This short guide is written for corporate and in-house marketing/technical teams to help them plan a meeting with an SEO provider. Along with the usual exploratory questions about who does what, when & where, it can be useful to plan and execute a small number of tasks. That way you can ask the right questions of the SEO company and provide the right information to them too.

If you’ve arranged a meeting with a potential SEO provider (or the team at NaturalRanks.co.uk), there are a few key tasks that you need to perform so that you extract maximum benefit from the meet-up.

All of these tasks can be done in advance and will help the meeting to run smoothly:

Task 1 > Think of keywords but not just ‘keywords’

The SEO provider will identify the most suitable keyterms for your website to target. But it is important that you brainstorm several topics and keyterms as a starting point for the provider to work from. As there maybe some specific industries terms they could miss.

Try to avoid generic (single word or even 2 word) terms (unless your website is already very authoritative). Identify key terms that you would use to buy your product/service or phrases your product/service would help answer. Perhaps the key phrase isn’t actually a phrase but a question?

Remember people are getting smarter with their searches as they come to realise Google can now understand their intentions better and people may want answers to their queries before they commit. If you can be the source and answer to their queries there’s a good chance this will turn into business. A great way of doing this is with a good content marketing plan Also consider synonyms and variants of these key phrases.

Task 2 > Think of your customers

Thinking about your customers needs and desires may help you better identify keyterms that will lead to online sales and conversions. Compile a list of answers to questions such as:

• Who uses my website?
• What do my customers want to find on my website?
• What problem/predicament does my website help my customer to resolve?
• What is my most profitable service/product?
• What is my most popular service/product?
• Who are my perfect buyer personas

Task 3 > Meet with the relevant in-house teams

Search Engine Optimisation of a website can often involve many teams of people. From the marketing team to the sales team, technical web development teams to compliance and QA teams. Meet with them all to outline what you want the SEO project to achieve. SEO success isn’t just about high rankings but through a marketing mix which often involves multiple channels. Such as Search, Social media and email marketing.

Find out in advance what impact this is likely to have on each team and (if possible) invite a member of each team to attend the initial SEO meeting. If resources are tight, try to find answers to questions such as:

• Who will write/amend copy for the website?
• Who will update/amend the source code of the website?
• Are there areas of the website that cannot be updated?
• What language is the website written in?
• Who should be a point of contact within each team for the SEO provider to liaise with?

Task 4 > Gather Analytics

Search Analytics show traffic trends and the demographics of people visiting your website. Print out the past month’s worth of data and bring it to the meeting. If you don’t have Web Analytics, it’s not too late! Google Analytics is free and can be set-up on a website in under an hour. Task the nearest technical team member with getting it installed.

Task 5 > Think about Marketing budgets

Search Engine Marketing frequently requires ongoing maintenance to help improve and maintain search rankings. Additionally,following on from point 3, a discussion should be had around the budget. If your budget is small, you may need to rely on additional support from your in-house team. As this may not cover expensive SEO outlays such as Video Production, Animations, Infographic Creation and Graphic design work for competitions etc. If the budget can cover such costs, it will be beneficial if you ask the SEO company to tell you the sort of activity they are going to perform with your budget.

We know the answer 9 times out of 10 when we ask a potential client what there budget is, is that its Whatever it costs to get me to the 1st page/top of Google” . Then when they see the cost, they have a heart attack, and go with a company who have cold called them offering guaranteed results at a fraction of the price! Don’t do it! Good SEO takes time, and rankings cannot be guaranteed. If budget is an issue, you need to discuss expectations and have a planned budget and timescale in place.

Task 6 > Get technical

Optimising your website for the search engines will almost certainly require some changes to your site code, layout and structure. Involve a member of your technical team in the SEO meeting so that you can ascertain what changes are likely and what changes are possible, alternatively you can discuss if this level of support is included in the fee.

Task 7 > Ensure the buck doesn’t stop with SEO

SEO is only going to be successful if other digital marketing activities are in sync. SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, they all need to be working together. Ensure you discuss which activities the SEO team will perform. It maybe beneficial to use a company which can look after all 3 for you. Many SEO’s should include most of these services under the SEO agreement, but its always wise to check.

Bonus Task 8 > Create an Agenda

Help your SEO provider to prepare for the meeting by outlining what topics you’d like to cover and what the outcome of the meeting will be. Email the agenda to the SEO team several days in advance of the meeting.

I hope this helps you to plan a better SEO meeting. Following the tips above will help you to build a solid relationship with your SEO provider for years to come.