First SEO Customer - Suggestions Weclomed! | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

14 years ago

Originally Posted by ebony76

Hello to all you good folks out there!

Here is the deal, I have been reading and subscribed to a bunch of mailing lists, blog and forums for some time now all regarding SEO and IM.

It's been a about two years now and I came to the conclusion that I knew a heck of a lot more than most business owners about the topic.

Hence why I opted to start my own seo services company in order to help out fellow business men and woman who wanted better rankings for their web properties.

I had laid out a couple of SEO strategies that I intend on implementing but now that I actually got my first paying customer and need to perform and produce results, I fee I should seek out some suggestions from here and see what people might suggest as a good way forward implementing a good SEO strategy to boost rankings.

Thank you all who respond!

That is completely dependent on what results and goals your client has in mind. Would they be content with a Google Maps listing or do they also want their website ranking for certain search terms.

In many cases, if it is a local client, a google maps listing will do more than enough to satisfy a client. Then you just have to work on getting the maps listing to the top.

There is no way to really give you and advice until you have clear objectives and you can't get those until you know exactly what the client wants and expects.

Thanks
1 reply

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ebony76

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Jacob Martus

That is completely dependent on what results and goals your client has in mind. Would they be content with a Google Maps listing or do they also want their website ranking for certain search terms.

In many cases, if it is a local client, a google maps listing will do more than enough to satisfy a client. Then you just have to work on getting the maps listing to the top.

There is no way to really give you and advice until you have clear objectives and you can't get those until you know exactly what the client wants and expects.

Thanks for the response. So in this particular case, we're going after one particular keyword and looking to get a page one ranking for it. It's a local specific keyword with some moderate competion but establishing a good 30 high quality backlinks should be enough to accomplish this. Speaking of Google Maps.. not quite sure how ranking is established for those exactly.. any good suggestions for Google Maps ranking?

Thanks!

Thanks

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Anirban_Das

Banned 14 years ago

[DELETED]

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Jeff McGehee

14 years ago

Have you ever ranked a site yourself?
Have you ranked a site for local search terms?
Have you successfully placed a site into the local box for a given term?

If you are unable to answer yes to all of these questions, how do you reconcile taking money from a business owner for something you aren't certain you can deliver?

Congrats on getting moving on something, but understand in our litigious, sue-happy society that failure here could potentially have worse consequences for you than simply failing to rank your own sites.

The best suggestion I would give you if you answered no to any of the questions above is to work on getting all those to yes before taking on clients. Ranking sites is one thing, but local, while sometimes easier, can be a different animal depending on the niche.

Thanks
1 reply

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ebony76

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Jeff McGehee

Have you ever ranked a site yourself?
Have you ranked a site for local search terms?
Have you successfully placed a site into the local box for a given term?

If you are unable to answer yes to all of these questions, how do you reconcile taking money from a business owner for something you aren't certain you can deliver?

Congrats on getting moving on something, but understand in our litigious, sue-happy society that failure here could potentially have worse consequences for you than simply failing to rank your own sites.

The best suggestion I would give you if you answered no to any of the questions above is to work on getting all those to yes before taking on clients. Ranking sites is one thing, but local, while sometimes easier, can be a different animal depending on the niche.

Hi Jeff,

You certainly bring up very good points here and the answer is a big NO. I have not done this for my own sites for I have not had my own sites to promote... yet.

This is actually something that I will be doing in parallel with my first client who is fully aware of where I stand and what I will be doing for him in terms of better search placement for his site.

I have no issues accepting a fair and honest fee for fair and honest work/time spent on implementing strategies that will boost his rankings... since 0 SEO has been done on or for his web initiative.

Thanks again for your comment!

Thanks

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ebony76

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Anirban_Das

I would say, you should concentrate on your Back Linking structure while you are focusing on SERP,.Try to make as many quality of Back links you can provide...that will be beneficial..Article, Pres Release, Social Book marking blog commenting and forum posting is traditional effective..try to some social video marketing with combination of good content it will help you a lot not only SERP but also for targeted audience as well.
Some link quality you should maintain are:

· Links from industry-relevant/topic-relevant pages where links are placed

· Links with specified Keywords in the Anchor Text

· Links from sites that have PR specified links page.

· Link to your site should not be through a redirect script.

· No JavaScript links.

· No framed sites.

· Links from Pre-indexed Pages only.

· No SPAM should be used to solicit links.

· No links from Link Farms.

· No FFA networks.

· No links from PORN, racially prejudiced sites and other sites containing offensive content.

· No flash sites

· No Robots tag exclusions

· No nofollow tag exclusions

· Links from many different domains

Hope this information will help you to make your client happy...
-
Anirban

Thanks Anirban, this is pretty much the road map I plan on following!

Thanks

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Seantrepreneur

14 years ago

I agree with Jacob Martus. Start with google maps. That's extremely simple and should drive your clients crazy.

Remember that you gained your clients trust and they think that you are an SEO expert. You have to respect that and give them quality service in return. I'm glad you came to the forum for advice, but that might not always work. Good luck with your first client and I hope everything works out!

Sean

Thanks
1 reply

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ebony76

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Seantrepreneur

I agree with Jacob Martus. Start with google maps. That's extremely simple and should drive your clients crazy.

Remember that you gained your clients trust and they think that you are an SEO expert. You have to respect that and give them quality service in return. I'm glad you came to the forum for advice, but that might not always work. Good luck with your first client and I hope everything works out!

Sean

Thanks Sean... it really nice to have this forum as support if necessary. I will in turn hopefully provided good feedback based on my experiences gained along the way as well.

Thanks

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Mr.H

14 years ago

Do you have already your own ranked websites ?

Thanks

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IndigoJack

14 years ago

Don't promise what you can't deliver. Be very careful in your claims to your client - it may come back to bite you in the bum.

Good luck.

Thanks

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Mangozoom

14 years ago

Hi Guys

Love the suggestion for ranking with Google Maps ... how does one do that?

Good stuff in here

John

Thanks
1 reply

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harryc 14 years ago

Google Places
- Thanks
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McBrett

14 years ago

@ebony76 Congrats on signing your first client.

My two cents of advice don't have anything to do with the actual SEO of your campaign, but on how you can try to leverage this existing relationship with your customer.

Now that you've got your first client you'll want to do the simple things right good customer service, SEO results, etc for a few different reasons:

1.) keep getting paid.
2.) get some testimonials\references
3.) get some referrals from the client

After the client has been with you a couple months, ask them if they know of anyone else who might need SEO consulting. Business owners know other business owners. Get in with one and start tapping into their network.

Good luck on your new business venture!

Thanks
1 reply

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ebony76

14 years ago

Originally Posted by McBrett

@ebony76 Congrats on signing your first client.

My two cents of advice don't have anything to do with the actual SEO of your campaign, but on how you can try to leverage this existing relationship with your customer.

Now that you've got your first client you'll want to do the simple things right good customer service, SEO results, etc for a few different reasons:

1.) keep getting paid.
2.) get some testimonialsreferences
3.) get some referrals from the client

After the client has been with you a couple months, ask them if they know of anyone else who might need SEO consulting. Business owners know other business owners. Get in with one and start tapping into their network.

Good luck on your new business venture!

Thanks McBrett for the pointers and I'll be sure to look at your site as well!

Thanks

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Jordan Kovats

14 years ago

You should also derive some sort of report for your customer. Whether it be their ranking before you started their campaign, vs the ranking after the first month to show what progress you have made, and some sort of tracking sheet, so that if you are asked what you did during the month, that you actually have something to show them.

Thanks
1 reply

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ebony76

14 years ago

Originally Posted by theseoguys

You should also derive some sort of report for your customer. Whether it be their ranking before you started their campaign, vs the ranking after the first month to show what progress you have made, and some sort of tracking sheet, so that if you are asked what you did during the month, that you actually have something to show them.

@theseoguy

That was one of the first things I looked into actually and set out to find some good seo reporting software... came up with IBP which does a great job. What reporting tools might you recommend?

Thanks!

Thanks

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