SEO

How To Brief An SEO Agency

Bring the commercial problem, the constraints you know about, access to your data, and the decision you need to make. A brief specifying deliverables invites a quote rather than a diagnosis.

An effective SEO brief defines historical platform constraints, commercial goals, and developer bandwidth.

Lead With The Commercial Situation Rather Than The Tactics.
'Enquiries have fallen 30% since March and we do not know why' tells a competent supplier far more than 'we need twelve blog posts a month', and it lets them tell you if the second would not fix the first.
02
State The Constraints Honestly
- what cannot be changed
- who has to approve work
- how quickly your development team can deploy
- any commitments already made
Suppliers who discover these later either miss deadlines or quietly stop recommending things that require them.
Offer Read Access To Analytics And Search Console During The Proposal Stage.
Suppliers who look at data before proposing will produce a better plan, and the ones who decline to look are telling you something.

Finally, name the decision.

If you are choosing between rebuilding the site and improving it, say so: the brief's job is to get you an answer to that question, not a list of activities.

Covered in SEODigital Strategy

Frequently Asked Questions

Should We Say Our Budget In The Brief?

A range helps, once the problem is stated. Giving a number before describing the problem tends to produce a plan built to fit the number rather than to fix anything.

Should We Ask For A Strategy In The Pitch?

Ask how they would diagnose it and what they would need to know. A full strategy produced before any data access is a template, and it tells you less than the questions would.

What Does This Cover?

Bring the commercial problem, the constraints you know about, access to your data, and the decision you need to make. A brief specifying deliverables invites a quote rather than a diagnosis.

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How To Brief An SEO Agency

Lead With The Commercial Situation Rather Than The Tactics.

State The Constraints Honestly

Offer Read Access To Analytics And Search Console During The Proposal Stage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where this applies

Related Services

Read next

Apply this to your own situation

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How To Brief An SEO Agency

Lead With The Commercial Situation Rather Than The Tactics.

State The Constraints Honestly

Offer Read Access To Analytics And Search Console During The Proposal Stage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where this applies

Related Services

Read next

Apply this to your own situation