In digital marketing today, SEO is widely understood as a crucial practice in any strategy. However, this still mainly pertains to the experts in the field. Many business owners, on the other hand, are still in early stages of adopting SEO into their business practice. Because of this, disagreements between digital marketers and their clients can arise. Here are the biggest challenges for SEO strategists when working with clients and how to keep them satisfied along the way.

 

Your client does not understand the importance of SEO

If you have a client that is still unsure about the value SEO can add to a marketing strategy, it can be difficult to prove ROI. The key is to not overthink or overcomplicate your explanation to an uncertain client. Simply put, organic search brings the most targeted users to your website at the most consistent rate. In order to grow their organic traffic, businesses need to make sure their content is clearly visible and provides meaningful answers the questions users have, which is where SEO comes into play. Keeping this in mind there are things businesses can do to improve their SEO, which is where you outline the steps you will take to accomplish this.

 

Your client does not see social media from a strategic SEO perspective.

Social media is booming for businesses to brand themselves and provide updates to their customers. That being said, business owners still may not make the connection between social media and SEO. In fact, the two are closely related, both used in strategies for building organic visitor engagement. Not only that, but they can work together to improve one another. Successful campaigns on social media require well-crafted content and high levels of visibility. Implementing SEO into your efforts can improve the reach that your content gains. On the other hand, social media has shown itself as a valuable tool to improve search rankings in Google. Additionally, social media campaigns have goals that are attainable in both the short-term and long-term. Building a highly engaged, organic following does not happen at the click of a button, and it is important that your clients know the work that needs to go into it.

 

You always have to justify your actions.

It’s one thing to understand SEO’s importance; it’s an entirely different ball game to understand how it works. That being said, part of your job as an SEO strategist is to keep your clients in the loop with your efforts and maintain their peace of mind. If you find yourself in a position where you need to justify all of your actions, take a step back and assess the situation. Firstly, you need to figure out if the challenge is their understanding of how SEO works or your understanding of their needs. In fact, it’s likely a bit of both. The key is to openly communicate, especially in the beginning of a working partnership where trust is still being built. When discussing concerns and goals, it is very important that you relay to them the long-term nature of these efforts. Like success on social media, achieving a top-ranking search result on Google is not going to happen overnight. There are many moving pieces that come into play.

Be transparent about what you are able to accomplish quickly and what will likely take more time.  Regardless of the situation, the most crucial practices are honest communication and creating work that you can take pride in. If you have confidence in the work you’re doing, that will inevitably show when you discuss it with your clients.

“I’ve never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.” -Bob Gill