7) Who are your main competitors?
Getting to know your client’s main competitors will help your SEO strategy immensely. You can use any number of SEO tools to find competitors in your client’s area of focus, but it’s worth asking them who they consider to be their main competitors as well. Take a look at competitors’ websites to find out what’s working for them and incorporate that into your SEO strategy. It’s also worth discussing what makes your client unique from the competition and using that to drive even more traffic to their website.
8) Where are you targeting?
In addition to who your client is targeting, you’ll also want to ask them where they are targeting. Does your client have their sights set on world domination or just their native country? It’s important to know this before you get started so that you can do some research around market saturation, the audience size, competitors, and anything else relevant to the chosen location. Knowing the scope of your client’s goals will help you to achieve them.
9) What’s the history of your site?
It’s crucial to an effective SEO strategy that you’re aware of the history of your client’s website. Google penalizes websites that don’t meet its standards of reliability, performance, or trustworthiness. Sometimes this happens unexpectedly when the tech giant updates its algorithm. Find out if your client has worked with another agency in the past, if the website has ever been penalized, or if they’ve got any paid links. This will help you to establish if anything needs fixing before you start and what kind of challenges you’re likely to face along the way.
10) What are your brand guidelines?
Chances are that your client has worked hard to build a set of brand guidelines and cultivate a unique writing style. If you’re going to help them achieve success, then you need to ensure that your SEO work is consistent with their existing work. Ask the client to share their brand guidelines so that you can spend time getting up to speed with them before you start writing.
Want to learn more? Read our seven beginner tips on SEO writing.