You’ve probably heard that you need to get onto your “SEO”.
Everyone’s doing their SEO, what about you?!
Slight panic ensues and before you know it, you’re sitting in front of a slick account manager presenting a slide deck that you know is going to cost you somehow.
Maybe you even say yes, and suddenly a nerdier SEO consultant that does the work is contacting you for all sorts of admin and accesses you didn’t know you had. He’s asking questions of your site, your other marketing, getting a bit intrusive really!
But allow us to advise that this is normal. And this is a great post to read if you’re about to embark on your own SEO journey. We’ll tell you some of the most common questions that will be asked, but also, it’s a good idea to get yourself into the right headspace.
Logins/Access – So many logins
- Google Search Console login
- Google Analytics login
- Google My Business login
- Google Ads login
Likely you can just give them access to an email that they will supply to you. Sometimes you might have a general business login (e.g. marketing@ or info@) that you’ve been using rather than your personal email!
Hopefully, one login will cover all of the access you need. If not, consider consolidating your logins!
Website
- Website CMS login
- Website hosting control panel
- FTP login (for htaccess etc files)
- Who is your developer and main contact there (so we can contact for code and IP filters etc)
- IP address for your business address
Search Marketing Information
This information is always helpful because if there has been past work done, an SEO agency can take it into account and build on that work. A lot of SEO is about momentum and building trust and authority in the long term. So if possible, you want to build on what’s already there!
- What SEO work has previously been done on your site? Do you have files or folders you can share with us so we can see what has been done in the past?
- Has any keyword research been carried out for your site?
- What is a handful of words or phrases that you think people would use to search for your product?
- Who are your competitors?
- Which organisations, groups, business groups/forums are you a member of? (It can be useful later for requesting links to your site)
General Marketing Information
At its core, SEO is also very much marketing. And understanding that will help you to understand what your SEO should be doing for you and your business.
- Who are you targeting or who do you want to target with your advertising? What’s the client persona that we’re targeting? Age, Sex? Gender? Demographic, Interest Groups.
- What is the key message that you want to communicate to them?
- Targeted to any particular city, area? Track search results from NZ only?
- What tone of voice do you have for your brand? The easiest way to consider the tone of voice is in terms of the personality of your brand or company. If it was a person, what would they be like?
Conversions
Tracking conversions is so important to help understand the value of your search marketing but also the value of your marketing in general. Digital marketing is marketing in 2022, there is no touchpoint that will not cross your digital presence in some way.
- What should the main lead generation or conversion action be? (browse range, call us, contact us, book free demo etc)
- Are calls important to you? And if so, what number should we use? (for local SEO a local number is better)
Getting Into Their Heads (Metaphorically Speaking)
This is an extra for experts and is often the next set of questions that an agency will start asking once they’ve done some initial research. It’s been included here because we thought it would be helpful for you to understand some of the thought process behind what we do as search marketers.
- What type of user am I targeting?
- Are they actively seeking a solution to a problem, or are they casually browsing?
- What problem are they trying to solve?
- How can I best capture the user’s attention?
- How do I relate to the user?
- Is there a message that will resonate with the user?
- Is there a pain point that my product or website alleviates for the user?
- How can I articulate this solution clearly and quickly?
- What compelling calls to action will get our target user to click?
This list isn’t exhaustive, I’m sure there are some that we’ve missed. SEO is a marketing activity at its core, and also we are optimising for search engines, the eventual outcome of our work is appearing to people that are using your services. Understanding questions like the above give your SEO consultant the best chance of success.