Step 14 - Sample Continuing SEO Proposal
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Date
Inside Address
Subject: Continuing SEO Proposal
Salutation
This letter proposes a 10/10/10 hour emphasis for [fill in 2 month period] against 1) Log Analysis, 2) Back linking and 3) the Blog respectively. This would be a total of 30 hours at [insert cost/hr] for a total of [insert project cost]. All work will be conducted by [insert SEO project team persons]. We feel this makes sense and will phone you to set a good time to talk.
Although we have accomplished some SEO work in the form of the HTML metatags on each page, we have more to do in back linking, content and blog traffic all of which are important to organic SERP rank and the eventual option to discontinue PPC expense.
SEO methodologies have evolved with time and the work required optimizing for best results have become more demanding - even for experts. Additionally there are a bunch of fraudulent firms in the market who promise a high ranking for very little money. However this is for undesirable keywords and if they were told to become #1 for “[insert one of the client’s most expensive keywords” they would turn around and run away. Fortunately, there are a great number of tools available to make the work easier to analyze data and to tailor the work to increase relevant traffic to the site over the short and long-term.
1) Log Analysis - 10 hours – It is proposed to prepare a report like the sample we sent you. The report would use two sources for log analysis. This 10 hour investment would be the first use of analytics since the campaigns and Website makeover. The purpose would be to better understand your prospect and customer behavior and for refining and selecting important keywords to move [insert client’s name] up the organic SERP page rankings.
a) Google Analytics has been installed on all pages of the current site and can be seen by clicking “View” then “Source” and then scrolling to the bottom of the HTML and noticing the analytics code that is entered. The proposed report would be a detailed analysis of information available from Google Analytics such as identifying exit pages, bounce rates, daily and monthly traffic volume, traffic sources by geographic location, traffic sources by keyword (which keywords brought in how many visitors), share of direct vs. search engine vs. referral traffic, etc.
b) Awstats In addition to the data collected through Google analytics, we can cross-compare data extracted from server log files such as Awstats. All web-servers can record useful information about the hits it receives on each site. This data similar to Google analytics tell us the referral traffic to the site, the usage of the pages. It provides us with strong cross-reference data to support Google analytics data with the view to improving our online marketing strategy further.
The log analysis project is basically an in-depth analysis of current website performance with recommendations and a Web conference call. The analysis of this data helps us to identify important parameters such as the referral traffic sources, no. of hits from search engines, most popular pages, time spent on each page, the paths through most popular pages. This will help us collaboratively shape your online marketing and SEO strategy.
2) Backlink Building - 10 hours – What is being proposed here is a 10 hour one shot effort to see how many high quality back links can be built for [insert client’s name]. The desired goal is to get higher SERP positioning of the website in organic searches for certain targeted high-value keywords and key phrases. As we have discussed before, back linking usually requires a 4-6 month sustained effort and sometimes it is not possible to get to the first SERP page rank even with this effort. The 10 hours of work proposed here is an accumulated investment of time toward this end and there will be a PRE and POST comparison delivered after the back links are completed.
a) The Pre Post comparison will be based on downloading the Google “page rank toolbar” and creating a table of before and after [backlink building] page ranks for each page on [insert client’s name].com.
Back link building must be done by a person who is situationally fluent with the business model and keyword strategies in addition to competitive market dynamics so that relevant “high value” back links can be built. We are proposing that he undertake this effort with counsel from Jim and Hal. Usually most SEO service firms conduct back linking in a rote fashion. This is to say, they randomly pick websites that have some relevance to the website topic and simply submits a URL to get a ‘score’ in Google. This technique although good for SEO companies (they can outsource to data entry people) is usually very ineffective and can sometimes damage the positioning of the site in Google. The most effective technique is to have an SEO expert who understands the value of back linking having worked with other websites and able to pick the best sites and tailor the back links to give much more effective results.
b) A backlink is defined to be would be a link coming into [insert client’s name] from lets say LNT if [insert client’s name] was to become a sponsor. It is different [and more valuable to the Google algorithms determining organic SERP rank] than a reciprocal link which is important to avoid due to past abuse of phony sites to artificially inflate page rank.
c) Thus, [insert client’s name] wants to build only quality back links that would be recognized for their high value [by Google and other] search engines and therefore benefit the longer-term [insert client’s name] goal of getting relevant traffic and booking through the website without paying the high-cost associated with AdWords.
d) The work will involve tracking down relevant high value back link partners by examining www.Coleman.com and similar valuable sites using the Google Webmaster “Link:” [i.e. link colon” command and also involve negotiating back links and reducing hackers through the services of www.commissionjunction.com.
3) Blog Content – 10 hours – What is proposed here is to invest 10 hours in increasing traffic to [insert client’s name] by helping the [insert client’s name] blog become more active with more robust content such as the addition of the YouTube video of today.
a) A key part of ongoing SEO effort is providing unique, dynamic content to the website that has the highest value to the search engine algorithms that determine organic SERP rank. Search engines are always trying to discriminate one website over another in the same category and it does this through checking its popularity i.e. through the number of back links [as we discussed in #2 above] AND also the unique content on its site and the traffic to the site. At the end of the day, the search engines are designed for users and they want to give their users the best relevancy and also push the best sites to them.
b) Search engines often measure this through the unique content it has on its site by spidering for articles, blogs, news content and any other relevant info. Remember also Google also monitors the ‘traffic level’ which are invisible to us. They do this by monitoring the activity on their search engines through the billions of searches done every month. They can actively track the number of users visiting a specific website (i.e. Google analytics) for particular keywords and check the bounce rate of users to that site. In this way, they can gauge if the website is of particular relevance to the users looking for those keywords.
c) From the information above we can see that one needs to create and maintain a website that has some “stickiness” to the site [i.e., people come to the site and stay on the site longer than competitors For example if Google has determined that your site can engage an audience for 1 ms more than say another competitive website, then you have a clear advantage. However, remember there are many other parameters to be taken into account.
d) The way forward, therefore is to have blogs with relevant linked content that generates traffic, which compliments traffic being achieved through PPC advertising. To this end We will spend 10 hours collaborating with Hal and Jim and act as the [insert client’s name] blog moderator. At the end of the 10 hours, [insert client’s name] can determine whether to continue this service or to have Hal or a staff member perform this function. In this way blog traffic will hopefully increase through the dissemination of existing articles, interesting links, topical events, provide users feedbacks and update content frequently to the website. The blog moderator will also delete posts by hackers etc.
e) The work will also include a Blog Kickoff email to all email addresses in [insert client’s name]’s customer list that will announce the blog existence, the new site and services and encourage patrons to post their experiences. [individually addressed of course to prevent the list from being known to anyone outside the company]
Summary:
The work proposed here will only increase the organic SERP rank for [insert client’s name] and if pursued on an ongoing basis eliminate much future need for paid search advertising such as the type we have been doing with AdWords.
Online Booking Opportunity for Discussion
We wrote the code for a now-defunct online booking system that competed with priceline.com. Over 60% of hotel bookings are now online and it is believed that there is a large opportunity for [insert client’s name] to install an online booking system. We are currently wishing to present a fullyfunctional site that he is readying for a current customer and discuss when, if and how [insert client’s name]’s scheduling system should be evolved into an online booking system. |
