11 Questions to Ask a Client Before Starting SEO

Success in website promotion largely depends on how well communication with the customer is established, and the ability to hear and understand the client’s needs. Understanding the client’s goals and objectives from the very beginning will help create an effective strategy and save time on further clarifications and approvals.

Here's a list of basic questions that will help you navigate your client's needs and avoid future disagreements.

1. Why do you need SEO? What are your goals and expectations?

It is important to understand what problems the client is trying to solve when applying for search engine promotion services. Expectations must be realistic and goals achievable. Perhaps the client wants to increase traffic, increase sales, expand their customer base, or increase brand awareness. An example would be a situation where a client creates an online store with the goal of overtaking a competitor who is already present in the market. It is important that the goals are clear and that the understanding of the tasks coincides with the real possibilities.

2. What KPIs or metrics are you planning to track?

It is necessary to find out what is the main criterion for success for the customer. These could be indicators such as traffic, site visibility in search engines, conversions, bounce rate, etc. Clear metrics will help you more accurately build a strategy and provide reports in the required format that is understandable to the client. If the client doesn't have pre-defined metrics, offer them options that fit their business.

3. Budget and expectations

It is very important to find out what budget the client is willing to allocate for promotion. This will determine how big the strategy can be approached. For example, promoting a large online store with a limited budget will require a more flexible approach and selection of optimal promotion channels. Setting realistic expectations based on budget is key to effective collaboration.

4. Has the site been promoted before?

If the site has already undergone SEO promotion, you need to find out who did it, what methods were used and why the cooperation was terminated. This will give you an understanding of what work was done, what gave results, and what was ineffective. It is also important to assess how adequate the client is in his expectations - for example, you should not hire those who expected that a site with a budget of 3,000 rubles in two months would be in the TOP 3 for all key queries.

5. Main types of customer clients

Depending on the specifics of the business, companies can target different market segments. For example, a clothing manufacturer might market to children, women, or men, and each segment requires a different approach to content creation and strategic targeting. Understanding what audience the business is targeting will help you build a targeted and effective strategy.

6. Regionality

Promoting the same project in different regions will differ greatly in the level of competition, costs and time it will take to achieve results. Clarify which regions you are interested in, and understand that promoting a website within one city and throughout the country are completely different tasks. This will help you more accurately assess the scope of the job and the effort required.

7. What areas/products are priority?

If the client represents a company with a wide range of services or an online store with many products, it is important to highlight priority areas. Concentrating on the most profitable products or services will significantly improve the effectiveness of the strategy. This will also help make your work more focused and targeted, as well as optimize your promotion budget.

8. What queries can people search for you for?

To correctly set up the semantic core, you need to understand what keywords the client expects to receive traffic for. Make a list of queries that might be most important and analyze them. Perhaps many of them will be less valuable from a commercial point of view. This will allow you to focus on more profitable and targeted keywords and avoid unnecessary costs on low-priced queries.

9. Who are your main competitors?

In order to get to the top of search results, you need to understand who you are competing with. If the client's goal is to rank first for certain queries, you need to analyze who already occupies these positions. Understanding the competition and analyzing their strengths and weaknesses will help you build a promotion strategy and beat the leaders in the market.

10. How are you different from them?

In a saturated market, it is important to understand how your client differs from the competition. This will help you create unique selling propositions, improve content marketing, and optimize conversions. Assessing your weaknesses and strengths will help not only in developing a strategy, but also in communicating with your audience, which will make your website more attractive to potential customers.

11. Availability of our own specialists to solve problems

If the client has his own specialists who can help with promotion (for example, copywriters, designers or photographers), this will greatly facilitate the work of the SEO specialist. You will be able to coordinate their actions, which will increase work efficiency. A clear distribution of tasks and responsibilities will help save time and make work more productive.

Having received all the necessary information, you can begin to develop a promotion strategy, focusing on the specific goals and capabilities of the client. However, do not forget that excessive burden on the client with questions can slow down the process if much of the data can be found independently.

If you have any questions about SEO, you can contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" for advice. Write to email info@seo.computer.

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