James SpillaneYou spend 5 times more to gain a new client, than retaining an existing client (Five Customer Retention Tips for Entrepreneurs). So, you need to develop a strategy on how to easily resign SEO clients. It’s not rocket science. There are 5 simple reasons your SEO client won’t resign and I’ve listed them below.
Reason 1: You’re Not Using “The Slope of SEO”
I envisioned “The Slope of SEO” about a year ago and it’s made a big impact on our clients understanding of expected SEO by visually managing their expectations. The Slope of SEO is so powerful because it’s visual.
Previously we just verbally told our clients “SEO doesn’t happen overnight.” According to HubSpot’s infographic on visual communication, humans remember 10% of what they hear and 80% of what they see. So, show your clients expected results, don’t just tell them.
The Slope of SEO Graph visually shows SEO clients that SEO results don’t just happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and time. But when the SEO results do hit they’re amazing and huge.
Reason 2: You’re Don’t Show Your Client Awesome Content
Awesome content is becoming the corner stone of SEO; and as we described in Step 1, it’s hard to show SEO results early on in the campaign. So, here’s a solution that works. Show your clients the awesome content that you’re creating for them. That’s it. Client’s need to see something tangible to feel good about the money they’re spending. After all, clients are people, and as we discussed, people are visual.
Many potential SEO clients have sat in our conference room with the same complaints about their previous or current SEO company. Besides lack of SEO results, they’re concerned that they simply haven’t seen anything at all. They have no idea what their SEO team is doing. As I’ve stated before, SEO today is 20% technical and 80% content strategy. If you’re spending all of your time on the technical side of SEO then you’re practicing old school SEO and damaging the chances of resigning your SEO clients.
Get your clients excited by showing them how you’re “earning” links and “earning” shares from the awesome visual content you’re creating for them. This may include an heavily researched and super visual blog post, awesome infographics, how to videos, tools, resources and much more. What ever it is, make sure it’s exciting, visual, and consistent.
Reason 3: Your account manager is not Incentivized
Your account manager main priority is to keep your SEO client happy. It’s also their job to build a great relationship with your SEO client. That being said, it should be big part of your account manager’s responsibility to help resign your SEO client, not your SEO sales team. I’ve tried both ways, and giving your AM the power of resigning your SEO clients works much better. But, like anyone they need to be incentivized. So, give them a commission or a bonus for resigning clients.
Your account managers will naturally work harder with incentives. They will put more hours in without you asking because it directly affects their how much they get paid. In all, rewarding your account managers encourages them to “own” the account as if it was their own agency.
Reason 4: You Don’t Give a Strategy Brief for the Next SEO Phase
Towards the end of your client’s SEO campaign you must meet with your team and discuss the campaign’s results, the client’s excitement level, and most importantly, the strategy for next phase of the SEO campaign. This is so important. You must get your client excited about the next phase of the SEO campaign by showing them a Next Phase Strategy Brief. Otherwise, why should they resign? 
Let’s say your trying to resign your client for another six months; then meet with your team and map out the strategy for the next six months. In this next phase strategy brief, write down what your new milestones and goals are. Then create a section for every month of the proposed next phase and list what awesome content you’ll be creating, and what SEO tactics you’ll be implementing. Make it very clear and very exciting so you client gets pumped about continuing this campaign.
Reason 5: You Don’t Schedule a Final Meeting
The last piece of the puzzle to resigning your client is having an SEO campaign review meeting about 3 weeks before the campaign completes. Talk about how the SEO campaign went,, results, progress, and the Next Phase Strategy Brief (see step 4). This is the moment you’ll need to get your client pumped up for phase two of the campaign. Walk them through your SEO strategy brief for the next phase and show them all the visual and cool things you want to do for them over the next six months or year. This will get your clients excited to work with you again, and this will get them to resign with you.
Conclusion
Don’t forget that it’s much easier and it costs 5 times less to retain a SEO client than to obtain a new one. But in order to do this, you have to have a plan or method. You also have to be very transparent and do a much better job of managing your client”s expectations. Most importantly you have to get your client’s excited to work with your team again and again. Remember this process. Review it will your team, and watch your retention rate drastically improve.
Share our 5 Step Client Retention Plan with your team in slideshare.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by James Spillane.
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Hey Marvin,
Great article. Sometimes the content on here can be hit and miss, but this is a truly interesting piece and an often underlooked area of seo.
Not just for the agency but for the client. A lot of information is how to rank or get clients but nothing about keeping clients happy or on track
Good work!
Daniel
its true , if the seo is not properly done then the client must be resign . if the seo is friendly for the client then clint do not resign at any cost.
Very usefull information and always keep in mind during seo work.