SEO Client Questionnaire: 11 Questions to Ask a New Client

From startups to enterprises, every company needs proper search engine optimization or SEO to increase their online presence and maximize their search visibility.

However, not every company has the resources or expertise to do it on their own. This is where marketing agencies come in handy.

From the perspective of a marketing agency, though, offering SEO services often presents some of the biggest challenges possible, from a communication aspect.

Therefore, it is important to create an SEO client questionnaire with questions that can help you eliminate misunderstandings, and confusion, and focus on your work.

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SEO Client Questionnaire: 11 Questions to Ask a New Client

1. What Are Your Business Goals, and What Difficulties Do You Have in Achieving Them?
2. Who Is Your Target Audience (Is It Local/Regional/Global)?
3. Have You Thought About the Potential Keywords You Would Like to Rank for?
4. What CMS Are You Using, and Can You Make Technical Changes to Your Site?
5. Have You Worked With an SEO Agency/Freelancer Before?
6. Can We Get Access to Your GA/GSC/Content Calendar?
7. Who Are Your Main Competitors?
8. What Are Your Primary Objectives in Terms of SEO?
9. What is Your Monthly Budget for SEO?
10. What Kind of Reports Would You Like to Get, and How Often?
11. When Do You Expect to See SEO Results?

1. What Are Your Business Goals, and What Difficulties Do You Have in Achieving Them?

Before you start your SEO questionnaire, it is essential to understand the business goals of the company you will be working with, and what difficulties they are facing, respectively.

Understanding these will help you to anticipate any potential traffic spikes, and plan your campaigns more effectively. For example, an eCommerce website selling beachwear and surfing gear will most likely have less traffic in the winter months.

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2. Who Is Your Target Audience (Is It Local/Regional/Global)?

Another important SEO question to ask is about the target audience of the business. Your SEO strategy will differ depending on the location of the audience.

A company only targeting local audiences will mean you need to put more effort into local SEO, while an international, and multilingual audience will require a different approach.

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3. Have You Thought About the Potential Keywords You Would Like to Rank for?

No SEO questionnaire will be complete, without talking about keywords. You might be thinking that your client has no idea about keywords, but, more often than not, that is not the case.

So, it wouldn’t harm to simply ask. Your client might have a few keywords that seem important to them. From thereon you can conduct your keyword research, and give them a complete list with ideas.

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4. What CMS Are You Using, and Can You Make Technical Changes to Your Site?

At DevriX, we believe that WordPress is the best CMS. Yes, that includes SEO, as well. Still, whatever content management system your client uses, you need to know whether it allows you to make any technical changes to their website.

For example, they might need to add canonical tags, change page titles, redirect pages, and so on.

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5. Have You Worked With an SEO Agency/Freelancer Before?

One of the most important SEO onboarding questions is whether they have previous experience working with an SEO agency or a freelancer.

This will give you more perspective about what went wrong before, and what your client wants to avoid. Furthermore, you should inquire about any Google penalties the website may have had that the client is aware of.

After all, you might find out that the people they were previously working with were not that component, and made some mistakes, or delved into black-hat SEO strategies.

Or, you might establish that they had never done SEO before, and you have to start from scratch.

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6. Can We Get Access to Your GA/GSC/Content Calendar?

This may sound like an unnecessary question, but I assure you, it is not. You see, sometimes clients are hesitant to share their accounts with you – be it because they do not trust you, or because they think you don’t need access to them.

Of course, in order to completely understand their search performance, whether it be paid or organic, you need to be able to access Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Ads, their content calendar, etc.

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7. Who Are Your Main Competitors?

Sure, you can use third-party tools like Semrush, or Ahrefs to view a website’s organic competitors. Yet, it is much better to ask your client, since they are likely to be aware of any major competitors they have, and provide you with the proper insights.

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8. What Are Your Primary Objectives in Terms of SEO?

Right from the start, you need to talk to your client about their main goals and what they want to achieve through search engine optimization.

This could be anything from driving more traffic to their website to decreasing bounce rates, and so on.

Be specific when asking this question, you need as much information as you can get, so you can not only better explain how you can help them achieve their goals, but tell them what additional objectives they can accomplish.

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9. What Is Your Monthly Budget for SEO?

SEO services vary a lot in terms of pricing. It all depends on the workload, and how much the client is willing to pay.

So, it is a good idea to simply ask them about the monthly SEO budget. This way, you will instantly know how serious they are, and whether it is worth your agency’s time to deal with that client at all.

After all, you can’t do that much for them if they can only spend a $100 per month, can you?

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10. What Kind of Reports Would You Like to Get, and How Often?

Some clients are satisfied with receiving monthly reports with data from Google Analytics, while others might require weekly, or bi-monthly reports with more detailed data.

Whatever the case, make sure to include it in your SEO questionnaire, so you know what to expect and prepare accordingly.

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11. When Do You Expect to See SEO Results?

Make sure to understand what expectations your client has regarding results, and see if they are realistic or not. For example, if they are expecting to rank certain keywords at number one within a few weeks, that might not be possible.

Speaking of ranking, an SEO agency or freelancer should never promise keyword rankings, as that is something that is not entirely up to them.

However, if the client expects to see an increase in their organic traffic within 3 months, that is not impossible to execute. Knowing what your clients want to achieve, will only help you to prepare for the upcoming project, and prepare your plan on how to proceed.

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Ask the Right Questions, Then It Is up to You

The SEO client questionnaire you prepare should be well-thought-out, and cover the most essential aspects of your working relationship with the client. Leave nothing to chance – if you are not sure about something, just ask.

It is much better to ask than to make a mistake later on because you did not have the necessary information. After all, that’s what the SEO client questionnaire is all about – asking the right questions, understanding the project, and setting expectations. After that, it is up to you to deliver the expected results.