Partnering with our article on the value of keeping a client for one extra month, we're giving you a tool for calculating your own break even point and profit margin per customer.  This will make it easy to visualize the difference one extra month of client retention makes on your profits.

There are three tabs located on the bottom of the Excel file.  These are "Quick Estimator", "Basic Calculator", and "Advanced Calculator".  The sections in yellow are meant for you to enter data.  All sheets start with sample values filled in.  Please delete the values in the yellow cells, and add your own.  We'll start with the Quick Estimator first.

This article will focus on how to sell SEO to companies you are dealing with who are already heavily invested in PPC, but can benefit from SEO.  We will break it up into 3 different types of client, but the real world is always more complex, and a blend of the strategies is usually required.

Experienced SEO’s know that different kinds of sites require different optimization strategies. A site devoted to branding is a completely different animal than one designed for raw traffic. So if you don’t execute the same for every site, why would you sell the same way to every prospect? Here are two powerful ways to focus your pitch to eCommerce prospects to get their attention and sell more services.

One of the most confusing, and most written about areas in selling SEO is the challenge of explaining the return-on-investment (ROI) of an SEO campaign.  It should be simple. You know that you increase traffic. Increased traffic buys more.  More buys = more profits!

Do your customers give you money, or take your money?

It seems obvious. Keep a customer around longer, make more money. Lose a customer, lose the revenue you could have generated from them.

 I have been a sales person in the technology and internet space for almost 20 years.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s software volume licensing, corporate network infrastructure, content delivery services, or internet marketing services; there is a process to all of them.  My goal is share some of the content I discovered while specifically researching the SEO sales process.  This is the first of a series produced by SpyFu on Selling SEO and is focused on general sales and entry level SEO sales content.

Managing expectations is a key component to successfully selling SEO services and maintaining healthy business relationships with your clients, yet it is often neglected. It is tempting to avoid discussion of limitations during a sale because it can be seen as undermining the value you’ve built up. And in the short term, avoidance may not appear to cause any harm. But as many experienced SEO’s know, failing to manage expectations can have far-reaching consequences.

As much as we here at SpyFu like starting discussion in the community with stories like the impact of the May 2012 new "broad" exact match change in Google Adwords, we also try and keep up with all the news and changes in the industry.