Many SEO professionals struggle with pitching their services when they don't know where to start. Let's solve that right now and lay out a plan.
When you pitch SEO services, you need to accomplish two things:
With many business owners, you have an up-front challenge with SEO. It's off their radar, especially with smaller businesses that don't have content teams. Fortunately you, an SEO Professional, know that attention to search engine optimization can elevate their online presence and potentially pay off more in the long run than many of their other marketing investments.
This guide will help you craft a compelling pitch that speaks directly to a client’s needs, sets realistic expectations, and showcases SEO’s long-term value. Follow this approach, and you’ll be better equipped to close deals and build lasting client relationships.
You will need to make these answers clear in every pitch you do. Ahead, you'll find sections in this guide showing you exactly how to answer each one. But before you pitch, there's some important prep work to do that helps you connect with your potential client and be ready to get them past their biggest obstacles.
You first step is to understand your potential client’s specific business challenges and how that specific business fits in its industry.
SEO isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, and a generic sales pitch won’t cut it. Business owners care about solutions that are specific to their situation, so your approach should be personalized and data-driven.
Identify challenges in their technical SEO, content strategy, and backlink profile. Only some of this will be for your presentation. Most of it will drive your pre-pitch research. Use Screaming Frog to find high-priority technical issues and a peek at their backlinks. You should be able to capture the rest with SpyFu.
SpyFu, a competitor research tool, helps you see where they currently stand in search rankings compared to industry leaders:
When it comes to the content strategy and backlink profile mentioned earlier, you can nail those in the same sitting.
Search the targeted domain in SpyFu and tab over to their Top Pages to see what's currently pulling in clicks from their SERP standings. The SEO Keywords tab can help you see movement--what they just started ranking for and where they have more opportunity to grow.
This potential client can tell you more about who their audience is. Ask them up front but do your homework, too. You should know what people are searching to find them and their competitors.
A restaurant owner will have different SEO priorities than a SaaS company, so your pitch should reflect these nuances. Similarly, a local business that relies on foot traffic will appreciate a focus on how strategies to build their local SEO will be a priority.
If you're in front of a business to pitch SEO, they probably need to grow their SERP rankings. Establish where they are on important, competitive keywords and note where they could be losing potential customers to competitors.
Another major issue is stagnant or declining organic traffic. If their site traffic has plateaued, it’s a sign that they either haven’t updated their content strategy or are facing technical SEO issues that are preventing their pages from ranking.
I'd caution you to present this as a starting point where you're focusing on what you can improve and what that should mean to them. Keep from telling them where they went wrong. They know; and they could grow defensive. Just treat it as a point to measure against.
Once you have a clear understanding of the client’s needs, you need to present SEO as the solution in a way that makes sense to them.
That last part makes all the difference. The longer you're in an industry, the harder it seems to describe it to someone who isn't familiar with it.
Take a step back and simplify the idea of SEO without jargon. Slow down the technical explanations, and focus on how SEO can drive leads, increase revenue, and improve brand visibility.
Business owners don’t need details on meta descriptions or canonical tags. They need to understand how SEO will impact their bottom line. Focus your pitch on how your work for them translates to impressions and clicks--and ultimately to trust and traffic.
It's more helpful to connect the dots for them whenever possible.
For example, instead of saying, “Your site has poor internal linking,” explain, “It's hard for Google to understand your most important pages, which is hurting your rankings. If we work on linking your pages to each other more consistently, we can help Google identify your key pages and drive more potential customers there.”
Advertising ROI is easy for many people to grasp. You run ads and get clicks (or you don't). It's a fairly direct line. Many business owners are skeptical because they don’t see SEO as an immediate revenue driver. This section helps you bridge that gap by connecting SEO activities to tangible business outcomes.
It helps to position SEO in context with other marketing channels, especially PPC ads.
One isn't better than the other; they cover different angles. PPC can be immediate, but SEO offers long-term value. Because, unlike PPC, its results don’t disappear when the budget runs out. PPC helps during your SEO ramp-up period, and once your footprint is established, you might be able to lower your ad spend. Help them see that SEO can help reduce reliance on paid ads over time to free up budget for other marketing efforts.
A clean and effective way to show ROI is to tie traffic growth to leads and sales. For example, describe a website that jumped from 1000 organic visitors per month to 3000. Even if they never increase their 2% conversion rate, that’s 60 new leads each month compared to 20 before.
This point also leads nicely into the talk about rankings not being the end goal. Getting more traffic doesn't necessarily require that a site hits the top spot on high-volume terms. Your strategy might involve more growth in long tail searches, formatting their content to appear in AI Overviews, and building authority to appear in more featured snippets.
To build trust and credibility, include performance data from past clients. Even anonymized before-and-after results can make a strong case. For instance, showing that "Client A" increased their organic traffic by 75% and saw a 30% uptick in online sales after six months of your SEO services adds weight to your pitch.
Case studies can be incredibly persuasive. If you’ve helped a previous client increase organic traffic by 80% in six months, share that story. In fact, sharing where they were can help the potential client relate to their current situation.
Don't let the loaded term scare you off. A case study can be a simple before-and-after story of where a site was when you started with it and where you got it to be. If this is your own website, great. It's a success story. Remember that success stories are so valuable in landing new business that one story alone might be the reason you earn more business. Can you see that value as inspiration to take on a free or reduced rate client now so you can showcase it later?
Building trust is a vital step in selling SEO (or selling anything for that matter). It's essential now in getting them to believe what you say, let alone give you a "yes." Part of that comes from showing that you understand what matters to their business.
Describe your end results in terms of their business objectives. Don't just push rankings. Talk about how those translate to more visibility, brand awareness, and traffic. Don't just promote content creation. Talk about how one or two cornerstone pieces can branch out into video snippets to educate customers and boost their authority on industry topics.
I love how Julian Mangoka illustrates this in aligning SEO with their business objectives. She offers a fantastic example of how a SMART reminder (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, and timely) can help you determine if you are talking about the right goals to shoot for.
Keyword data is a solid way to show the business their untapped potential. Tools like SpyFu can help you identify high-volume, low-competition keywords that the client isn’t currently targeting.
Here's an easy task that goes a long way: find 12-15 relevant keywords that combine for at least 12,000 monthly searches. Estimate a fraction of those searches as clicks to your client's page, and you can map a plan toward potential traffic gains.
Want to do that in a flash? Type the business name into SpyFu, and open the SEO Kombat section. Look for missing keywords that their competitors rank for but they don't.
In fact, tools can go a long way in helping connect the dots in your pitch. Search the client's domain in SpyFu to benchmark their current standings in an SEO Overview. Save a screenshot for down the road when it's time to show a new client what you have accomplished.
Earlier I pointed out that you could pull up your target business's SEO keywords as part of your prep work. There's one more feature that you can use in your pitch. Show the potential client where they stand on keywords compared to a direct competitor. You can select "compare my site's rankings" in the SEO Keywords tool to get a side-by-side comparison on every keyword the two sites both rank for.
Highlight some of the top keywords that you think they should target via SEO, and make a case for how much traffic they are losing to the competitor just from those ranks.
It’s also important to set clear expectations. SEO is a long-term strategy, and results don’t happen overnight. Be transparent about which improvements will yield quick wins—such as fixing technical issues or optimizing existing content—and which will take longer, like link building and content development. Managing expectations from the start helps prevent frustration down the road.
SEO is a long-term strategy, but certain "quick wins" can offer early momentum.
Short-term wins might include:
Long-term gains often involve:
Let clients know that while traffic and rankings take time to build, these efforts compound over time. You're building a strong foundation. That makes for SEO bringing in more sustainable and cost-effective traffic than paid advertising.
This is a good time to get on the same page. Educate them on SEO’s typical timeline: some technical fixes and content updates can show early impact, but significant ranking improvements and organic growth often take 3-6 months or longer.
Use analogies to make the concept more accessible. For example, "Think of SEO like going to the gym. You won’t see major results after one session, but consistent effort over time leads to measurable improvements."
💡 Another important tip: do not guarantee specific rankings. Instead, focus on actions and outcomes you can control, like improving site health, targeting valuable keywords, and increasing qualified traffic.
Even with a strong pitch, objections are inevitable. They should also be welcome. Objections give you a clue about a prospect's head space and the final hurdles for you to overcome. Whether it's cost, skepticism, or prior negative experiences, you have the key to that client's focus.
Let's say that they push back on prior negative experiences. Ask questions about what was promised and what happened in the end. Find a way to make them more confident like setting "check in" dates where you show progress on their top concerns.
No matter the issue, validate their concerns and hear them out. Address--as specifically as possible--how you can work with them. Overcome these objections and close the deal.
Here are some common pushbacks in SEO and how you can make the client more confident in you and your services.
"Expensive" is a shortcut to telling you that they still don't see the value.
Remind them that SEO is a slow but long burn, and the returns compound on themselves. Break down what they stand to gain—more leads, higher rankings, and increased conversions. Compare the cost of SEO to the cost of losing customers to competitors who are ranking higher.
Alternate: Pay attention to whether they said "expensive" or that it was out of their budget. "Expensive" is an easy shield against sales people. If they can only afford smaller projects, though, consider a graduated package that lets them grow with you.
Dig into why their previous SEO efforts failed. Was it a lack of strategy? Poor execution? Unmet expectations? While your approach is very different from their previous SEO manager, you need to do more than say so. Lean on your past customer success stories and establish a range of measurable results that they can expect.
Explain how SEO and PPC can complement each other. SEO helps build long-term brand visibility and reduces dependence on paid traffic over time, which can lower overall marketing costs. Organic growth on core keywords can free up ad dollars so you can experiment on long tail keywords and niche terms.
Here's another reason to do your research up front. Find some data specifically on their target audience that shows their online behavior. But there's another angle. Even if their current audience is not very active, the business can invest in their SEO to improve their reach to new audiences that are online.
At this stage of the pitch—after you’ve demonstrated potential value—it’s time to share your pricing. Break it down based on deliverables and timelines so clients understand what they’re paying for:
Tailor your pricing options to the client’s specific needs. You can offer phased pricing that allows flexibility and makes it easier for clients to commit to a level within their budget.
Be transparent and confident when discussing pricing, especially after clearly showing potential ROI. This reinforces your value and positions you as a strategic partner—not just a service provider.
Some SEO providers specialize or need to cater their offerings to something specific the client needs. One of the most common cases will be with potential clients with a local audience.
Selling local SEO services requires a slightly different approach than traditional SEO. Local businesses care about showing up in their immediate area and driving tangible actions—like phone calls, foot traffic, and in-store visits. Your pitch needs to speak directly to these outcomes.
This might be the easiest kind of SEO for local businesses to relate to. They understand that when someone searches for “plumber near me” or “best pizza in Denver” they want to pop up on the searcher's screen.
Even if they don't know that Google prioritizes local results through Google Maps, they know what the end goal is. Simplicity is your friend here. You don't have to pitch what you're going to do behind the scenes. The top message in your local SEO pitch would be to get them found first.
Beyond visibility, emphasize how local SEO helps build trust and credibility. Optimizing their Google Business Profile (GBP) allows them to control the narrative—displaying key information, positive reviews, and engaging photos. Businesses with a well-optimized GBP and strong local presence are more likely to get calls and visits.
Here’s an example: A dentist we worked with wasn’t showing up for “family dentist in Plano.” With some dedicated work, we helped them appear prominently in Google searches so that their new appointment bookings increased by 84% within 3 months. Now they rank in the top three for multiple local keywords.
You might notice that I left out the details of that dedicated work: optimizing their GBP, building local citations, and creating location-specific service pages. Unless the dentist is SEO savvy, those details might not land. Talk to her about her business instead, and that translates to new appointment bookings.
Position yourself as a local growth partner. Offer ongoing support to manage reviews, update their listings, and stay ahead of competitors. Local SEO is never a one-and-done job—it’s a continuous process, and that means recurring value for your client and steady revenue for your agency.
The core functionality of RivalFlow is to help anyone improve their existing content--almost automatically--so it ranks higher. SEO Agencies have been using it to scale their client updates, but they also discovered a sales use for it.
Since RivalFlow offers a ranking analysis for a website's top pages, this turns into a one-sheet that is both personalized and automated. Add the potential client's website in RivalFlow, click to the Recommended Pages tab, and capture the results. You can screenshot or copy the analysis to give as a freebie.
💡 Tip: Be sure to add your name and logo to that one sheet since a free "hit sheet" makes a memorable impression.
With a good SEO pitch comes new SEO clients. RivalFlow helps you get faster results while you onboard them. Since the page-level analysis is automatic, you don't have to know the business inside and out before getting results.
We talked to Local SEO pro Brad Ball about how he closes the gap on that ramp-up period when you are first onboarding a new client. This is a valuable bit of prep work before you bring them on, especially if you are still building your client list and your business. There are definitely big wins within striking distance, even when you don't have a large SEO team in place. And if you are pitching SEO services to established clients, there's help here for you. RivalFlow has given agencies with other specialties a chance to help their clients with SEO projects too.
You can confidently pitch them knowing that when you get a yes, you can deliver on what you promised--and deliver from the start.
