4 Tips For Writing A Winning SEO Proposal 

The market for SEO services is already quite saturated. There are numerous digital marketing agencies offering pretty much the same thing. Getting noticed in such a large market requires you to impress your prospective clients, which for any company can be quite pressing. In order to garner the attention and approval of your prospects and land yourself a deal, you’ll have to create a proposal that’s not only complete but also monumental.

If you’re wondering how you can do just that, follow these tips to create a compelling SEO proposal:

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1. Let Your Client Know You Understand Their Industry

If you want a client to listen to you, show them how much you know about their industry. Do this by including your own keyword research in the proposal.

During keyword research, you must do the following:

• Categorize your keywords. The categories may be topics or ranks.
• Don’t incorporate keywords that do poorly on search volumes.
• Determine the search volume and include it in your proposal.
• Classify your keywords according to device.

These steps will help you explain to your client why you went with keywords garnering the same search results. Doing this allows your prospective client to look into the habits of their end users. They will then understand why it’s unreasonable to increase visibility for searches that are navigational. 

Also, give your client an overview of the competitor. Some business owners think vendors with the same products or services are their only competitors. However, in terms of online searching, competitors are not always apparent or easily known.

Thus, you should provide a competitor overview to help them differentiate organic competitors from perceived ones. In doing this, you should:

• Create an overview of business categories
• Present an idea based on rankings and search volumes
• Pick out only business competitors

You can even go a step further by differentiating your prospect’s business from that of other businesses. Choose a keyword for your client’s business category. Then, illustrate how the competition is for every category. All of this information should appear in your SEO proposal.

2. Offer Deliverables And Solutions

Lay out exactly what tasks and projects your possible clients can expect from you as you accomplish the SEO campaign. In this section of the proposal, it’s important to be specific and precise. Show them the number of links you can create in 

a specific time frame if you’re offering link building services. Also, indicate in your SEO proposal whether you can create a content strategy for your client’s website or if you’re planning to handle social media marketing.

Come up with a definitive guideline so your target clients know what you can offer them. Don’t forget that your deliverables must be quantifiable and specified. It’s recommended to also include the type of SEO you can guarantee to produce. If you have the capability to provide them with a live SEO dashboard allowing them to keep an eye on the results, then mention this in your proposal.

3. Highlight Goals And Metrics

Saying that your SEO will boost traffic and increase visibility is not enough if you don’t align this with the general goals of the company. Presenting your SEO plans in accordance to your client’s marketing goals will prevent you from creating a proposal that seems generic.

Here are some goals you can show that are relevant to a number of businesses:

• Profit Increase: This is important for companies such as those in the eCommerce industry. Their goal, with your SEO assistance, should be to make their leads or potential customers make a purchase from them. 
• Leads Improvement: If your possible client is in the business-to-business (B2B) industry or any service-oriented category requiring a lot of people in making decisions, then this is what you need. Given that there’s a longer period for B2B customers to think about requesting a specific service, there’s a greater need for powerful SEO strategies for such companies. In time, this will help in generating more sales for them.
• Ranking Improvement: For this goal, the company aims to optimize their websites using SEO strategies.
• Traffic Enhancement: Aside from ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs), companies with websites want to increase their traffic. That way, they can also boost their leads and profits.

4. Give Them Profit

Your clients will probably look for profit numbers, so show them. You can always provide reasonable estimates that can be expected from the SEO services you provide.

You cannot, of course, guarantee you can provide the highest rank. This is because SEO is unpredictable, and there are many unknown factors and variables that might influence it. However, if you’re sure about what you’re doing, then you can state that you’ll help them improve their current ranking.

For example, if you have a client that ranks for a keyword on the fifth page of search engines, then give them an estimate dollar amount they can expect to pay if they want to get on the third or second page. To do this, you’ll need figures such as the following: 

• Value of every successful conversion 
• Rate of organic click-through for every position on the page
• Expected conversion rate according to industry studies, estimates, and history
• Average monthly search volume

Upon gathering these data, you’ll have the ability to highlight the value your customer can expect as they move up the pages. There are three simple formulas to calculate this:

• Volume of search x rate of click-through = potential traffic 
• Potential traffic x rate of conversation = potential conversion 
• Potential conversions x value of dollars = expected value

You don’t need to be a math genius to come up with the right numbers, but the way you present them to your customers should also be easy and simple for them to understand. If you ever have a client who’s focused on profit, then providing concrete and reasonable estimates they can work with will make them want to hire you.

Conclusion

Your SEO proposal will be the ultimate foundation of your relationship with your possible client. It’s a must-have for your pitch if sales are what you want to get. Clients don’t just look at one SEO service provider and agree to work with them immediately; they most likely check several companies before making the decision. Thus, it’s essential for you to offer a moving proposition. Great proposals will not only get you clients but also build a good relationship with them while laying out all the expectations and possible deliverables on the table.