{"id":42352,"date":"2020-06-12T14:40:08","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T13:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=42352"},"modified":"2020-06-12T14:38:03","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T13:38:03","slug":"evaluate-seo-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/search-engine-optimisation-seo\/seo-strategy\/evaluate-seo-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"12 essentials of an SEO proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

What should a client-side marketer look for when evaluating\u00a0an agency SEO proposal?<\/h2>\n

One of the key decisions many companies must make in regards to search engine optimization (SEO) is the decision on whether to create and build a team in-house or to work with an external agency or consultant(s). There are pros and cons to both approaches and many businesses often choose to go with a combination of the two: create a team in-house and work with external advisors\u00a0to support best practice and on-going guidance.<\/p>\n

If a decision is made to work with an SEO agency there are several steps to be taken, including the selection of a range of agencies<\/a> and later the management of a pitch process<\/a>\u00a0that is covered in other articles and guides from Smart Insights included in the Agency Toolkit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n \n SEO proposal template\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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SEO proposal template<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quickly create a pitching proposal for new clients with our detailed SEO proposal template.<\/p>\n

Access the SEO proposal template<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

However, first businesses need to tender for SEO and\u00a0review proposals from a range of agencies. In this post, I\u2019m going to review some of the key factors a client-side marketer should look for in an agency SEO proposal.<\/p>\n

Key factors in any SEO agency proposal<\/h2>\n

In my experience of reviewing proposals, there are some common factors which you should look out for that I've listed here. Of course, any proposal must stand out, so\u00a0we have a more detailed SEO proposal template in Word<\/a> included in our\u00a0SEO toolkit<\/a>\u00a0including 10 factors that can be used to differentiate between proposals.<\/p>\n

1. Initial audit and review<\/h3>\n

For any new incumbent SEO agency, this stage allows them to review existing performance, identify problems that need to be fixed, and establish a baseline in which to measure future SEO efforts. Identifying 'quick wins' is popular both with the agency and client, so techniques used to do this should be detailed.<\/p>\n

2. Keyword identification and prioritization<\/h3>\n

This is when the real SEO work starts. The keyword identification process allows the SEO agency to work with existing keyword target lists to prioritize\u00a0keywords and keyword themes that are most relevant to the business. Clients are looking for more quantitative techniques that show the opportunity and returns from SEO. To help make the proposal more specific ask for how the agency will review a specific product category, then this example category\u00a0can be reviewed throughout the proposal.<\/p>\n

3. Competitor benchmarking<\/h3>\n

In a similar way to the keyword identification stage, the competitor benchmarking process involves picking out the different types of competitors in the search results\u00a0that the client should benchmark performance against.<\/p>\n

4. Technical SEO audit<\/h3>\n

The\u00a0technical audit will check that Googlebot and other search engine robots can successfully crawl and index different pages this involves analysis of re-directs, duplicate content, sitemaps, crawler access, and source code. It's difficult based on\u00a0a proposal for a client to understand how one agency process is better than another, so to make it more specific you can specify a particularly challenging area of the site.<\/p>\n

5. Backlink audit<\/h3>\n

Owing\u00a0to Google\u2019s various Google Penguin algorithm updates, it\u2019s never been more important to have a natural link profile. Identifying poor quality links as part of link detoxification is important here, so look for the process and tools that the agency uses.<\/p>\n

6. Content quality review \u2013 on-site and off-site<\/h3>\n

This stage also involves two parts:<\/p>\n