Why Transparency is Essential for SEO Providers

In the SEO industry, there are more than a few people out there who are more than happy to take advantage of unknowing website owners  They are detrimental to the expertise, authority and trustworthiness of the entire industry. Numerous website owners and marketing managers have been victimized by these questionable SEO providers and the largest hurdle to overcome while working with them is gaining the client’s trust. They have put faith in a supposed “expert” before and ended up regretting it. This is why transparency is essential in providing good SEO services and building client trust.

There are four keys for SEO providers to be more transparent to help establish trust with their clients.

1) Long Term Strategy

Outline a six month to a year building link strategy when working with a new client. By creating this strategy and reviewing with the client before beginning any link building activities, a reference point is established for the client.  This also establishes accountability for the SEO provider.

2) Monthly Reports

In the past, companies like Google held website owners accountable for all of their link building service. If the site owner was taken advantage of by a not-so-fastidious SEO, there was no one to turn to. The client had put blind trust into an “expert” and assumed work was being done. Monthly link building reports show precisely where you are developing links each month. Your client doesn’t have to assume anything. Keeping track of what you have built, and what you are working on helps to provide a log that can be referenced to at any time to show how your work is helping a certain client.

3) Monthly Calls

While some clients may want to keep in contact more often than others, a scheduled monthly phone call to review that month’s activities and plans for the next month helps keep the client, as well as the provider, in sync.

4) SEO Reports

Rather than overwhelming your client with analytics, send the organic visitor data and keyword reports. These two reports show what kind of effect SEO is having on their site without boggling client’s minds with too much data. They show how well you are attracting visitors to their site and how well recommended keywords are doing. 

Nick Stamoulis, of Search Engine Journal, has more on this topic. 
Transparency is Key to Building SEO Client Trust