What metrics matter most to your clients and how can you address that best in your reporting?

1. SEO: KEEPING YOUR CLIENTS HAPPY
Carrying out effective SEO strategies that analyze,
report, and communicate what matters

2. AGENDA
 Establishing Your SEO Goals
 How to Measure
 What Are Good KPI’s to Report on?
 CRM: Tools for Client Notes
 Reporting: Tools on Reporting
 Client Communication

3. ESTABLISHING GOALS

4. SETTING GOALS FOR SEO SUCCESS
Establish initial goals (short term, long term)
 What do your clients want in the short term & long term?
 How long will it take to reach each goal?
 Are the goals attainable?
Some examples of website goals:
 Tracking email contacts, RFQ’s
 Increasing website rankings over time
 Increasing website traffic
 Building out website pages
 Adding case studies/blog
Tip: Make sure to revise your clients’ goals frequently

5. MEASURE

6. What are you going to measure for your SEO goals?
 In order to know what you should measure, you need to
figure out and establish what your client wants and what
they value out of their SEO strategy.
 Many SEO goals include all or some of the following:
 More website traffic
 More goal completions ( Contact Us, RFQ)
 Online sales
 Brand awareness
 All the above?

7. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPI’S)
& REPORTING

8. What are the key metrics you should report on?
 While there is some variation for each client, many
clients have similar goals.
 Use your personal experiences with your client, notes
from your CRM to tailor your reports to your clients’
goals and what’s important to them.
 Typically, key performance indicators (progress & what your
clients typically care about most) are:
 Website traffic trends
 Goal conversions: ie; filling out a form
 Website rankings

9. CRM: KEEPING NOTES ON YOUR CLIENTS
 Why Take Notes?
 An organized place for you and the rest of your
company to know about leads & clients. You can better
serve your clients and keep their business.
 What are Some Useful Tools?
 Salesforce – Data on clients & lead generation info
 37 Signals’ Highrise, Basecamp – Great project
management software
 Dropbox – Free file sharing and saves documents

10. SOMETIMES, TO GET WHAT YOU WANT FROM YOUR
CLIENT, YOU HAVE TO PULL INFORMATION OUT OF
THEM…
Image: thesaurus.com

11. ASKING QUESTIONS ALWAYS LEADS TO BETTER
UNDERSTANDING & BETTER RESULTS
 In order to get more information out of your clients, you
need to ask the right questions and ask them on a
regular basis.
 Clients don’t always remember to share important things
that they are doing with their business that can impact
the way you are carrying out their online marketing
strategy, which can make both your efforts more
successful.
Some good questions to ask frequently:
 What are your most profit producing products/services?
 Do you have new products/services coming out?
 What other types of marketing are you doing?
 Are you doing any business internationally?
 Are you using any other third party for online services?
 Does your business have an seasonal trends?

12. HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU REPORT?
 Every week?
 Every month?
 Every quarter?
 Each clients’ business is unique and has unique needs. Larger budget
clients typically require more frequent communication, but this isn’t always
true. I personally think an automated report should be sent once a month,
and in person meetings should happen every 3-6 months at most.
 The important thing to do is be consistent with your reporting. Too much
variation and you end up causing communication issues and expectations
become shifted.
 Always work to refine your reports so they communicate important metrics
to your clients, while also finding ways to streamline the reporting
process.

13. CLIENT COMMUNICATION

14. CREATING AND MAINTAINING LONG LASTING
CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS
 The relationship you have with your client is one of your most
important assets.
 Establishing a good relationship with your client and
communicating with them often, even if its just a short email to
check up on them aside from reports, goes a long way.
 Make your client feel like you are an extension of their
business and do your best to understand what they do and
what they offer so that you can serve them the best results.

15. COMMUNICATING YOUR SEO EFFORTS TO YOUR
CLIENTS
Aside from the established KPI’s, what are some ways
you can communicate your results to your clients?
 Using a lot of metaphors & synonyms
 Pictures, diagrams, graphs, glossaries
 Asking lots of questions
 Trends, Trends, Trends!
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16. TRENDS
 Trends are one of the most important thing an SEO
specialist has to show to their clients, whether its
trends in their industry, or traffic patterns and rankings
over time.
 Trends help give a comparison to a before and after.
 Looking at trends also help identify unique things
going on that you may not find if you didn’t compare
your data against data from similar timeframe.
Tip: When I show data over a period of 6 months, I compare that to the
same date range from the previous year. This helps to make a more
accurate comparison of the data within the same timeframe. This helps
avoid seasonal discrepancies.

17. QUESTIONS?

18. THANK YOU!
@R8chel_Marie Gplus.to/rachelhowe
Linkedin.com/rachelhowe