Sure, you know SEO like you know the back of your hand. You know how to linkbuild, and you know how to do keyword research. Of course you've got a lot of SEO knowledge - you've been watching these Whiteboard Fridays every week, right? =P Well, now it's time to get crackin'! Unfortunately, it feels like you never have enough time to get done all the things you know you should do. Maybe the people in charge aren't willing to do the things you know they need to do to get positive results, or maybe you can't implement all the changes you'd like to in the short time you have because you're too busy building an encyclopaedic report for your client. There's a lot of ways to make SEO not happen for your client's site, but this week, Tom Critchlow from Distilled will show you how to avoid stagnation and keep the SEO ball rolling!
Video Transcription
Howdy, SEOmoz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. I'm Tom Critchlow. I'm currently here in Seattle helping SEOmoz with a few various bits and pieces, and today I'm going to be talking about how to make SEO happen.
So, very common in the SEO industry, and actually across all kinds of consulting, I hear a common complaint, which is I know what to do, I know what the SEO technique is, I know maybe I need more links, maybe I need to change something on the site. Figuring out the problem and solution is not the hard part. The hard part is getting stuff done. Today I am going to talk through a few tips about how to actually translate from knowing the answer to actually making the answer a reality. So, let's start straight in.
Number one, no more reports. This is my biggest bugbear with SEO consulting. I see this all the time from other agencies, lone SEOs, in-house SEOs. I see it all the time. Big, lengthy, you know 50 to 100 page reports. I'm really not a big fan.
Here at Distilled we try really hard to keep all of our reports really, really short. That is something that I really try to instigate in everyone that I teach within Distilled, because a long report isn't getting things done. Right? Like, you'll send across a report. It will be 100 pages, and you'll think, yes, this is a great report. You send it through to your client. They're probably not going to read it. Reports don't actually help get stuff done. So, instead of sending a lengthy report, consider the two primary functions in my eyes for what a report does.
There are two things. A report needs to convince somebody to do something, and it needs to tell them how to actually get it done. In my eyes, when you send a report through that is 50 pages or 100 pages, you are very often confusing the two. So, really, to convince somebody to make change happen, you only need one page or maybe you need a phone call or maybe you need a meeting. Let's say it is a whole bunch of on-page changes and you say I'm going to need a huge amount of developer time to get all these changes done. You go to the marketing director or the marketing boss or whoever it is that you report to, and you go, "I need to get this stuff done." And they go, "Why?" So, you need to answer that question. But you don't need 100-page report to answer that question. So, make sure that you convince whoever the stakeholder is, independently of the report, that this change needs to happen, and then as a secondary function, you need to actually make that change happen. But that change is often, like, go work with the developer team or go and have lunch with the guy who runs the developer team or actually go in and do the change yourself on the site.
Whatever it might be that it takes to get it done, focus on that separately from the big report. Sometimes, yes, you do need to spec things out. You need to go in and you need to say, "Well, actually, all these pages need these keywords changing, or the information architecture needs to look like this." There are things that you need to put down in writing, particularly for developers when you need a tight spec, but don't confuse that with what a lot of consultants will do, which is sending through a big report that has both some justification in it and some nitty-gritty technical details. Try to divorce those two things so you have the convincing separately to the doing. Just generally, write less reports. Just make stuff happen.
Secondly, processes. I see this a lot again in reports that people send out and in consulting and SEO recommendations, even in blog posts. I see people saying, well, you should do X. But there is very little explanation as to how a particular company or a particular website will actually go about doing X. For example, guest posting. Let's say that you put in a report, "Guest posting would be a great way of building links for your niche." I have seen this kind of thing in plenty of reports. But that is not actionable. How does the client actually take that recommendation, and how do they turn that into actually doing guest posting?
Well, the key lies in processes. When you're doing consulting, when you're trying to get things done, processes are at the heart of everything a business does. If you want to make something happen that isn't already happening, you need a new process, or if there is an existing process, you might need to modify that process to make it SEO friendly or make it happen in a particular way.
The key to coming up with processes and improving processes is to understand what the existing processes are. So, if you go into a business or you're consulting for a website or maybe even if you are in-house, understand how things work currently. If you don't understand how things are working, how on earth can you go in and recommend changes or say you should be doing this or you should be doing that. If you don't understand how things are working, you're going to fail.
When you are putting forth your recommendation, try not to frame things as, "Go and do guest posting." That's not an actionable thing. Instead, try to frame things as, "Here is a process for guest posting that is tailored for you." That might involve understanding who is going to do it. Do they have the staff? Do they need to hire more staff? Are there existing people who could take on the task within their existing roles? How are they going to do it? Are the people who are going to do it trained? Do they have the skills? Do they have the tools? Is other tracking in place? How much? Should there be five people doing this all day long? Should it be part of one person's job? So, understanding these three things will really help you get closer to getting things done. Okay. Now switch over here now.
Number three, pre-deliver. So, when you are doing consulting or when you are trying to get SEO changes to happen, there's a big tendency I think to, you want to go away. You want to work in a dark room for days or weeks or months, and then you want to come back and you want to go, "Tada!" I've just made this amazing thing or I have just built this big report for you, and here's what needs to happen. The problem is if the person you are presenting it to, they're seeing it fresh for the first time, then it's a surprise to them, and surprises don't equal getting things done. So, instead, consider pre-delivering what you're going to be recommending. So say, "I need some time to figure out exactly what the information architecture looks like, but you can be sure that there are going to be some information architecture improvements or changes." That will give the person that you are reporting to, or the person that you need to convince to make change happen, that will give them the time to prepare. They'll be like, "Okay, great. Well, we've got a new version of the website going live in three months. We'll need the spec from you by the end of this month." Great. So, now you have a time frame. Now you have a framework within which to work.
There is a very natural tendency, I think, with human beings to want to kind of make things absolutely crystal right before you release it, before you let your baby be seen by other people. But actually, in reality, in the business world, you want to pre-deliver. You want to overcommunicate with people and say, "This is what I am thinking of changing. Is that okay? Does that fit with you? Are you able to make that change?" Again, understanding either the client or internal resources. Understanding how much developer time they have will be a great framework for your recommendations.
Number four, communication. So, I have written a quote on here which is that, "Change happens when people like you," which is a fantastic quote that I got from a management consultant who came in and helped do some training for Distilled. It is so true. You think of businesses as these cold, hard, rational entities, and they're just not. Businesses are run by people like you and me. Well, maybe not like me or you. But anyway, businesses are run by people, okay. So, if you want to make change happen, you have to make people like you. So, take people out for lunch. Be nice to them. Socialize with people. Pick up the phone to people. Speak to them. E-mails are a very cold form of communication. Instead, try and build a rapport with people. Again, whether in-house or in agency, just make people like you. Make people understand where you're coming from, understand why you're doing what you're doing. If people don't value or understand why you're doing something, they are far less likely to actually make that change happen.
So, make people like you, and face-to-face meetings are crucial to this. I think, again, whether you are in-house or agency side, face-to-face meetings and beers and lunch, all of that will actually make change happen, because when people meet you face to face, they are so much nicer, they are so much warmer, and you're so much more able to actually convince them that what you are recommending or what you are working on is important to them.
There is a favorite saying within Distilled, which is that communication solves all problems. So, if you are ever stuck with the question of how to make SEO happen, think about communicating with somebody. Whether it is somebody on your team, whether it's your boss, whether it's the client, whoever it is, communicate with somebody, and that's how change will get done. Don't write a 50-page report.
All right. Thanks guys.
Video transcription by SpeechPad.com
Nice post Tom.
I think that over reporting is a syndrome we as consultants (but also in house SEOs) fall into. As you say, we risk to confuse the instrument (a report) with the objective (get things done).
But we have to admit that exists also an old business culture that pretends you delivering them a bible-report. They won't read it, but they want it anyway as it is a prove they have to show to their CEO that they got things done. Therefore, it is - as you and other stated - a problem of communication and education toward the client. I mean, this WBF is not good just for us, but it would have to be shown also to clients :)
This is exactly why when my company takes on a new client we make sure they understand that we will not be delivering them 50 page reports. If they specifically ask us to create the lengthy reports, we advise them that it's just going to eat up their billing time for something that is no more effective than a 1-2 page actionable report we can write and deliver in 30 minutes.
Most clients are usually quite happy that we're so upfront with our method of doing things in this manner, as well as efficient because of it.
Excellent whiteboard friday.But i do believe the lengthy reports are required to show you have put great efforts on the client's site and to justify your fees. If i charge say £800 for one day seo consultancy and send them 2 pages long report, it may make the client feel being ripped off. "What the hack, £800 for this 2 pages report". My report may contain most valuable tips to boost conversions but it will still not satisfy the client and show value for his money. We should also not forget that these reports change several hands esp in big companies. Often people who read these reports (and people do read reports) are not the one we are in direct contact with. I may only be in touch with Marketing Manager but IT director, COO, CEO may be reading my reports. If they are not convinced with certain suggestions they wont get in touch with me, they will ask their marketing manager. Now its upto the marketing manager (who i assume i have fully convinced) how he/she convince the senior management. Often in this process the 'why' part of the recommendations lost its impact in transalation if the manager doesn't have any report to refer back. Then things are either not implemented at all or not implemented the way you thought.
I consider the report as a roadmap. This is what i am going to do and this is why i will do. Both the 'what' and 'why' are very clear in my reports. Anyone who bothers to read my report should get convinced why changes are required. Still i dont expect that my report will be read from start to finish all the time or recommendations will be implemented. So after sending the report i break it into small parts and push changes in small doses as very few clients are willing to make massive changes in one go. This is also manageable as generally every recommendation requires lot of follow ups, convincing and re-convincing to lot of people directly/indirectly involved in making changes. I also save my time when i need to explain a technical aspect of recommendation or need to do convincing. Copy paste the process/advantages from a master document and send it to whoever need to know or need convincing and pick up the phone only as last resort.
Certainly my master document must be able to describe recommendations to even the one who has only heard of SEO somewhere. Creating this master document is just a one time headached but can save tons of time later. Consider it as a handy FAQ. For e.g. lot of clients need to know what is the best format to optimize title tags or why duplicating ones own contents are not good for seo. I can certainly pick up the phone and start convincing. But it is not the best use of my billable time. But this doesn't mean that i disagree with the importance of verbal/face to face communication and certainly agree with what Tom has said about understanding the process and knowing people. I think how much you verbally/face to face interact with your clients depends a lot on your current workload and size, type and location of the client's company.
Your method reminds of the Lindsey one. If I am not wrong, she was even suggesting to maximize the effort with linking all the SEO slang to an actual SEO glossary present in your own website.
seo glossary is there on my blog. But the more comprehensive one is in my master document. All these things come handy esp. when you are dealing with people with poor retention. And i dont blame them in this age of information overload. If you are not well versed with the technical aspects of SEO, you need documents to refer back to again and again.
Interesting take, Himanshu. Maybe if your client requires a long Bible-length report, you should also include a summary page that equates the things Tom is talking about in order to get things done. It would include the specific actionable tips and recommendations. The rest of the report can be there for looks, if it is absolutely required (though as Tom said, putting together this epic takes a ton of your time, time that could be spent actually DOING SEO or working with other clients...), but the actionable tips should not be buried.
Hi Himanshu - you make some very valid points about ensuring your point of contact has the ammunition they need to convince other stake holders in the company but I don't agree with sentiments like "If i charge say £800 for one day seo consultancy and send them 2 pages long report, it may make the client feel being ripped off". It's exactly this kind of thinking that gets you in trouble in my opinion. If you're doing a one-day consulting gig and only providing a report I'd say you could probably be more productive by spending time working with their teams or on the phone understanding how their company works and turning the actions in your report into actionable items.
I used to have the same mindset as you but I realised that very often I would provide a report the client was very happy with, but which didn't actually get implemented. This is a failing on our part and we should do whatever it takes to ensure that what we recommend ends up getting done.
Tom i don't understand how you can get things implemented in one day consultancy. What i have experienced is that i send my suggestions to the client. Once their is a general agreement among stakeholders, the tasks (recommendations) are sent to the service desk where they get logged (which is a big accomplishment in itself as now i am sure they will be implemented). Then the IT manager allocate the tasks (in order of priority) to a developer(s) depending upon their availability. All this take at least more than one day. I also don't understand how you manage to bypass the client/manager and work directly with their team. May be this is something i need to learn.
Regarding length of reports, if i format them in such a way that certain sections can be easily omitted by those who don't need to read them (like technical part for non developers) then i guess lenght is not a issue. Moreover there are certain sections which you can copy paste from the previous reports like sections explaining canonical URL issues or impact of duplicate contents on rankings or importance of title tags. So these reports don't take as much time as some of you may think.
I deliberately put convincing part in reports so that i can later cite them whenever i have to re convince or convince a new person. How you deal with clients change dramatically when they are more than 10 in numbers.
There seems to be a little but of confusion in the comments which is totally my fault for not explaining clearly. Let me try and clear things up.
The kind of reports that are bad:
The kinds of reports that are definitely GOOD:
I am a HUGE fan of communication and therefore things like monthly reports are often a good thing as it forces regular communication. But working in the SEO industry I often see examples of terribly un-actionable lengthy and worthless reports that really don't help anyone make change happen.
People producing reports as a way to justify a large amount of work or as "evidence" that you're producing value for your clients I strongly urge you to reconsider. When a client pays you to undertake some work - what they are really paying for is output. They want results. And lengthy documents outlining a 100-step plan to success are not very likely to actually make change happen.
I'd urge everyone to read this blog post from Paddy on getting things done as an SEO consultant:
https://patrickmoogan.com/blog/2010/12/31/why-knowing-everything-about-seo-doesnt-mean-shit/
So next time you're writing a lengthy report or document stop and ask yourself "is there a more efficient way of turning my recommendations into actions other than writing them down?" because the answer is almost always yes.
As with all broad sweeping statements there are always exceptions but in my experience they are VERY rare. I'll try and write more about this in the future as it's a hot topic for me.
Part of the issue is surely down to the type of client and the stage you're at. The reports you describe as good are the sort that work if you have an ongoing relationship with a convinced client who can get things done internally at their organisation - and who has bought in to the programme of work you've suggested.
Part of the problem as an agency or a consultant is how you get to that point (and it may be impossible - not everyone who hires SEO advice can actually get their internal development team to do stuff ...). One of the ways is to convince internal stakeholders of the scale of the problem. I agree that board members and marketing heads don't want a 100-page report. But there are people internally in organisations who will want to know the scale of the problem, who will want to understand the detail etc. You'll probably reply that there are better ways to convince them then a 100-page report (and to an extent I'd agree - workshops etc probably are better). But sometimes you do need a document that details everything that needs doing.
I think we can all agree that bad reports are bad reports. If they don't lead to action, aren't read, don't make clear the next steps and don't convince then they are bad reports.
But I'm not sure that that means that all big reports are bad reports.
Interesting points though - and I'd definitely agree that large reports for large reports' sake is a problem in the SEO industry.
I think we essentially agree here so I'm not going to argue semantics. We're both on the same page (no pun intended) that focusing on getting things done is crucial.
The key thing I think is that you need to divorce the convincing and the spec into two separate items and that sometimes the spec does indeed need to be a large piece of work. That said - I'm still not a fan of producing it as a report. We've had more success getting technical changes implemented and into the development queue by working with development teams to input our ideas directly into their project management system.
I think the most effective I've ever been at getting things done is when I went to a client's SCRUM for 15 mins and persuaded people that my SEO changes were important. A week later a whole bunch of stuff had been implemented on the site.
Good post Tom! What you talk about here is exactly what that book Switch that I recommended to you the other day is talking about.
You have to get buy-in from the person's reason (i.e. know what you are talking about and make it attractive to the manager/designer/whatever), direct their sense of wanting to get things done (not surprising them by prepping them ahead of time for what you are going to say), and then making the Path easy to follow (actionable tips, a la "Write 10 guest blog posts using (XYZ) website to find the contacts.")
Great comment - I'm off to buy that book ASAP :)
Although not precisely, I was intending to say something very similar. Understanding the people you are working with and realising that not all clients are the same is an important aspect of engaging with them productively.
SEO reporting is crucial part for a client and a SEO agency/consultant both.But this reporting is completely depends to whom you are addressing the reports, 1)You are sending report to non tech-savvy person 2)You are sending to IT Manager of company or you are directly sending the reports CEO of a company,so for every address we use to follow or use different report stats that's helps us to make them understand what's going on.For an example if we are sending reports directly to CEO,most of the time they are very busy,they like to see automatic rank update sheet and visitor's graph and short time phone message, but while we are sending IT manger then report should illustrative,attaching analytic reports, focus links or on page changes has been made within a week etc.
So it's varies client to client status and in-between a IM or monthly phone call meet up helps us to maintain well relation ship with our clients,interestingly that process brings us more clients from client recommendation...at the end of the day client's smiling face is our success..!
Sadly, a lot of people have bosses who demand the reports you mentioned...
You describe an ideal company with nice co-workers and ordered structural hierarchies, but all too often people end up working for companies where these things aren't the case and general politics stops you actually getting things done more than your own methods.
With some bosses, they want a report to have factors they can use to see quanifiable progress. But then these type of reports are more for maintenance, rather than the reports Tom was walking about in a client-consultant setting.
A very well presented WBF.
I agree with algogmbh_petra in the comment above that sometimes the most simple things are not so simple as they seem to be.
But Yes communication is the key to make SEO happen.
Phone calls and face to face meetings can only solve this problem. I have found social media too of great help Twitter helps in developing a good rapport with people though hard core SEO discussions cannot take place on twitter with the client but sometimes sharing an article or blogpost or a video with them helps in putting the point across and they too know about the market trends.And you can keep in touch through DMs too. Got to balance it out.
dont forget about email - You can collect arguments and give interactive links to convince more ;). And dont need to be so clean, beautiful and smart all the time, without the need to take some deep breathings between and hold your tight hands under the desk or keep voice clean and soft :)
Interaction is the secret - like in a partnership :-) - combined with the ability to get things done as effective as possible.
Sometimes the most simple things are not so simple as it seems.
You always post first. Awesome!
I am an early bird :-)
and one of them who is singing only if is something actually to say (and who is not making voice too early to wake up) :) Thx for that.
Great video, certainly some awesome takeaways from this. The old adage "You don't make the pig heavier by weighing it" comes to mind when on the subject of hefty 100 page reports.
Long reports are good, great actually and do help get things done if they are done right and if the reports has at least a table of content in order to jump from one chapter to another and a solid o overview in the beginning and if you can deliver - backup whatever you write in the report...
Tom, I can't think of a single useful report I've had from an SEO agency before! The only metrics I'd want to know when outsourcing link building was; how many links have I got for my budget of £x, and have they influenced my ranking!
- Aaron
I'm a bit late to the party but I have to agree with Aaron here. What I do include in all of my reports )especially monthly ones) are the new acquired links, the rankings progress for the chosen keywords and analytics stats.
When you start with a new client it is important to underline the process you will use to achieve the goals the client gave you. But apart maybe for an SEO audit to get things going, most of our reports are short and focus on immediate results.
Great Tom, But what ever you do for client, he/she always un satisfied with you don't know why, and interesting thing when you give them results they not even congratulate you on results, this kind of nature from client side make me evil ...
Love this Whiteboard Friday, Tom. Some great tips on applying Getting Things Done principles to consulting, and leveraging how people actually work and operate.
I've been the recipient of those 100 page reports, and they really are intimidating. We often only would follow a portion of the recomendations. Instead, I found when consultants would come in and talk about 2-3 things we should do, and how, we actually went and did them.
The issue I have with the "who" is not the persons are not willing, but they are untrained - even for their own job. So, while I feel comfortable training someone about a process for making guest posting work, I do not feel comfortable teaching them how to use Microsoft Excel (at my SEO hourly rate.) These training requirements are never anticipated, so it sucks hours away from our project - which has little room in the proposal for non-SEO tasks. Suggesting 3rd party trainers has never worked as it feels like a doubling of effort. People are always spread very thin - are unmotivated - or simply egotistic (finding my training recommendations insulting.)
I'm working hard to identify SEO and non-SEO issues and put those on the table in the beginning. But there is a feeling that I should be responsible for all aspects of SEO AND any peripheral activities related to it. Must I also teach them how to use their printer? The stapler?
I imagine that must be frustrating, but can't you put together a short guide of everything they need to know and link them to it or send as a PDF? Or tell them to Google it?
Yes, we must back away from our gadgets sometimes. Go out and let 'em see our humaness!
Very well informed from the business perspective. Point 4 that you mentioned at the end does solve all the other problems. My partners and I have a saying, "Unrealistic expectations kill projects". Communicating with the client can eliminate all doubt as to the deliverables, be it design, development, SEO, reporting, etc... Expectations are clearly laid out and voiced from all sides and hopefully clear up any stumbling blocks before they happen. Just like your point 3. Thanks
Nice WBF Tom. Lengthy reports to management are seldom digested as it's all about key action points and achieving them, and more often that not a meeting is far more effective.
I'm not so sure that the title of the post is relevant to the content but you do make some valid points.
I personally work for a number of clients and for me communication is very important. Most of my clients are local to me but one or two are in other countries which makes things very difficult. There is nothing quite like sitting face to face with a client and explaining things.
With reporting, 100 pages?? Who is realistically going to read that. When I report (monthly) I put in some nice charts with simple to understand metrics so the client can see whether progress and growth is being attained. It's no use doing long reports for most clients, as they won't have time or technical knowledge to take it all in. For me, client education is vital. You have to let them know where they are, and where they need to be in a language that they can understand. 301's, nofollow and http headers mean nothing to most clients!
Ultimately, people buy from people, so having a good personal relationship with your clients or bosses is essential.
Wonderful White Board Friday. "No More Reports!" I actually had this talk not too long ago, and the conclusion of that talk was Do more, report less.
Spot on. Thanks Mr. Critchlow.
Excellent WBF even though the scale of the "report" is up for debate. Breavity is key for sure! The best advice you gave is to get away from the computer and to connect with people. Yes, the phone, Skype, Webinars and emails work, but getting face to face is powerful! It is so true that beer, wine and breaking bread with the client builds big time rapport!
Thanks for the tips about managing the process with the client! Managing the client relationship correctly, allows us to focus on getting the results!
Cheers,
Jim
hello, it's very usefull. But we still don't know how to use it. Could you help us?
we are LED lighting manufacturer www.bonbonelec.com. Is there any good way to improve links?
My email address is [email protected]. Thank you very much.
best regards,Merryhttps://almiro.blogg.se/
Yeah, Time managment is the issue. Most of time gone away prepairing reports and one more main things I learned that client are non-technical so there no need to explain in too much details Just send them main update and I will try to communicate through phone or direct meeting it is good understand clearly and also another benifit is time saving so that we can try to implement new idia.
Thanks very much to share this article about How to make SEo happen [link removed]
Just catching up on a few articles I've been too busy to read. As a freelancer, I don't have time to write pages and pages of reports. My reports and 2-3 pages long and their aim is always to answer the key questions that interest clients. Visitor rates, conversions, how many search engine searches are finding the site and which terms and stuff like that. Each client may be different.
So you have to ask the client sometimes, what data is important to them. What helps their business reporting and decision making. And run with that.
Excellent whiteboard friday....
Sweet and to the point! I never write reports. I prefer dace to face or video conference if distance is an issue. Beers after or team lunches. love it/doing it already. Great quick and to the point video! Thanks Tom!
Awesome video. As always, quality SEO work is the culmination of an implemented strategy that allows you to see effecting results in an efficient manner.
Thanks for giving actionable advice, this has come at a very good time, making sure I can perfect implementation. Thanks Tom!
good one. I am an in house SEO manager for medium size company with a lot fo web properties and also I am an SEO consultant on the side too and as more time passes by, I realize it is not the technical aspect of SEO that is important rather than how getting them done given the process, the obstacles, and etc.
Hey the article is very good and the video presentation is really amazing...
I like it....
Good Point about Reporting.. We should not spend most of our time prepare the report and no result, Better to educate the client always how we can improve their visibility..
Coming from Tom @ Distilled this is somewhat ironic and he should certainly practice what they preach. I appreciate that deadlines do get missed and a under qualified staff member or over worked can lead to serious problems, but the key is communication and resolving issues - as Tom rightly pointed out.
I emailed Tom and other Distilled staff directly about the problems with the project and quality and got nothing back in response apart from the bill.
Highly disappointed. Practice what you preach.
Hi Paul,
This project was led by our Web Development team which was where a lot of the issues arose on the project both in implementation and communication. I'm sorry that you ended up feeling this way after the project. I've certainly gone out of my way to ensure that the SEO team always understands that communication solves all problems.
Projects that don't go smoothly are ones that you often learn a lot from. We are always looking to improve the quality of our service and recently took the decision to no longer offer web development services outside the context of our SEO projects so that we can focus on our core competency of delivering SEO.
Thanks
Tom
I agree that the best lessons / experience learned are from our mistakes and errors and if the company has learned and taken steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again; then I take my hat off to you. Just unfortunate the experience was at my cost, but these things happen.
To add to the post, in making things happen it is important to see things from the client / end users point of view and almost reverse engineer a strategy based on that. As you said, no point giving a plan if they client is unable to put it into action.
Also as advice to the service providers, on par with the end product – communication is absolutely key, make it personal, short and sweet. If you pick up the phone every month and ask the client if they are happy / any questions etc they will stay with you for life.
Great article in combo with the video-presentation. Good job!!
Really enjoyed your vid Tom. Completely agree. When I first got into consulting just over a year ago, I did exactly what you describe - 50 page reports, long winded technical action sheets, etc. I still remember my client's eyes glazing over. As our business has developed more into the "marketing agency" structure versus strictly web design & SEO, it's been easier for us to frame our interactions at the business level. Once you're making recommendations that directly impact money coming in the door, things get far simpler and far more actionable. And clients actually listen to you!
Great post, Tom, absolutely the right way to go. How do you get around the clients who say yes, that's great, need to focus on action but can you send me a full report at the end of the month?
Haha time management is definately costing me alot of money. Love it I'm defnately going to tone down n the reporing!
Happy Friday! Great theme about getting things done. The fourth point about relationship building is key. Strong relationships = long time client relationships and referral business. For challenging clients, investments in building relationships should be evaluated relative to long-term relationship potential.
The reports are really important for the customers because they want to see result of what you're doing. It has to be short and really simple because they are often not so expert as you (it's probably the reason that they ask you to do SEO ^^). And you're right face to face meeting is really important!
Can't agree more with algogmbh_petra that sometimes the most simple things - for client- are not so simple as they seem to be - to me ;)
To Syed Noman Ali - it appears that the clients think You get paid too much for the work ;) which directs us back to simplicity of things...
As with all things - to try to be philosophic - there are many ways to do things... If You do all by new - you are risking to lose something-somebody. But you understand also, that by doing in oldfashioned way means less efficient and less satisfactory (at least for you) - because you like to do things in the right way (for you - mmm... i must make some abbrevation for it ;) )... Your client might not be sure but - he/she wants all the good and more of it for paying less :) . And a lot of papers to read for him/her means that you did well ;) - because he/she is doing it all the time at his/her work... paperwork
For openminded clients there is no question - do as you think it's better - just do it and show me afterwards... They also want pay you more - because understand themselves that it's a cheap way to promote - it lasts a long run and is more-less targeted :)
Sometimes its difficult to grind away making web 2.0 properties and link wheels.. Can be really boring.. Thats when I think i try to relax and just get in a rhythm writing some worthwhile, unique content and it always pays off.
Great post Tom! I think you can change the title to: "How to Make Things Happen"
I was reminded by a great SEO friend that I am being paid to tell the people paying to do more work! Catch 22?
Great post Tom, I've heard you talk about getting stuff done before but I never tire of it and you always come up with new ways to say it and new actionable things in regards to it.
Thanks!
PS. I just noticed that my Community Rank is the same exact number as my MozPoints https://twitpic.com/4l4eni ! Weird...
Excellent points! If you want to convince your client of something, a 100 page report isn't the way to go. Talking to them (whether face-to-face, by phone or e-mail) is the best way to make your case. I don't want to spend my time writing up a 100 page report when a 15 minute phone call could solve the issue. And I'm pretty sure my client doesn't want to read that report anyway!
Love the post, communication is my greatest weakness.
Worth printing that board out and sticking onto my laptop case :P
Great stuff Tom. I couldn't agree more that the SEO piece is the easy part, its the managing of processes, people, timelines, etc. that generally provide the biggest challenge. As such, I'd say mastery of these latter pieces are just as important as mastery of SEO in order to be a highly-effective SEO consultant.
Excelent video Tom. I really need to upgrade some points you talked and some of them I'm doing well, like my relation with my clients. One thing I've learned working here in Brazil is to make my reports more simple and fill them with the real thing that matter to the client, conversion.
Thanks for help! ;)
In my opnion long reports tend to confuse the client even more. They just want to see the nuts and bolts of what is going on and they just want to see things work in a positive direction. 100 pages of data is most likely not going to be reviewed.
Couldn't agree more. Actually talking (and genuinely listening) to clients is key. It gets so much more accomplished.
Good post, Tom. One thing that I've done that helps is keep a running log of all the optimizations I am making (helps me measure input to output) on a weekly basis, and then deliver that documentation to the client in the appendix of a 1-2 page report. The new SEOmoz reports should help make all of this easier;)
I send a report about once every week or two. But I use FireShot (a firefox plugin), to take pictures of the Adwords traffic and SEO traffic. The client 'sees' progress is being made and doesn't get confused with all the detail. They are interested in running their business and that my SEO work shows results.
Great presentation on the business aspect of SEO! Communication is a vital part both with clients and inter-office! Also, I find your view refreshing that the need for ‘over in-depth’ reports has come and gone. Clients don't read 100 page reports, but instead we need to communicate what is happening and what the next steps are!
- Great Post, TY
There's a particular big name vendor out there right now charging big bucks for exactly what Will is preaching against. Terrible.
Thanks, this article is very usefull.