A lot of search engine marketing can involve trial and error. You never know whether something you try will produce the desired results. Similarly, you may know that a particular technique has worked for one person, but it may not work in the same way for you. When working for different clients, who operate in different markets and in different industries, the various techniques and initiatives available may work well for some and not so well for others. There are so many variables to consider.

Whenever you start a project, whatever it may be, it is imperative to set some goals so that you know whether your efforts are succeeding. Set a time after you start the project to see if you have reached your goal. Many elements of online marketing take time, so don’t set the goal time limit too close to when you start, but similarly don’t set it too far away. If you leave it too long, it will be harder to see what is working as there may be other factors contributing to the result. When you get to the job of assessing what has been done, and what effect it has had, make sure you know what your metrics for analysis are. These should be set at the start of your campaign. If you don’t do it at the start you may adjust your metrics to fit more accordingly to the results, hence giving you a blinkered view.

Make sure you don’t set your goals too high in the first place and similarly don’t set them too low. It needs to be something that’s achievable in the time you have allocated, but you don’t want your results to be skewed by anomalies in search engine behaviour. For instance, a ranking position may jump around between a number of points in the results page which will be nothing to do with any SEO efforts. This, you can’t account for. So if you set your goals too low you might not be able to notice anything.

Whatever you do, bear in mind that it may have a negative impact on search results, conversions and marketing. This can happen, even if you have a thorough plan in place. If this does happen, it is time to set a goal again and try and improve the situation.

The last thing to note is the need to be transparent. If your client has their own goals that you don’t think are achievable, explain this and encourage them to be guided by your goals at first. Don’t promise to reach theirs unless you can be entirely confident it’s possible. If you do, and you don’t succeed, this is a significant failure. You won’t have delivered on what you promised; and delivery is crucial.

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All clients generally have one person with whom you have the most contact. It is this person with whom you must develop the best relationship. That person may not have an in-depth understanding of what you are doing for them, but they will want to know as much as possible and, more importantly, they will want clear and concise reports and updates delivered to them so that they can make decisions personally or pass on information to someone else who may understand even less.

Explaining everything to that one person is extremely important. You may think that a quick email with some salient points will suffice, but always remember that those points are most likely the points that you consider to be of most importance; and you understand them because you wrote them. The contact you are sending updates to may be utterly confused if you have used some industry-specific language that means nothing to most people. This will alienate your contact and they will instantly feel lost. Explaining things clearly in language that they will understand will benefit you immensely because even if they don’t understand the full workings of the project, they will feel like they have a good enough idea so as not to be concerned that they’re losing control.

A ‘problem client’ can, quite often, arise from ineffective communication. They start off perfectly reasonable as they will feel that they have a handle on things. However, if correspondence from your end becomes more convoluted and ambiguous (or so it would seem to them), their attitude will swiftly change. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, the easiest way to carry out all communications is by following a similar format each time.

For example, an email could be laid out like this:

Intro:

Description of Situation/Problem:

Action Required from You (Service Provider):

Action Required from Them (Client):

As long as you are clear and you don’t use too much in the way of complex, technical language, the communication is very simple.  Everyone knows what their responsibility is, and everyone has been supplied with the necessary information to move forward successfully.

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