In the wild a pack of wolves thrives from a hierarchy determined by strength and attitude. Not always will the strongest, biggest wolf be the alpha dog. Attitude plays a huge role in your pack rank. When working with an outside client it’s essential to find your role within the “pack.”
Finding the Leader
With most small clients the person in charge of the web site is the owner of the business, with larger clients it could be the president of the company, a marketing manager, an IT manager, or perhaps the web site designer. It’s critical to find out who makes the decisions and who you need to contact to make sure your SEO efforts are productive for the client while still keeping them happy.
Joining the Pack
The use of “we” can be a large part of joining your clients team. Most of the time clients are looking for sales or contacts from the web site. One way to make your client feel more comfortable is to talk like you’re all one team. For ex:
“When we get a contact from the site, what are we going to do with that information?”
With one simple sentence you’ve made your stance clear to your client. I’m part of your team when it comes to the web site, and it’s in all of our best interest to make sure we’re on the same page.
Your Role in the Pack
With some clients you are the alpha dog, you make all the calls on the web site. Typically these clients assume you know best so they just expect an update on what you’re trying to do. With larger clients things aren’t always this simple. There may be a few different sections of the company who want something different from the web site. It’s your job to make sure they know that you only want what’s best for the site.
As an example, Web Designers and SEO folks will frequently disagree with what’s best for a site. Both sides will have to give up something to make a happy medium.
A Large Pack
With larger clients it’s hard to make everyone in the room happy. As much as you might know about SEO or SEM it might not matter to some clients. They still have their comfort zone and might not like some of the changes you have in mind. You need to be clear that there are some things you might be willing to give up in order to get some of your other changes through the pipeline.
If you get traffic levels up, and conversion rates at an acceptable level you’ll be off to a great start in keeping your clients happy.
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