Please Help Me Make My First SEO Client Relationship A Success

[therealaxis]

Hey first of all I am a new member here and would like to introduce myself.

I have been working in concrete for the last 4 years and got laid of laid off in January.

A few months ago I stumbled across this site and have been hooked ever since.

I decided that since I have prior sales skills that a hybrid method would fit me best.

Basically I found a post on here and followed the guide line as to the first steps of a local business Seo/Social marketing company.

To be honest I am far from an expert at ether topic .I do however realize that outsourcing can make my goal achievable.

I basically reached out to a few business owners I know regarding what I was working on and one of them was willing to give me a shot.

He is a owner of a State Farm insurance branch,with his own building and employees.He is like every business owner looking to expand more to an online market.

He is also looking to put together a facebook campaign.

I am honestly looking for some good ideas to offer him.

I realize the insurance market is a hard one to crack but what should I realistically tell him I can offer?

Your help and ideas are more helpfull then you can imagine thanks in advance!

 

[Kalyken]

EDIT: Good Luck

 

[sukataetumba]

well, you first have to identify what he wants to achieve before you can really offer anything.

based on his goals, you can then come up with an action plan.

2 most important things you might want to identify:

1. Budget
2. Timeline

 

[Couch Monkey Media]

Yep if he wants to market online find out what he has done. ask him to give you his web site traffic reports.

Then ask him for the best 10 keywords for his business that his customers use.

then take those terms and spin them and see which ones of his or others you find that you can get him to the top of google for.

then look at if he wants you to do social marketing, articles, press release and so on.

Look at his current traffic. then go back to him and say based on my research we can get you to the top of google for these terms and set up with a customer facebook page and do one social post a day for you and we can double your online triffic for the low price of xxx.

ready to get started today.

 

[PremWebNet]

You need to figure out what his goals are as a client of yours. You also need to create a timeline which will mark out what you need to get done. PPC is also big in that field so you need to figure out his budget now versus what it is going to be with you. Most importantly you need to listen to what he has to say and show him results!

 

[therealaxis]

Yep if he wants to market online find out what he has done. ask him to give you his web site traffic reports.

Then ask him for the best 10 keywords for his business that his customers use.

then take those terms and spin them and see which ones of his or others you find that you can get him to the top of google for.

then look at if he wants you to do social marketing, articles, press release and so on.

Look at his current traffic. then go back to him and say based on my research we can get you to the top of google for these terms and set up with a customer facebook page and do one social post a day for you and we can double your online triffic for the low price of xxx.

ready to get started today.

Thanks for your reply it is much appreciated.

A few questions are shouldn't I be the one to figure out his best 10
keywords and if so what would be the beast way to do that.

After taking a look at his site his domain name is his name which may be nice for indexing high but is not good for indexing with local insurance keywords am I right?

He has a fb page currently with around 180 likes,and his company is currently making a post a day.

I am estimating the budget around 3k per 6 month period.

Do you think that will be the enough to compete in that competitive market.

As far as the CPC option can you please expand on that a little within the insurance market?

 

[HAdrian1239]

Talk to him about his biz... i.e. things like, "when your customers come to you, what do they ask about, what do they buy from you, what else are they interested in." Or... what are your specialties, what are your goals... things along those lines.

DON'T talk to him about "keywords" and "SEO" using those terms. You will confuse him. Just be curious and ask questions, and take what you learn, THEN apply it to keyword research.

For example: someone looking for a mortgage lender in a certain area... they might search "mortgage lender in X" or something, but they're probably looking for other things specifically... like a certain type of lender.

YOU are in control here, don't let the client run the show. Educate, inform, deliver value. Even if you're not sure of the direction to take, don't act like it. Success in this biz is all about projection... of confidence and mindset.

 

[therealaxis]

So hypotheticaly thinking if say the keywoord insurance in kansas city gets only 140 Exact match searches a month why would he want to pay for such a small amount of traffic?

The keywoord Insurance in Kansas City has medium level of competition how much of a budget do you feel I would need to get it indexed first page?

 

[HAdrian1239]

I am not a PPC expert... but...

1. what is the estimated CPC for "Insurance in Kansas City?" When I am trying to figure this kind of thing out in terms of estimated budget and comp, I use Spyfu.

2. Look for other related keywords for that city in the same niche... i.e. homeowners insurance, flood insurance, or whatever type of insurance your client focuses on... this is why you should really discuss with him (Not about SEO, but about his customer's behavior) He will give you insight.

3. Depending upon your landing page/offer, your ROI could be quite good regardless of CPC...and if the overall estimated cost is substantially higher than his... intake per client (or how much each new client it worth to him) then it is no issue.

4. Don't only focus on PPC. There are other ways to dominate the rankings without PPC, especially locally.

5. If it's truly targeted traffic for the keyword, and you have a good offer, it will convert. You don't need thousands of searches per month locally. Find out what people want, and give it to them, you know? It's really that easy... or at least the stripped down version of this whole offline concept is.

 

[therealaxis]

So hypotheticaly thinking if say the keywoord insurance in kansas city gets only 140 Exact match searches a month why would he want to pay for such a small amount of traffic?

The keywoord Insurance in Kansas City has medium level of competition how much of a budget do you feel I would need to get it indexed first page?

Can anyone help me with this particular question

 

[clin407]

As insurance is an insanely competitive industry, I wouldnt be surprised if the Avg cpc is 10+. That's just to get on first page.

 

[dannyhw]

Honestly insurance is one of the easier things to run, you just need to know what you're doing. For organic, I mean you can probably get some local results for obscure terms like "insurance kansas city" as long as nobody else over there is really doing a great job. Long tail isn't something you want to depend on for a client though. It's a tiny amount of traffic and eats up hours of your time.

Social media for financial services is really pretty beat. You can convince all the people you want to follow you, but when it comes down to it they're going to google, or directly to a major company when they want a quote. Plus, it's just not economical. People sitting around on facebook who see an ad for an insurance company don't decide to click it, and if they do they're not serious about buying.

People who search for insurance are generally more likely to be buying. The majority of the traffic for each type is in the very short tail, so it's best to just focus on the big ones. If you want to be a little more conservative, terms like "auto insurance quote" do perform better than terms like "auto insurance".

It's really not that expensive once you establish your campaign. I've had top 3 adwords spots for lots of insurance terms for $1/click or so.

Now a huge thing, maybe I should have mentioned this first, is that the nature of this whole thing is click, fill out form, look at quotes, sign up or get out. If you can't integrate a quoting engine into your landing page, I wouldn't bother. They're on the internet because they want all the info there, not to get a phone call by someone. If your client can't close any of the leads, he's not going to be a happy camper.