096: How To Deliver Effective SEO Consulting w/Marie Haynes

If you’re an SEO Consultant (or work with one) maybe you struggle with things like:

* charging project vs hourly

* how much to charge

* dealing with difficult clients

* how to acquire clients and sell SEO

* problems with “snake oil” SEO selling

* how to stand out in the SEO industry

* time management

* how to grow from a solo consultant into scaling an agency

Marie and I chatted about these struggles and much more on today’s show.

Listen Now!

BuzzSumo – One of my favorite tools for coming up with content ideas, finding people who share content in an industry, and tons more (like alerts to keep an eye on your competitor’s links). Also, check out their new Question Analyzer Tool (formally Bloomberry – just launched within BuzzSumo!) Listen to the show for a special code to get 30% off BuzzSumo for 3 months.

Related Episodes You Might Like

Show Agenda and Timestamps

* Show Introduction [0:19]

* Marie’s introduction [1:23]

* How Marie got into SEO [1:30]

* Does Marie believe it is important that people associate her with Penguin and Panda? [5:23]

* How to do SEO services well [6:44]

* Is Marie trying to move beyond the perception of being the Penguin and Panda expert? [10:40]

* Twitter Question: Client Aquisition and combatting the promise of #1 Google ranking spam emails  [12:00]

* Marie’s guest posting secret [15:55]

* Dan’s optimizing LinkedIn profile advice [16:59]

* Twitter Question: How do you talk about successes (or failures/learnings!) without breaching client confidentiality? [18:43]

* BuzzSumo Sponsor Break with Discount Code [21:34]

* How does Marie respond to people that say SEO is too expensive [22:27]

* How does Marie feel about giving away things for free to land a client [29:20]

* Twitter Question: Pros and Cons of consulting on an hourly basis versus retainers versus packages? [34:55]

* How does Marie think about pricing the projects and packages? [36:47]

* Does Marie increase prices for longterm clients? [38:40]

* Twitter Question: Ideal ways to establish billing processes? [39:53]

* Twitter Question: Any useful advice when you have completed your keyword research, the process of mapping tons of keywords into the content of a page for SEO 2018 best practice? [43:08]

* Twitter Question: When you’re diving into a successful SEO project that’s already thriving, where is the BEST place to begin so that you add value and “do no harm”? [46:20]

* Twitter Question: How to explain the amount of time spent on work and how different projects vary. [48:10]

* Has there been an instance where Marie was unable to help a client recover from a penalty and how does she deal with charging for that work? [50:10]

* Twitter Question: How much reporting is enough (or too much)? [52:50]

* Twitter Question: Keeping your cool with some of the worst clients (and people) you’ll ever meet. [54:20]

* When did Marie make her first hire and why did she decide to start hiring? [58:12]

* Twitter Question: What to look for in staff hires and what does Marie’s interview process look like? [59:47]

* Are their certain attributes Marie looks for in a potential new hire? [1:01:25]

* Twitter Question: How to Scale Your Agency & Train New People [1:03:23]

* How does Marie deliver work to clients? [1:05:12]

* How much time do Marie and her team spending doing phone calls and meetings with clients? [1:07:54]