When working with new SEO clients, it’s important to get as much information from them as possible to help guide your SEO efforts.
The perfect way to gather this information is by having you client fill out an SEO questionnaire. Your client is a wealth of institutional knowledge about their business and likely their current or past SEO efforts. So it’s important to tap into that knowledge.
But what is an SEO questionnaire, why is it important and which key questions should you be asking your clients?
Let’s take a look and go deeper into everything you’ll need to know SEO client questionnaires. Also, there’s a downloadable PDF of the full SEO questionnaire.
What is an SEO Questionnaire?
An SEO questionnaire is a list of questions which are designed to gather information from companies or website owners so that a search engine optimization (SEO) service provider can understand their client’s SEO needs and objectives.
The set of questions in an SEO questionnaire are designed to gather information and feedback from the client about the current state of the website’s organic search performance.
The SEO questionnaire helps an SEO consultant identify areas of opportunities as well as instances where the client site needs improvement.
The questions in an SEO questionnaire typically cover various aspects of SEO, like:
- The client’s SEO goals
- Keywords that may (or may not) have worked previously
- What internal marketing or supporting resources they have (content, development, design)
- Link building activity
- Organic traffic feedback
- Any existing problems or issues that need to be addressed
And so on.
Why Do You Need an SEO Questionnaire?
The information you collect in an SEO questionnaire is used to develop a custom SEO strategy for the client, one that addresses the specific needs of their website and helps improve its organic visibility (and performance) in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
The questionnaire is important tool you can use to gain a better understanding of your client’s needs and expectations. Because it’s important to align your SEO strategy with their business objectives.
So really, an SEO questionnaire is critical for all your SEO efforts, whether you’re simply conducting keyword research or if you’re running a full-scale SEO audit for a new client. You need as much information as you can collect. The more information you collect, the more you’re prepared to deliver results.
So what the key questions to ask a new client in your SEO questionnaire? Here are 10 must-ask questions.
The Ideal SEO Questionnaire: 13 Client Questions
At the beginning of every SEO engagement, we provide our client with an SEO questionnaire and ask them to answer the following questions.
Client Strategy Questions
1. What are your specific goals for SEO? Where would you like to see the most improvement? Are you looking for better rankings, more organic search traffic or is growing qualified leads and/or conversions (online sales tied to organic search) your most important objective?
2. What are your most important products or services that you sell? Are there any that you’d like us to focus on specifically because they have higher margins or are more profitable for your business?
Keyword Targeting Questions
3. Are there certain keywords you think we should target that either are working well or you think will be effective at driving quality traffic and leads to your website? If so, what are these?
4. Are there any keywords that might seem relevant to your product, service or industry, but you know for certain these terms won’t drive the type of quality traffic or leads you’d want? If so, what are these?
5. Are there any keywords you’ve targeted in the past that don’t work well, or that you believe would bring in the wrong types of prospects?
Audience Targeting Questions
6. Can you give us a sense of who your target audience or ideal customer is? Feel free to attach any existing materials or information you might have along these lines (eg. persona work you’ve done, etc.).
7. Can you share what some of the most common pain points are that your audience struggles with, particularly ones that your product or service helps solve?
8. Can you list out any specific industries or sectors you want to target, if applicable?
9. Are there any publications/websites that are frequently read by your target audience? Have any specific articles and/or topics resonated particularly well with your target audience (gone somewhat “viral” within your niche, been frequently linked to and cited by popular writers and influencers, etc.)?
10. What would you identify as the conferences that your prospects would be most likely to attend (if any)? Can you identify any tracks / talks they would be likely to be particularly interested in?
Competitor Targeting Questions
11. Are there 5 to 10 websites that you’d identify as your biggest competitors (this could just mean sites that you know are frequently competing with you in search results for keyword phrases you want to rank highly on, and/or companies in your niche who you think are doing a great job with branding and/or online marketing)?
Client Resources Questions
12. Do you have internal resources (such as writers, or developers) who would be able to implement updates or make any technical changes we might recommend to your website?
We also ask for access to the following platforms
Client Access Questions
13. Can you grant us access to the following analytics platforms:
Google Search Console – Please add (our SEO gmail account) to Google Search Console (GSC) s owe can have access to your site’s GSC account. If you’re unfamiliar with the steps on adding new users and sharing access, here is a guide that walks you through the step-by-step the process: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/sharing-verification-love.html
Google Analytics – Please add (our SEO gmail account) to each Google Analytics account you have for the site as well. That way, we can access important organic traffic reports and other key metrics, like goal tracking.
SEO Questionnaire Wrap Up and PDF
So that it. Those are the most important questions you want to ask your client on an SEO client questionnaire. With this information, you’ll be armed to start working on their campaign and in fantastic position to help deliver results they’re looking for.
If you’d like a PDF of these questions, you can find it here:
SEO Client Questionnaire PDF
Ken Lyons is a digital marketing professional with more than 20 years experience. He has a proven track record of growing qualified traffic and leads for companies in a range of industries. His digital marketing specialties include: SEO, link building, content marketing, lead generation, affiliate marketing
