What to Include in a Winning SEO Proposal (Plus, A Free Template)

Want to win more new clients? Put some extra effort into your marketing agency's SEO proposals!

What should be included in an SEO proposal? How long should it be? And how do you create a successful template? We’ve compiled a list of the most important things to include in an SEO proposal as well as provide a free template for you. These are sure to help you impress your clients and seal the deal!

Let's tackle this together, shall we?

What Is an SEO Proposal, Really?

An SEO proposal is essentially your agency’s sales pitch—it's your chance to convince a new client that your agency is the perfect fit for them. For existing clients, bringing up search engine optimization is an opportunity to upsell with an SEO project. 

Your prospective client is likely reaching out to multiple SEO agencies and a clear, actionable proposal is your chance to stand out from the pack.

An easy-to-understand proposal is also going to save you a lot of headaches down the road as your clients will know exactly what to expect from you, and when they should expect it.

However, you don't need to spend hours crafting the perfect proposal. Use our free SEO proposal template (or create your own) as a starting point. Then add customization for every potential SEO client, so that it really speaks to their business goals.

Keep reading to learn everything that you should include in an SEO proposal that will help you win more clients.

What to Include in An SEO Proposal For Your Potential Clients

This list provides a general breakdown of the information your SEO proposal should contain.

Use it as more of a starting point than a set of hard-and-fast rules. As your agency customizes its proposals, you may want to add additional sections or remove others, depending on the prospective client.

1. Introduction & Summary

First off, start your proposal by introducing your agency. Let the client know what makes your agency the best fit for their SEO needs!

Remember: a proposal is essentially a sales pitch. Here is where you'll be selling your agency and building credibility. Later in the SEO proposal, you'll dive more into the exact deliverables and pricing.

A great introduction should:

• Show What Differentiates Your Agency: What services do you offer? What's your mission statement? Why should the client choose you?

• Highlight Your Agency's Experience: Show your clients that you have what it takes to deliver results. Mention past clients or link to any case studies and testimonials.  If you've won awards or have certifications, mention those in the proposal.

• Introduce the Team: Let the client know who they'll be working with and what makes them a qualified account manager who will deliver on their SEO strategy.

The introduction should only take up a couple of slides. While it's one of the most important parts of the proposal, you don't want to steal the spotlight. Ultimately, the client wants to know exactly how you'll help grow their business.

2. Pitch Specific SEO Insights

This section contains the bulk of the personalization to your proposal and is likely where you'll spend the most time.

Here you want to show specific insights you've gathered about their current SEO performance.

This builds a lot of initial trust and credibility with the client as they see that your agency has taken the time to come up with a suitable SEO plan for their target audience by:

1. Understanding their business problems and goals

2. Researching their website

3. Personalizing the proposal

It doesn't take much time to gather a few SEO insights to include in the proposal.

Two insights to include in your research are:

• The client's current keyword rankings to showcase where you can provide improvements

• An SEO audit of the client's website to highlight important issues you can help them fix

Quickly do a little keyword research by entering a few target keywords in a rank tracker and we'll then show where the website currently ranks and the organic search volume. Include this data in your SEO proposal, as well as insights on which keywords you plan to target.

Create your own rank report in minutes using our Rank Tracker tool. Try AgencyAnalytics free for 14 days.

Additionally, consider including keywords their competitors are ranking for in search engines, but they are not. A competitive analysis will add insights into what opportunities they're missing out on and highlight your agency's plan to address them.

You should also review their technical SEO by running a health checkup on your potential client's site to uncover opportunities for on-site improvements. Are they missing meta descriptions? Does their website load too slowly? Or are they suffering from duplicate content issues?

Include a high-level overview of current issues, and your agency's plans to fix them. You can run a site audit with AgencyAnalytics' free trial.

Here's an example of an insights page from our SEO proposal template:

3. Solutions & Deliverables

In this section of your proposal, you'll dive into what tasks and projects you'll actually be doing as part of the SEO campaign.

Are you offering link-building services? How many links would you build a month to boost indexing on major search engines? Will your digital marketing efforts involve creating a content strategy for their website? Will you manage their social media marketing? You get the idea.

Outline the deliverables so your client knows what to expect from you on a monthly basis. These should be specific and quantifiable.

For example, if you are recommending content creation for their website, let them know how many pages or blog posts they should expect each month and what conversion rates they can expect. Tieing your efforts directly to revenue is a great way to focus on the investment and the ROI.  

Also, include what kind of SEO reporting they should expect each month. If you're giving them access to a live SEO dashboard to monitor results, mention this in the deliverables section of your proposal.

Create your own SEO Dashboard with our template in minutes. Try AgencyAnalytics free for 14 days! 

4. Goals

Set SMART goals that your agency will strive to achieve. A few examples of goals you may include in your SEO strategy are:

• Increase organic traffic 40% YoY

• Generate 30 organic signups per month

• Build 30 new backlinks over 3 months

To set these types of goals, you'll want to have a general idea of what you know you can achieve based on past clients you've worked with. Don't just grab numbers and goals out of thin air!

It is also helpful to get access to their Google Analytics account or have a rough estimate of their current traffic prior to sending the proposal. This will give you a benchmark to set the goals.

5. Project Timeline

SEO takes time, but many people don't know that. Include a timeline in your proposal so the client knows when they can expect to see results.

Break each of your proposed solutions down into specific, measurable milestones. That way, the client will be able to keep tabs on your progress, even if it takes a while for traffic and other metrics to improve.

Some clients expect a lot of work done upfront immediately. Setting a realistic timeline will save a lot of headaches down the road and help you avoid having to end a client relationship.

6. Investment

Once you've made your case for how you can help the client, it's time to talk money.

The investment section of your proposal includes all pricing for your services.

I always prefer referring to the pricing section as an "investment". Your SEO services will help their business grow and generate more revenue. It's important to remind the client of that before asking for their credit card. The fees you charge should be viewed as an investment in their business.

You may choose to give the client several pricing options to choose from. This reduces sticker shock by giving the client a sense of control over the buying process.

Introduce your standard package, which covers all the services you've talked about in your proposal. Then give the client two other options to choose from: a pared-down, less expensive package, and a deluxe package that involves a few extra services.

7. Call to Action

This is one of the most important sections of your SEO proposal that is too often forgotten!

End your proposal with a strong call to action that lets the clients know the next steps to get started. It should include your contact information and the next steps in the process.

How Do You Write an SEO Proposal?

The best way to write an SEO proposal is first and foremost, personalization.

Definitely spend some time creating the perfect proposal and focus on how your approach differs from other agencies, so your agency stands out from the crowd.

It's okay to use a template for the overall structure of the proposal, but the content in each section of the proposal should be personalized for every client.

It's usually obvious when a proposal has been copy-and-pasted, and while that approach might save you some time, it won't impress customers.

Remember, your potential clients are probably considering other agencies besides your own, and tailoring your proposals is a powerful way to stand out from the competition. 

Many proposal templates out there include Terms & Conditions for your client to sign. While you can include this, it’s usually best to avoid this in a proposal as it isn't necessarily part of the sales pitch process.

Once the client has decided to come on board, send the invoice and Terms & Conditions to get signed. 

Appearances matter, so pay close attention to your formatting. If your proposal looks cheap, clients will get a negative impression of your agency, regardless of how well-written the proposal itself is.

Aim for an organized, elegant layout, and incorporate plenty of white space on each page -- this will help you avoid the "wall of text" effect.

Lastly, your client probably isn't an SEO expert, so make your writing as clear and easy to follow as possible. Use a professional but down-to-earth tone, and avoid using too much technical jargon where you can.

If you get stuck, think about how you would explain something to the client in person.

SEO Proposal Template With AgencyAnalytics

If you're ready to create an SEO proposal for a prospect, you can save time by using our free SEO Proposal Report template. As you can see below, this template has all the features mentioned in this article and can be customized for each client:

Create your own SEO proposal using our template in minutes. Try AgencyAnalytics free for 14 days.

We also wrote a detailed article that shows you exactly how to set up and customize this report template.

The Takeaway: Best SEO Proposal for Clients

Mastering the art of writing a killer SEO proposal for clients is well worth the time and effort it takes. You'll land more clients when all your proposals are personalized, detailed, and well thought out.

If you want to start improving your proposals today, focus on addressing your client's pain points, clearly communicating how you can help, and building trust.

When you're ready, get started crafting winning SEO proposals using our SEO proposal template with a 14-day free trial.