Setting SEO Expectations for New Clients

One of the most important things you can do in any business is to properly set up expectations for your clients. It’s especially true when it comes to search engine optimization. Most people outside of the Internet marketing world have no clue as to how the search engines organize their results (hell, even many Internet marketers don’t truly understand SEO).  If you want to keep your clients happy, it’s extremely important to inform your clients of the process of SEO and to explain that the optimization process takes time. My personal rule with my clients is to overestimate  the time I think it will take to start seeing results. It’s always been my golden rule in business.  Underpromise and overdeliver. Why? Most people (in any business) do the EXACT OPPOSITE just to get a sale.  It’s truly refreshing to do business with someone who actually overdelivers on his promises. I’m even happy when they tell me 45 minutes for a table and I get seated in 25 at a restaurant. Now if someone tells me 45 minutes and I’m waiting 1:30, I’m pissed. Same thing when it comes to your clients. You don’t want them pissed from the start or they will probably be all over your ass. Having an “underpromise/overdeliver”  philosophy helps in a few ways:

1. If you can beat your time estimate for results, you look really good with your client. For example if you tell your client it’s going to take 3 months before they start to see sales occur as a result of your SEO work, and they start seeing results in month 2…..they love you.

2. It buys you more time if you aren’t seeing results yet. Let’s say competition is a little tougher than you first anticipated, and you aren’t yet moving up on the SERPS like you thought you would. Overestimating the time you thought it would take to start seeing results has now given you more time to move their site up.

3. Referral business will increase. Once your clients start to see results in a shorter time period than they originally anticipated, they will tell others about you I promise. Good businesses are hard to come by and people realize this so when they find someone that delivers results, they tell their friends about it.

Keep in mind, the most important element in any SEO compaign is not rankings but ROI.  All clients want to know how much business they will get as a result of your SEO campaign and of course that’s always difficult to anticipate. Underpromising and overdelivering also applies to the estimated return that your clients will get. In any business, it’s a rule to live by.