What is your Biggest SEO selling point to prospective clients?

[RobertFisher]

Typically, our SEO questions are around "how to's" and etc. So, to change it up I will ask a business question: What is your biggest selling point when presenting your SEO services to a new client?

In a spirit of transparency, I will tell you mine ahead of time. With PPC, TV, Radio, and Print at some point in time that ad comes to an end. When it ends, that is it. There is no residual from that advertisement - or very minimal at best. With SEO, once you are ranked well and well optimized you continue to get clients for a much longer period of time.

With clients who TV and print, this rings especially true and is easily provable. I can't wait to hear yours.

[JamesAgate]

Hi Robert, that is a really interesting selling point for SEO as a practice. I think it is quite surprising the number of individuals who won't sell SEO services because it feels cheap. My feeling is that this is a business like any other and provided we are offering a high-quality service, educating clients and managing their expectations SEO should be sold.

Here are some of the major selling points that we use when pitching to clients...

• Getting your products and services in front of prospective customers at the moment they are actively looking for (or at least thinking about looking for) whatever it is you offer
• SEO is subtle and doesn't interrupt - you're not stopping them from doing something like a TV, radio or print ad does, you are assisting them in their problem solving quest. (related to the first point but this one is a clear comparison of SEO vs other marketing methods).
• Build trust and credibility in your industry - this point can certainly be debated but we remind clients that with other forms of marketing you are simply buying attention whereas with SEO (and the peripheral activities) you are earning and building trust. Ranking #1 organically for an important term can be beneficial to your business beyond the traffic it provides.

Hope that helped - I'm interested to hear others thoughts also.

[RobertFisher]

Thanks James, all three are good points.

In sales training, we called the first one the moment of need. When a person sees your business at the moment that is an issue, they are likely to explore and buy from you. So sales people should be forever knocking as that need is not static. 
The second one is great as well, especially for those who don't like to think of "Selling" their services. Based on research, more people by far and those with higher education by far choose organic placements versus  paid search. (last I saw was 7.5 to 1 better CTR).

[evolvingSEO]

Hey, thought I'd chime in! Those are all great ways of selling SEO.

I try to show the prospect a real pain point in their specific situation.

For example, for one local business I actually took a screenshot of a search for their brand, where they were not even showing up, and printed it and brought it to them. When they saw a search for their own business didn't even bring a result, that was motivating!

Or I'll do a really quick competitive analysis (nothing very scientific, just a real good guess at a desired keyword) and find where they don't rank well but a competitor does, and show them that.

Or, if a slightly more tech savvy prospect, I'll find a few things really wrong with the website, some 404s or crawlability issues.

If you can present these things in a way where you don't alarm people too much but generate that reaction of "wow, we need to do something about this". Present them in a way where you're also helping, educating and can provide a solution.

So my angle sometimes isn't "here's why SEO is important" it's "here's why YOU need SEO".

-Dan

[RobertFisher]

Good answer Dan, thanks. I have used the screenshot of where their business ranks on that name as well and it is good. One thing I avoid is ever using their computer to show them rankings for anything so as to not pull rankings influenced by their searches.

Thanks

[MonaLisa4]

Link building is the main selling point in my perspective for my client. Currently, I'm working on thehomebeasts.com project of water pool for my client.