SEO Onboarding Resource (FREE)
Onboarding clients can be a bit of a pain in the ass. But a big part of making money with SEO is making that work for you. So, what I'm going to do in this post is talk about the onboarding process, what it is, what you should expect, and a free resource I've created for you. First things first, the free resource. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NEXSmeDZo69RNruB1z6maL7nhiVKplBOiKrOUFcHEqs/edit?usp=sharing ^This is a direct copy of what I send to my clients when I'm onboarding them. Just duplicate it and save it to your own Google Drive. I used the free version of Scribe (https://scribehow.com/) which is a chrome extension that maps out your steps for how to do any specific task into a simple "how to". After that, I downloaded the pdf, add that to my G-Drive, and used a "share link" with "anyone with this link can view" to send that back to this document. So. What is the onboarding process? This is where a customer has said "yes, we are excited to work with you. Let's get get started." So, what you will need to do is a couple of things here (including keeping your head on straight). 1. You need to bill them for the onboarding. This is important because it sets the standard for how the relationship is going to work moving forward. You're time is valuable, and you don't work for free. Cheap operators don't charge for work, they may work for free, and because of that, intelligent clients know that there is a higher level of RISK involved in working with them (NOT YOU THOUGH!). You want to send an initial invoice immediately, and you don't start until that is paid. This accomplishes a couple of things. a) It covers your time that it will take to gain access to each of their assets. b) It shows you whether or not the customer is even interested in working with you. c) It will give you an idea of the budget that the client will have.