It takes a lot of skill and experience to write a good SEO proposal. To most people, writing the proposal does not come easy. In fact, many would rather delegate this task to other people and focus on other issues. Experienced individuals know all the concepts that should appear in the proposal. Those who have never written such a proposal should never despair. A quick search on the Internet for the best SEO proposal template should make your task easier going forward.
The first thing it should have is enough information. A proposal is all about uniquely presenting information. The information should specifically state what the ultimate objective is. Other than that, it also provides a roadmap showing specific measures and steps that will be taken to achieve the specific goals and objectives outlined above. In essence, it is like a recipe book containing instructions for mixing various ingredients to prepare a meal.
If nobody has ever asked you to present an SEO proposal, then chances are that you probably have no idea what it is. Similarly, if your job has nothing to do with SEO, then you will have no clue as to what the entire hullabaloo is about. In simple words, an SEO proposal is a document you write indicating the measures you are going to apply to give clients the results they are looking for, especially on matters regarding search engine optimization.
The proposal is a pitch. You are using it to pitch different ideas to the prospective client. You pitch to show the client that you are the best person for the SEO job or project. You are not the only player in the SEO industry. For this reason, clients are likely to ask for and receive proposals from various companies, individuals, and agencies. Your proposal has to stand out from the rest to grab and retain the clients’ attention. That is where the SEO proposal template comes in.
The template is for anybody who has no idea how to write or draft an SEO proposal. Other than this group of people, veterans with years of experience providing SEO-related services and solutions can also benefit greatly from the template. Without the template guiding you, it would be impossible for you to avoid making some costly mistakes. With this template, you can notice if you have written a hopelessly bad or wonderfully good SEO proposal.
No matter how good the SEO proposal template is, you cannot rely on it fully at the expense of your creativity. Modern clients are more alert than ever before. They can notice a template-based proposal. A creatively drafted proposal stands out from the rest. It has personality and is customized depending on what each client wants. In fact, you should strive to get to a place where no two SEO proposals that you write look and sound the same.
Clients are often quite skeptical. Do not expect that they will jump all over the place simply because you can talk and move a crowd. Your oratory skills will not help much here. Instead, you would rather prepare a detailed SEO proposal and distribute it to clients you wish could give you some business. If you look closely enough, you would notice that an SEO proposal is enabling your business to grow, but only if:
It is good to know features of a good SEO proposal so that you can use the SEO proposal template to make the best one. Similarly, learn the features that can make your proposal bad. These lessons will help you to avoid incurring the wrath of the clients you are trying to win over to your side. As you will see in the template, a well-written SEO proposal is clear on so many issues. It has all the required sections, which clients can read and understand easily.
Just like any other proposal, an SEO proposal has the following sections:
Each section needs careful handling to minimize mistakes as much as possible. In fact, it is good to draft a completely error-free proposal. Therefore, go through each section in depth multiple times to determine that it is free of errors. You will be right to walk around expecting much from clients after presenting a well-written proposal to them. On the other hand, you should only expect rejection from the clients after sending to them a poorly written proposal.
Write the proposal well by basing it on the SEO proposal template in your possession. If you do that, nobody would have anything to say against you expecting the desired results. In the same vein, well-written proposals guarantee you the necessary site audit from clients. Check the language and tone used in the template well. As you worry about the tone and language of the proposal, remember that when it comes to SEO, it is wise to avoid guaranteeing miracles in your proposal. You will notice several things in the template, the first of which is the absence of guarantees.
There aren’t any guarantees in the world of SEO. In fact, most clients are trained to take off from anybody who offers guarantees, especially the unrealistic ones. Remember that the effectiveness of any SEO strategy you employ depends on several factors. You have a role to play as the SEO expert. However, your input alone is insufficient. Therefore, offering clients guarantees that their websites will be on the first pages of SERPs would be setting yourself up for failure. This is because the SEO industry changes rather frequently and while you may have an ironclad strategy with a great chance of performing SEO miracles, changes can easily hinder your ability to deliver as guaranteed.
A good SEO proposal, as you will notice from the SEO proposal template is full of relevant details. The purpose of writing an SEO proposal, as indicated earlier, is to provide clients with as much information as possible about the upcoming SEO campaign. The information here should refer to not only the type but also scope of work the client should expect the expert in SEO to complete.
The SEO proposal template also talks a great deal about money. Anybody who is in business provides services to make some money. Therefore, few will want to approve a proposal that’s too extravagant when it comes to spending money. As you saw earlier, the proposal has several sections. One of these sections is dedicated to money. In this section, you need to include details about the amount money that will be needed.
More than that, remember that you have to keep up with the latest SEO trends. You have to be up to speed with the changes that Google or other search engines have introduced. In keeping up with these trends, you will be able to tell which strategies to include in the proposal and how much money it will cost.
A well-written SEO proposal, as you will learn from the SEO proposal template, never focuses on offering clients packages. Instead, the focus is on customizing solutions to the SEO-related problems each client encounters. Offering clients a bevy of packages from which to choose often makes it harder to meet their needs. SEO needs are unique from one customer to the other. No two customers can have similar SEO problems or needs.
Customizing SEO services is great news for clients. It offers them a chance to save money, which they would have paid for unnecessary solutions or packages. Some niches are also too competitive. Any attempt by an SEO expert to provide a one-size-fits-all solution in such niches only gives birth to new problems. In competitive niches, SEO services have to be overly aggressive to meet and surpass the client’s needs and expectations.
SEO proposal should not place all focus on link development and forget about the other solutions. Any SEO proposal that places more emphasis on link development is also likely to have fundamental flaws. It is true that links are crucial in improving ranking on SERPs. However, the improvements they present will never be as stable or sustainable as they ought to without the following:
It is the duty of the SEO expert to point out these issues to the clients through the SEO proposal. Some SEO proposals are wrong. They will never achieve the desired goal. Sadly, a good number of clients are not SEO savvy. Therefore, they swallow “solutions” that some of the experts provide hook, line, and sinker. They only realize later, after spending hefty amounts of money, that the experts duped them.
A client who approaches you with SEO problems is not worried about the poor or low ranking on Google alone. On the contrary, the client wants a broad-based approach that is customized to specific needs and problems. Read the SEO proposal template once again. From it, you will see that a proper and detailed diagnosis of the client’s website is a crucial first step. Diagnosis cannot take place without tearing that website down to check all that is wrong with it.
Under the SEO proposal, you should evaluate the client’s website based on the following elements:
Under each element, your proposal should feature between 15 and 20 points. Accompany the points you make with relevant screenshots from the website you just evaluated. Provide a short explanation of the problems you have noted and the solutions you want to offer. Solutions should never be generic. Instead, make them as specific and unique to the client’s website as possible.
The solutions should be detailed enough that the client has a good idea of what will be done. However, as some SEO specialists have found, being too detailed could be counter-intuitive as a client who might choose to implement them without you. What you need to do is provide enough detailed information since providing details has some associated benefits. Most of the time, close to 99% of the clients will feel you are the right person to institute the SEO changes the website or online business needs. Making a hitherto non-SEO site fully optimized for the search engines takes a lot of hard work. Ninety-nine percent of your clients are not ready to put in the hours to optimize their websites. They only have time to offer their core services and products.
Furthermore, offering detailed solutions is one perfect way of building trust with SEO clients. Borrow as much as you like from the SEO proposal template. What you should remember while doing all that is the need for having a sustainably trustworthy relationship with the client. The proposal should build trust without necessarily mentioning that word. Always tell clients what you intend to do for them, and how you plan to go about it.
That leads to the next point – scope and deliverables.
Here, the proposal focuses on what the SEO expert or agency will do for clients. It is advisable to break this part into several plans. The initial plan focuses entirely on what the client has asked for. While drafting this plan, check that the price you quote is within the client’s budget range. Be as detailed as possible by breaking down everything you wish to do. Do not stop there. Include other plans that go beyond what the client asked for too.
Lastly, make the proposal as personalized and customized as possible. Remember, the SEO proposal template is a powerful tool for learning how to prepare effective proposals and solutions that fit each client’s needs. Avoid generic and generalized proposals that look like a copy-and-paste job. Address the client’s concerns. Provide a detailed analysis of everything that is wrong with the website. Explain in detail how you plan to make the site more optimized for search engines.
