Create your own
with estimates, read receipt notifications & e-approval
Customize and create a
SEO Proposal Template
with Bonsai.
It's fast, free, and easy to use.
Or, download the standard PDF template.
It takes a lot of skill and experience to write a good freelance SEO proposal template. To most people, writing the SEO proposal PDF 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 for SEO services should never despair. A quick search on the Internet for the best SEO proposal template should make your task easier going forward and ensure you sign a favorable SEO contract.
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 PDF, 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, a proposal for SEO services 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 freelance SEO proposal template 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 PDF. 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 proposal for SEO services.
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 PDF 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 SEO proposal for clients. 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 SEO proposal PDF. 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 freelance SEO proposal template, as you will notice from the SEO proposal template for clients that it 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 for SEO services 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 proposal for SEO services 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 PDF, you should evaluate the client’s website based on the following elements:
Under each element, your SEO proposal for clients 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 freelance SEO proposal template 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.
A popular niche for freelancers is providing services for clients in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Many businesses with a website want SEO services to ensure customers and potential customers find the site. So to find those clients needing SEO services, a freelancer needs an effective SEO proposal sample that reflects their experience and what they can do for businesses.
Rather than create a proposal every time you approach a client, having an SEO proposal sample ready will help speed the process for you. Whether you use a service to help with administrative tasks such as proposals, or you do the work yourself, there are 9 things that make an effective SEO proposal sample.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about numbers, statistics, and hard facts. You can always impress your clients with the facts that you’ve got. But it doesn’t hurt if you impress a prospective client with something pretty as well. If you are meeting a client for the first time, the first thing they’d like to see is your SEO proposal example.
As an SEO specialist, you'd probably prefer spending more time working and less time crafting proposals. You'd save time and avoid crafting a proposal every time you get a project if you have editable SEO proposal examples. Then, you can focus on increasing the online visibility of clients and also increase your clientele by encouraging them to ask you the right questions.
SEO is still a topic that seems a mystery to some business owners. Many business directors have no idea of what you do and how you’d convert for their business. So, an SEO proposal presents you with the opportunity to explain your service to a prospective client.
You can always list and describe the core service you are offering a client in your proposal. Remember, your goal is to get approval from your client; so, craft your proposal in that manner.
Regular SEO proposal examples contain the list of services such as technical SEO analysis, guest posting, competition research, link building outreach, keyword research, and content writing. Sometimes it might make sense why the client should work on SEO rather than SEM.
The first part of the proposal is what will attract clients to dig deeper into the document, so be sure to write a succinct yet informative introduction.
Most importantly, let the client know how you will help them solve their problem. Then outline your business, your years of experience doing SEO, and why you want to work for the client.
Having a client that doesn’t truly understand SEO will make your job more difficult. So build an executive summary of what SEO actually involves, and what it can do for any client’s business.
That can include strategies you use to increase search engine rankings, and estimates on the length of time it takes for such strategies to be effective. You can also include how you measure success of your SEO campaigns.
Think of this section as a way to describe the client’s problem (customers are not finding their website) and your proposed solution (your SEO strategy).
By having a clear explanation of the work you do, you won’t spend hours on these details every time you want to prepare a proposal. Your SEO proposal sample will be ready, and then you can customize it depending on the client.
Your SEO proposal sample should include goals for SEO campaigns. For instance, your overarching goal could be to “increase organic traffic to the client’s website.”
Then, outline deliverables that you’ll look after in order to accomplish the goals.
You’ll likely have to adapt this section for every client. But by having a pricing model built, it can easily be modified after speaking to the prospective client and understanding how much work the campaign will involve.
Your model may be built on a retainer basis, in which the client has access to you for a specific amount of work each month. Or, it could be an hourly basis, with your guidelines showing how long each step of the campaign will take and the cost for each step. Or, you may have a price-per-campaign model, with a payment schedule that breaks it down into milestones.
If you have more than one pricing model, have them ready to insert into your SEO proposal sample depending on the client and the work you’re suggesting you’ll do.
And, be sure to include a payment schedule along with any milestones. You likely don’t want to wait until the end of a lengthy campaign to get paid for your work.
If you run an agency, or work with subcontracted staff, you’ll need to have a section to outline who will be working on the campaign. You don’t want the client to think you’ll be doing all the work, and then be contacted by someone else doing work for you.
Include a brief bio, including work history, education, any certifications or awards, and a photo if applicable. If you work on your own, be sure to include this information about yourself. Consider adding a link to a portfolio, if you have a website that shows off your experience and recent work.
Make sure you have a section in your SEO proposal sample that invites the client to contact you with any questions or for clarification.
You want to make sure the client is comfortable with what you’ve proposed, and understands the document before making a decision whether to hire you.
Your SEO proposal sample should include client testimonials and references.
Outline a successful campaign, with the steps you took to improve SEO and how you measured the results. Then be sure to have contact information for the client who was happy with your work.
A powerful visual is to include the logos of the clients you’ve worked for on SEO campaigns.
Now that you have the basis for your SEO proposal sample, you can then tailor it to specific clients.
As with any proposal, the goal is to get the client to hire you, so you have to think like the client. When you’re preparing your SEO proposal sample, put yourself in the client’s shoes and provide information they will need to make the decision to hire you.
In that regard, make sure you do some research on the client. Gain an understanding of their website and their existing social media presence. Review their LinkedIn profile to see how many employees they have, or find information on their revenues.
The research doesn’t have to be exhaustive, but you do need an understanding of the client to know what you can do for them. For instance, outline a few issues that you uncovered on their website, and explain that you have the tactics to solve those problems.
Then you’ll be able to edit and add to your SEO proposal to meet the needs of each specific client. With these effective steps to creating an SEO proposal sample, you’ll be well on your way to attracting clients to your freelance business.
The main reason for writing a proposal is to give your client a broad view of your service offering and ultimately get the green light to handle their project.
So, your SEO proposal examples must center around the following questions.
An SEO expert will most likely get a positive response if the above questions are well addressed to a client's satisfaction. Now that you've thought about the problems, its time to draft a beautiful proposal.
The format below is great for your SEO proposal examples format.
This is the place to present your finding on question one above. Identify the problem and dig into the root cause of the problem. That shows you really understand what the client is facing when you use the words of the client.
Here is a place you let your client know the value of the service you are proposing. They have to see the potential of your service and the estimated revenue in view.
Bring in statistics using the client's main target keywords and show what they get if their page ranks higher on Google.
Talk about your solution but break down your technical terms so that the client can understand what you are proposing. Mention your strategy and campaign, which may include full website audit, content development guidelines, brand enhancement, and off-page optimization.
This is one of the critical aspects of SEO proposal examples writing. It would be helpful if you specify metrics that parties involved will use in judging the performance of your SEO overhaul. Using the data shows your transparency and credibility of your business. Use metrics like organic traffic or revenue, which aligns with the client's objective.
Mention the start date of the project until maturation. Use charts, break broad tasks into discrete elements, and schedule milestones if applicable.
What and what do you need to get the project started? List all the dependencies, resources, and request access to the client's portal by adding the clause to your SEO proposal examples.
Every SEO expert has a pricing model. Make clients see what they are paying for, and when they have to make payment. Break down service and add their respective fees but avoid a laundry list of fees.
Pen down your terms and conditions. Anticipate issues that may arise and address them with a clause on the proposal.
All our templates are customizable, and can be accepted online.
Or, download the non-editable PDF version.
