What to Expect from SEO

If you’re a business owner, you probably receive tonnes of emails and social media messages about SEO. Normally in the vein of ‘your website is terrible here’s what I can do to boost it now pay me.’ 

The emails especially are packed with false promises and AI-generated content that doesn’t make a lick of sense half the time. Or they’ve messed something up in the CRM and it’s addressed to [BUSINESS OWNER].  

These are amusing at best, but often not funny enough to think about for more a second before blocking the sender and moving on with your day.  

It’s no surprise that business owners are sceptical when it comes to SEO. When you become associated with scammers and spammers you lose marketing cred before you have a chance to pitch. Thankfully most people do know that SEO is beneficial, and more and more businesses are investing in it every year.  

We always try to dispel the myths surrounding SEO and are transparent with our clients about what results they should expect. So today we’re going to talk about what you should look for in SEO as well as the benefits that come with it.  

Avoiding False SEO Promises 

So why should you ignore those SEO emails?  

Well, firstly they’re just not very nice. Flat out telling a business owner that they’re doing something wrong isn’t the best way to sell your services. Sure we’ve all tried the hard sell at some point, but building a relationship of trust before you drop the ol’ pitch hammer has a much higher success rate.   

Second, it’s clear that you’re one of VERY many people who will receive the exact same email. This type of marketing strategy is effective, there’s nothing wrong with casting a wide net to bring in more work, but again there are better ways to do it that are a little more personalised. Some do try this – the phrase ‘I was browsing for ___ and found your website’ may sound familiar – although I’d be surprised if you believed them.  

Last but certainly not least, the stats they pluck out of nowhere. Without an in-depth analysis of a website, it’s difficult to suggest what kind of traffic an SEO boost would bring, and it all depends on how much work you can put in.  

Simply saying that ‘we’ll increase traffic by X%’ sounds great, but how many sales and enquiries does that translate into?  

What does SEO do?  

Here’s a snippet from a recent SEO email that landed in our spam folder: 

The services we provide include the following: 

· Off-Page SEO 

· Guest Post 

· Link Building 

· Keyword Research 

· DA Increase (Before 15-20 days ) 

· DR Increase ( Before 15-20 days ) 

· Back-links (All Type Backlinks available) 

· Reviews 

· Content Writing 

· Traffic 

· Ranking 

It’s ironic that this was sent to an SEO company in the first place (clearly, they didn’t read our company name!), but we’re one of the few recipients who understand what this list means.  

It’s an impressive list… if you ignore the fact that these are all basic features you should expect from even a cheap SEO package. ‘Ranking’ and ‘traffic’ especially are the absolute bare minimum you should expect. If your SEO provider can’t promise these, I’m not sure what they plan to do all day! 

Now, I won’t deny that we promise all of these features (and more!) when we approach a new client. However, in our case we go a lot further, and frame things in a different way.  

How to Pitch SEO Properly 

We don’t draw names out of a hat when we suggest SEO. Most of our clients were either referred to us, or we met them networking. 

This achieves two things. A. they already trust us or trust the person who referred us and liked the cut of our jib and B. we know that they’re interested in SEO and would like to know more.  

When this is the case, the door is open for us to talk shop with someone who wants to hear about what we can provide. A lot of our clients had a working knowledge of SEO already, and many already had an SEO provider, but for any number of reasons they wanted to hear what we would do instead.  

Some SEO companies still talk to you like those emails for years after you’ve signed up. They’ll say they’re doing this and that, saying ‘trust us’ and waiting for you to pay the next invoice. At best you’ll get some shiny new content and a few backlinks somewhere on your site, but you might not be able to tell if this is translating to more enquiries, especially if you’re working hard to grow your business and bring in new work yourself.  

One of the most important things we do is a ‘content review’. As the name suggests I, or one of our copywriting team, will take a look at every page of your website and write a detailed analysis of what works and what could be done better.  

This gives you real examples of what we would provide, all as a free service, and helps you understand what you’re missing out on. We aren’t just looking for the negatives either, if your content is great, we’ll always let you know!  

Reviewing content is one of the many things we do to be transparent about SEO. Let’s talk about a few more…  

SEO Transparency  

A business owner’s knowledge of SEO can vary from ‘I heard about it at a networking event once’ to ‘I’ve spent hours researching it, so I know what I need’.  

We don’t find this out by sending out a few emails. By setting up a chat about SEO, we can gauge your interest and fill in any gaps in your knowledge.  

Some people call SEO a dark art, full of hidden secrets and techniques that only SEO pros know about. This is all rubbish. SEO is complicated, but there’s no magic involved. In our chats we explain what our SEO packages contain, what we’d focus on most, and find out more about your individual business goals.  

The latter is incredibly important. Naturally you’ll want more sales – something SEO will help with. But you might also be unhappy with your website or haven’t had the chance to update it as you’ve grown. If this is the case, we might focus more on content or put you in touch with one of the marketing specialists or web designers we work with to help you make your website more ‘you’.  

When you know what you need, it makes our job a lot easier. SEO should be tailored to you, not just a package of features – only some of which might benefit you. This is why we don’t offer set packages. Your SEO will be bespoke to your business and within your budget.  

SEO Tracking and Reporting 

Once you’ve signed up with us, the transparency doesn’t end.  

We provide regular reporting, showing you exactly what we’ve achieved each month and how that has increased your traffic. The only things we can’t track are sales and enquiries, which is why we always ask if you’re seeing a real difference. If the answer is no, or we’ve not hit our set target, we’ll find out why and make changes to ensure we’re on track next time.  

SEO should be a collaboration. We try not to pester our clients with too many emails, but we still need approval of content and any major website changes so that we’re positive they’re what you want. We’ll never ask you to ‘leave us to it’ – your input is vital for us to maximise results.  

What should you expect from SEO? 

SEO success isn’t an easy thing to measure. A higher number of clicks than last month looks great on a report, but it’s a hollow victory if you’ve had no increase in sales as a result.  

By being transparent about SEO, our clients trust us more than the providers they’ve used in the past. We hear a lot of horror stories about SEOs that do half of nothing for double the price; it only makes us more determined to do things properly.  

We work with you to maximise SEO success, and make sure you understand what results we’re aiming for, and when you should see those results. Every business is different, with different goals, but SEO is always the way forward.  

Written by Nathan Locke