The SEO industry includes: those that play by Google’s rules (White Hat), those that bend those rules (Grey Hat), and those that break the rules entirely (Back Hat). Unfortunately, the later two give the SEO industry, as a whole, a negative image and have done a lot of long term damage to the unsuspecting small business owners who hire them.
As an Internet marketing company that practices White Hat SEO Patina Marketing has dealt with its share of clients that have unknowing hired Black Hat SEO’s in the past. In each case, we have had to overcome the fears of business owners who were lead down a path that negatively impacted their brand, their business and their return on investment (ROI) by SEO’s that took advantage of them. Each feared working with a new SEO and had reservations about continuing with their Internet Marketing plans. However, they also knew that they could not afford to let their competitors gain market share while they sat on the sidelines because they were afraid to take a chance with a new SEO firm.
Overcoming the fears of clients like these can take a lot of “hand holding,” but they can also make us better SEO’s because we learn to proactively communicate with our clients and set their fears at ease. This also allows us to become better educators and help clients understand what and why we make the changes we do and how this benefits them.
Here is our short list of what and how we communicate with clients on our SEO activities:
Outline Internet Marketing Strategy
We develop a 12 month link building strategy for each client and explain to them what we will be doing for them and why. This gives clients visibility to what changes have been made or are planned and how and why it benefits them.
Since Internet Marketing strategies can change quickly we also inform our clients of any necessary pivots and explain why one activity was put on hold or ceased in favor of another. This keeps clients abreast of what we are doing for them and they don’t feel blindsided if we change directions.
Monthly Web Analytics Reports
We have found that sending monthly reports to clients on the visitors that are coming to their website and the keywords they use to find the site is a good way to communicate the organic growth. In addition, because many of our clients are small local businesses and their clients come from within a certain radius of their physical location we provide them with geo-location reports. These geo-location reports allow us to provide details on visitors who are most likely to do business with them vs. everyone who visited their website, including those who could not possibly have become customers.
Showing clients these reports allows us to demonstrate to our clients our full understanding of who their clients are and assures them that we are working on implementing Internet Marketing strategies that are designed to benefit them for the long term.
Monthly Link Building Updates
We provide our clients with monthly updates of the link building activities we have completed for them on their behalf. This report tells our clients where we have secured links to their website(s) and tells them what we are working on.
The link building we do is labor intensive and time consuming. For this reason, our clients need to know that any change we make on their behalf is made with their long term ROI in mind. – We don’t offer linking building services for pennies on the dollar. We work to secure links from websites that are affiliated with or are complementary to our clients businesses and those which will benefit them over the long term. We do not spend time building links from websites where there is little or no benefit for our clients in the long term.
Monthly Updates & Quarterly Meetings
We like to schedule at least one call with our clients on a monthly basis and have an in person meeting once a quarter when possible. We find that by having these in person meetings our clients become more engaged with their website, get more comfortable with us and see us as their partner rather than a vendor. – This also has the added benefit of having them refer more business to us which is how we like to grow our business.
If you have a website and are looking for a Internet Marketing and SEO firm that is focused on long term link building and increasing clients ROI contact Patina Marketing at 805-380-5494 to find out how we can help you optimize your site.
