This short guide is written for corporate and in-house marketing/technical teams to help them plan a meeting with an SEO provider. Along with the usual exploratory questions as to who does what, when & where, it can be useful to plan and execute a small number of tasks so that you can ask the right questions of the SEO company and provide the right information to them too.
If you’ve arranged a meeting with a potential SEO provider (or the team at NaturalRanks.co.uk), there are a few key tasks that you need to perform so that you extract maximum benefit from the meet-up.
All of these tasks can be done in advance and will help the meeting to run smoothly:
Task 1 > Think of keywords
The SEO provider will identify the most suitable keyterms for your website to target, however it is important that you brainstorm several keyterms as a starting point for the provider to work from. Try to avoid generic (single word) terms and identify keyterms that you would use to buy your product/service.
Task 2 > Think of your customers
Thinking about your customers needs and desires may help you better identify keyterms that will lead to online sales and conversions. Compile a list of answers to questions such as:
- Who users my website?
- What do my customers want to find on my website?
- What problem/predicament does my website help my customer to resolve?
- What is my most profitable service/product?
- What is my most popular service/product?
Task 3 > Meet with the relevant in-house teams
Search Engine Optimisation of a website can often involve many teams of people, from the marketing team to the sales team, technical web development teams to compliance and QA teams. Meet with them all to outline what you want the SEO project to achieve (improve rankings of the website for search terms which could improve sales). Find out in advance what impact this is likely to have on each team and (if possible) invite a member of each team to attend the initial SEO meeting. If resources are tight, try to find answers to questions such as:
- Who will write/amend copy for the website?
- Who will update/amend the source code of the website?
- Are there areas of the website that cannot be updated?
- What language is the website written in?
- Who should be a point of contact within each team for the SEO provider to liaise with?
Task 4 > Gather Analytics
Search Analytics show traffic trends and the demographics of people visiting your website. Print out the past month’s worth of data and bring it to the meeting. If you don’t have Web Analytics, it’s not too late! Google Analytics is free and can be set-up on a website in under an hour. Task the nearest technical team member with getting it installed.
Task 5 > Think about Marketing budgets
Search Engine Marketing frequently requires ongoing maintenance to help improve and maintain search rankings for your desired keyterms. Additionally, a link budget should be made available for the purchase of links in popular directories and adverts on relevant third-party websites. Budget for this over a period of 6 and 12 months to ensure you get the maximum benefit from an SEO campaign.
Task 6 > Get technical
Optimising your website for the search engines will almost certainly require some changes to your site code, layout and structure. Involve a member of your technical team in the SEO meeting so that you can ascertain what changes are likely and what changes are possible.
Bonus Task 7 > Create an Agenda
Help your SEO provider to prepare for the meeting by outlining what topics you’d like to cover and what the outcome of the meeting will be. Email the agenda to the SEO team several days in advance of the meeting.
I hope this helps you to plan a better SEO meeting. Following the tips above will help you to build a solid relationship with your SEO provider for years to come.
Meta
on January 8, 2009
