With the rise of digitalization, the demand for SEO Marketing Consultants is growing.
How to Become a Successful SEO Marketing Consultant
Because everything is now available online, all businesses and organizations choose to expand their operations online. Job opportunities for SEO Marketing Consultants are expected to increase by 17% by 2025.
According to the resume data of SEO Marketing Consultant, 73 percent of aspirants pursue a bachelor’s degree in marketing, preferably a BMS in Marketing, in order to become a successful SEO marketing consultant.
As an India based SEO consultant, I would suggest you to focus on the number of results you are able to show rather than how many clients you have worked for.
The more successful projects you will do, the more clients will automatically reach out to you. This way climbing the success ladder will become easy for you as a consultant.
How Managing SEO is Different from Consulting SEO?
Consulting is not an easy task, anyone can be an SEO manager easily but being an SEO marketing consultant is a tough job. As we have already mentioned the subjects that can be pursued to become an SEO Marketing Consultant, but that does not mean that students who do not pursue such subjects cannot become SEO Marketing Consultants.
If you want to know how to become a successful SEO Marketing Consultant, then you must start preparing from now.
Some of The Steps That You Must Follow;
Set a Goal
Anything that you do in your career must set a goal for the SEO project that you are handling. This will help you to make a basis, as well as for your mentor, to understand from where you grow to what.
Setting a goal for your SEO Marketing Consulting project will help you to measure your success. As a result, it is best to determine the success metric and ensure that these metrics can be tracked.
- Set goals such as, increase organic traffic by 50% in the next 6 months
- Improve the DA of the client’s website by 20-30
- Rank on the first page with the primary keyword of the brand
If you are already with your client as a consultant then you and your client must agree on the same parameters. Remember that you may not have direct control over the implementation of your recommendations.
As a result, it is critical to establish expectations before embarking on an SEO project. Make sure that you are able to make the changes and you satisfy your client.
Elevate Your Client
It might sound very trivial, but the truth is that your client must be treated as a novice, and must be educated properly. If your client is not aware of SEO marketing then first educate them about the same and show them existing successful results.
It will be easier to communicate your value to your client if he or she understands your area of expertise.
SEO is a part of digital marketing and the field of digital marketing is enormous so generally one might not have expertise in every segment of digital marketing. So it is very important for your client to understand that you are an expert in SEO consultation.
Showcase Your Talent
Demonstrate your understanding of your client’s business and the industry. During the discovery stage, make sure to ask all of the pertinent questions that will assist you in meeting the project’s objectives.
Also, check-in on a regular basis to ensure you are aware of major business changes, new priorities, and things that are less important. Make an effort to learn about your client’s competitor.
When it comes to implementation, be confident in your recommendations and remember that you are the expert and should tell your client what is required to achieve their goal, not the other way around.
Clear Client’s Doubt
Make sure that your client feels comfortable with you and trusts your work, for which you need to answer all the client’s doubts. Brace yourself to face layman’s questions from your client, and also face various objections.
Some even try to avoid answering questions or provide vague answers. Recognizing and addressing your client’s questions and concerns is critical to the success of your program and relationship.
It might be the case that you do not have answers to all the questions of your clients, that does not prove that you are not confident.
Culture Your Knowledge
If you are confident enough or even if not, there is no harm in learning more about SEO consultation. Follow other consultants in the industry, read more, culture your ideas about the subject even more.
You might not know everything about SEO marketing, but do not hesitate to read more or do some crash course to fill up the lacking knowledge that you have about SEO consultation. It is very important that you do not consult with half knowledge, you must have detailed knowledge about the subject and the job that you do.
Build Your Portfolio
If you have already started doing SEO marketing consultation, then you must have a portfolio well defined about the past projects that you have done. This will serve as a catalog to your clients, they will have an idea about what kind of job you can do or you have already done.
The portfolio will help your clients cater to their need for mental satisfaction about handing over the project to you. Hence it is very important that you make the best portfolio to showcase to your clients.
Show Results
The nature of consulting does not always allow you to have direct control over the implementation and execution of your SEO recommendations. One significant challenge is relying on the implementation of your recommendations to achieve your objectives.
Prioritize your deliverables by dividing your SEO task into three categories: high, medium, and low. Choosing the most important task will guide team members in carrying out tasks that will have an immediate impact.
Encourage execution by emphasizing the significance of each SEO task. A great consultant can present these recommendations in a way that encourages people to act by emphasizing the significance, the results it will produce, or the potential consequences of not executing.
Conclusion
After considering all the factors, the most important factor is the result that you bring on to the table.
If you want to become a successful SEO marketing consultant, you will have to follow the steps given above. It will be your responsibility to do your job successfully and show the results to your clients.
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