Companies large and small need SEO, or search engine optimization, if they want to get discovered online. That’s where SEO freelancers come in. 

If you have SEO expertise and you want to offer your services on a freelance basis, there’s plenty of demand for your work. According to Ahrefs, over 90% of web pages don’t get any organic traffic from Google. Translation? Companies need your SEO expertise to help their websites rank and be found in the search results. 

Before you can help clients improve their SEO performance, you need to send them an SEO proposal to let them know how you can support their SEO goals. Below, let’s go over what an SEO proposal is, how to set up an SEO proposal, and the services and pricing to include for a successful proposal. 

What is an SEO Proposal?

An SEO proposal is an agreement between an SEO specialist and a company that outlines the details of an SEO audit project. The SEO proposal should outline the project scope of work, project goals, and the price of the services. 

SEO freelancers put together SEO proposals when pitching clients for projects like an SEO audit. An SEO audit involves reviewing a website’s existing content and making recommendations for improvements that will increase traffic to its pages and help the website perform better in search results. If you’re a freelance SEO strategist or CMS developer, you’ll want to conduct an SEO audit for your clients before implementing any changes to the site’s optimizations. 

How to Build a Successful SEO Proposal

You may have all of the SEO expertise in the world, but if you don’t know how to price or pitch your work, then that knowledge can’t be used to help clients improve their SEO standings. That’s why a detailed, professional SEO proposal is the key to securing your next SEO audit project. Let’s go over the steps to take if you want to create a winning SEO proposal.  

1. Determine the complexity of the project 

An SEO audit can be a complex project depending on a client’s existing content and site performance. You may be tasked with a high-level on-page analysis or get in-depth with an audit of their competition, backlinking profile, technical SEO, and more. 

To get a sense of what your scope will entail, it’s important to ask the right questions during your initial discovery call with the client. Figure out how much SEO work they’ve already completed, what their current performance is, and what their goals are. Get as many details as possible so you can accurately propose with services they’ll need. 

2. Choose your services 

Figuring out services to include in your SEO proposal depends on a number of factors. What are the project goals? What’s the anticipated timeline? What is the project going to achieve? Will you provide one-time services or ongoing support and maintenance for the client’s SEO?

To get an example of SEO services you could include in your proposal, check out our SEO Audit Scope of Work Template. The template outlines a full scope of work for an SEO content audit and implementation, breaking down individual services from conducting the site audit to performing keyword research to making optimization recommendations. Using this template not only gives you an idea of the types of services to include but also how to structure your proposal. 

3. Figure out your pricing 

Pricing your freelance SEO services is one of the most challenging aspects of freelancing. The cost of an SEO audit proposal depends on what your scope of work includes, the complexity of the project, how much time it will take you, and what the client’s needs are. SEO audits can cost as little as a few thousand dollars or upwards of $15,000 per audit depending on all of these factors. 

The best way to figure out your pricing is to start by seeing what other freelancers charge. Once you compare your scope and rate to other freelancers, you can see if you’re undercharging or missing out on key services to include. 

Wethos’ SEO Audit Scope of Work Template is a good place to find this pricing data. Our community-sourced SEO proposal template outlines the granular services typically included with this type of work along with recommended pricing for each. You can always customize the scope to fit your project’s needs and adjust the pricing as necessary. 

SEO audits are a valuable service to offer as an SEO freelancer. Companies of all sizes need to regularly audit their sites and content to make sure they’re getting the most out of their optimizations so customers can find them online. Before you pitch your next SEO audit project, use our SEO Audit Scope of Work Template to confidently structure and price your services.