Over the last 20 years of speaking to clients, I’ve developed a list of questions that have been instrumental in fostering better long-term relationships.
There are many questions you can ask, but I’ve created a list of key questions I usually ask during the pitch process for new clients.
Find out about the business
One thing that separates strategic-thinking search marketers from those who simply apply a list of tactics is understanding how SEO fits into the wider business context.
I believe that SEO’s role is to help shape and guide business decisions to make them as effective as possible from a search perspective, rather than doing things “for SEO” and then trying to fit a business case around them.
1. ‘How do you make money?’
While it may not be directly connected to your work, it’s important to understand how the organization survives and thrives.
The reality is that almost every effort a company makes will ultimately lead back to this goal.
It may sound like a silly question, but going into business with assumptions about something so important to the client can catch you out later down the line.
There have been many instances where companies have surprised me with how they generate revenue or that specific areas of their business are far more valuable than they appear externally.
Finding out that what you considered a “high volume” product or service has a very low margin and that most money is made somewhere else can profoundly impact where you focus later.
2. ‘What are your organization’s mission, vision and values? What are you known for or want to be known for?’
Everything an organization does should contribute to its mission while respecting its values – that includes SEO.
For instance, if their brand is known for safety, the two things that would immediately be at the forefront of my mind are:
Safety is something we should explore in terms of search intent.
We need to carefully consider that any content created will need to consider safety first.
Which of the two questions you ask will depend on the size and maturity of the company.
Larger organizations usually invest in defining their mission, vision and values. Most employees (and hopefully marketers) should be aware of them.
These may not exist formally within smaller businesses, so asking, “What are you known for or want to be known for?” can be a more accessible question.
One of the main things you’re looking for is if the person you’re speaking to can answer this question.
Not being able to answer is potentially a red flag as it likely means everyone has a slightly different version of “correct” in their head.
You’re then running the risk of deliverables being rejected on the grounds of “tone being wrong.” It’s vital this is agreed upon at the start.
3. ‘Can you describe your ideal target audience?’
“Everyone” is the most common (and almost always wrong) answer to this question. If you’re “targeting” everyone, you’re targeting nobody.
The answer to this question can greatly impact the search queries you’re targeting and the content strategy you pursue.
If the target audience is professional financial advisors, content like “What is an ISA?” might have high search volume, but it’s not appropriate for them.
Dig deeper: How to keep your SEO clients engaged: 8 communication touchpoints
4. ‘Who would you say are your main competitors?’
Clients often think of different competitors than the ones you’ll see in search results.
Discussing competitors is crucial to understanding who your client’s competitors are in terms of product and market.
This knowledge helps shape your search strategy and identify comparative searches. Educating the client about search competitors and how they affect reporting is also important.
5. ‘Why would someone choose you over your competitors?’
This is a key question to ask after gathering other information to ensure everything fits together.
The reason people should choose your client over competitors should align with what they want to be known for and appeal to their target audience.
I’ve been in a situation a few times where the client isn’t able to answer this question, and I think it puts you in a really tough spot.
If the organization doesn’t know the reason why people should buy from them, what hope do we have convincing others to do so?
6. ‘What are your targets?’
This is one of the key expectations you’ll be working to, so it’s absolutely vital to have some back and forth to agree on sensible numbers.
With targets, you’ll generally want a metric for measuring the outcome, such as revenue or leads and a timeframe to achieve it.
At this stage, I’m simply trying to answer internally, “Is what this client is asking for possible?”
Due to tight timeframes, a client’s SEO goals can be unrealistic, no matter the budget.
This is a good time to set expectations or, if needed, walk away.
7. ‘How would you see SEO contributing to this target?’
This question will open up conversations about the other marketing machinery that is running within the business.
It may well be that 90% of the target is actually going to be achieved by PPC, and email and SEO are expected to contribute 10%
It’s also a good question to separate the desired outcomes of marketing against something that is a good measurement for the SEO you will be doing.
This means that if their target outcome is “500 new converted leads,” immediately, many things are out of your control, such as the conversations with salespeople.
It might be beneficial to discuss targeting and measuring SEO performance based on its contributions to leads flagged as “good” in the CRM.
8. ‘What is your budget for SEO?’
I like asking this question right after discussing the business targets and their financial value.
Sometimes, getting a client to tell you they expect an additional $1,000,000 in sales and that they are prepared to spend $10,000 to get it has a powerful effect.
You’re at this stage trying to determine if the previously possible target is still feasible within the client has budget. If it’s way off, now is the time to have that discussion.
There are a few other common scenarios that occur here. Ultimately, I believe the absolute minimum you need to put together an SEO approach is a target or a budget.
If you have a defined target, I can estimate how much it will cost you to get there. If you have a defined budget, I can estimate what kind of impact we will have.
If a client cannot provide you with a defined target or budget, in my experience, it’s better to walk away.
Everyone will have expectations on what they get for their investment, so if you can’t talk about them, it’s usually because they are unreasonably high.
How SEO fits into their business
Now you’ve got the outline of the picture, it’s time to start filling in some of the details about how the SEO relationship will work within those parameters.
9. ‘What do you want to get from this SEO engagement?’
You’ll learn a lot about the current team, strengths and weaknesses and, more importantly, expectations.
There’s a full spectrum of clients out there wanting to completely outsource strategy and execution to you, right through to those who may just want consultancy and a second opinion.
In my experience, larger organizations usually have a strategy in place and require expertise mainly on implementation, whereas smaller companies need more strategic work and leadership.
Establishing what the client has envisaged will give you an idea of what people and tools you’ll need to bring to the table – and again – if it’s a good fit for you.
Dig deeper: How to build lasting relationships with SEO clients
10. ‘How would you define success?’
It might seem like an unusual question after discussing targets, but I’ve had some of the most insightful conversations with clients by asking it.
Some responses include:
Helping change the internal opinion on SEO with different stakeholders.
Being able to hit a specific ranking against a competitor.
Solving a specific technical challenge.
Outside of targets, these are the things that light up client relationships – so make sure you ask!
11. ‘What does the internal team look like from a resource and expertise perspective?’
Once you’ve established where the client wants to get to and where they currently are, the strategy needs to be aligned with the available resources.
There’s no point in offering a strategy where the client has to produce 20 pieces of content a month only to find out they have one part-time writer and no additional budget.
12. ‘Are there any possible constraints, such as dev queues or sign-offs?’
I’ve seen someone completely lose a client because their whole pitch was based on rebuilding the website.
It turned out the site had 40 full-time developers working on it and there was zero chance it would be completely rebuilt.
While the pitch was great, it entirely focused on something that wasn’t possible.
Understanding the typical size of the dev queue or that there are two levels of sign-off for content production will allow you to build timelines that work for both parties and deliver results.
13. ‘Can you tell me about the SEO that has happened to date?’
This question is hugely valuable, as sometimes you’ll be offered reasons why previous SEO relationships didn’t work.
You’ll get insight into the client’s level of sophistication with SEO and maybe – where the bodies are buried.
“Yes, we had an agency buying links for us for three years” is always a classic.
14. ‘Who are your stakeholders?’
Knowing who will be involved will give you big hints about how to communicate.
If the dev team has a big stake, you’ll likely be safe to get into the weeds as you’ll likely be doing reporting on performance and indexing.
If the CFO/CEO is going to be involved, you know there will likely need to be some very top-level communication that clearly explains the business impact of your efforts.
15. ‘How do you currently report and how would you prefer us to report?’
You’ll get immediate insight into the tooling the client uses, which can be helpful to make sure you’re talking the same language – whether it’s DA, DR or TF.
Tracking and analytics are also tricky topics, so it gives great insight into the organization’s technical competency to see if they’ve just got GA4 set up or if they’re exporting to BigQuery and spinning up reports in Looker Studio.
If the client has an established reporting method, it’s important to understand how you can integrate with that rather than simply sending them your usual report and letting them figure it out.
It’s also a great time to have a discussion about ownership of accounts and data.
Bonus question: ‘What’s the most important thing to you about an agency?’
I always ask this question and I always ask it last. With a short answer, you’ll get an idea of how everything needs to be framed.
Typically, you’ll get answers like “results,” “communication” or “trust” – and it will give you the lens through which everything needs to be seen.
If communication is important, for instance, confirm with them:
What their preferred method is.
What their expectations are around that.
How often they expect contact.
It’s a great question to end on.
Engaging agency clients consistently is key to stronger partnerships
At every stage of our agency process, we have a more refined set of questions for each specific service and interaction.
Proactively giving your clients a guided voice will allow you to do your job better, but it’s a great way to strengthen relationships, with clients knowing their feedback is wanted, important and acted on.
Dig deeper: Mastering SEO account management: The recipe for success
