adword tool and e-mailed him the first 100 results with the message that he is more informed in his own niche and that he can pick out the keywords he likes and that I could do further analysis on those. In case he mails back I'll tell him the price for the further analysis.

          I wouldn't have done that much work. Hopefully you forgot to choose EXACT match. Then he'll get all excited and get his other guys to waste their time on the borad match results.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          I'm not so much of charging upfront for small work, I had another client that I spent quite a bit of time on emailing back and forth and doing some pre-research, he had some idea's and I was honest that it wasn't the best idea so he cooled off a bit, but the next day he recommended me to a business associate who is now a client of mine, so it can sure work in your advantage. Ofcourse I could've told him that it was doable but that would be plain lieing and he would never do business with me again or recommend me to others. I like to build a relationship with my clients and I don't care to invest a bit in that.
          I completely agree. I don't mind taking the time to answer people's questions and give them honest feedback, etc.

          At the same time, if your SEO cannot figure out how to do the work properly, I'm not going to give you all the information you need to teach them how to do their job.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      I wouldn't work on the same keywords/sites If I knew another SEO was involved. How could you possibly know what the other guy is doing? For all you know the other guy is 10 SEO gigs on Fiverr, lol.
      I had a guy from here that couldn't rank his site number one no matter what but he had some other guys working on it for months. So I ranked him number one after he had finished with another provider weeks before to no effect.


      So he ranks and does he thank me? nah. He complains that he can't find one of the links and then claims it was the guys that didn't rank him before that just magically ranked him number one after the links I gave him were indexed. If you are not the cheapest provider then the client WANTS to believe it was someone else and if something goes wrong with the rankings he WANTS to be able to blame the person who charged more.

      No win. I won't work on a site another SEO is working on.
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  • Profile picture of the author David williamm
    Whenever you got an email of client, you need to understand what exactly clients want, if they asked you to do keyword research, then you need to analyse their website properly and try to understand functionality of their website so you can get some idea. Try to use some online tools which can help you in getting some idea about keywords
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