[your logo here]

Client Needs Analysis Form

[your business name here] Professional SEO
Prepared by [your name here]

[clients business name here]

1. PURPOSE OF DOCUMENT

The purpose of the Client Needs Analysis Questionnaire is to assist [your business name] and project
stakeholders in defining the initial scope and objectives of the project from a business perspective.

Based on these core business needs, [your business name], led by the project manager, will suggest
appropriate search engine optimization strategies and solutions. Since there are crucial tradeoffs
between cost, speed of implementation, and the quality of features and functionality, it is important to
clearly define scope and objectives.
This document is comprised of the following parts.

Purpose of document
Client responsibilities
Client contact details
Existing business overview
Website details
Competition
Keyword information
Existing SEO overview
Historical SEO overview
Social media
Expectations
Budget
Flexibility
Inhouse skillsets
Ongoing SEO marketing and maintenance
Website objectives
Schedule
General comments
Considerations
Constraints
Conclusion

[When providing this to the client be sure to allow spacing under each question so they may
provide a response.]

2. CLIENT RESPONSIBILITIES

Client input is necessary for a successful campaign. This survey will help both [clients business name]
and [your business name] articulate and identify the overall goals of your project. Each key decision-
maker should fill out his or her own survey, answer each of the questions in a thorough but brief and
clear manner, and add any additional notes or comments at the end of the survey.
It is important to gather all documents, content and other material that you would like incorporated into
your project before submitting this analysis. This ensures you have everything in place necessary to
complete the project in a timely manner.
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Once this form is completed we can then achieve a better understanding of what you require ahead of
our initial meeting. This all ties in with being able to put together an accurate quote on price, scope and a
expected timeframe of the proposed project. It also helps guide us in being able to provide the most
effective solution for you.

3. CLIENT CONTACT DETAILS

Company name
Contact names
Position/title
Company address
Business phone
Email
Current website URL
Preferred method of contact
If telephone, what is the best time to phone you?
Who is will act as the primary point of contact with final approval on decision making for this project?

4. EXISTING BUSINESS OVERVIEW

Briefly describe your organization. Who are you and what do you do?

What are the main issues in your business today?

What are your most important products and services? Why?

How is business currently generated?

How do you communicate with customers (call center, email, forums/blogs, live chat, etc.)?

What is your USP/UVP (Unique Sales/Value Proposition)?

How does the business currently market itself?

What organizations or industries are supportive and/or complimentary to your products/services?

Briefly describe your target audience or customer.

What is the geographic target coverage of your market?

a) Local

b) Regional

c) National

d) International

e) All

What is the primary action a user should take when coming to your site (make a purchase, become a
member, search for information)?

5. WEBSITE DETAILS

How does your Website (or websites) fit into your business?
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Which hosting company, web server, operating system, and scripting languages are used?

Do you use a content management system? If so, which one?

How many people publish content on your site?

List all domains owned by your company (especially those which may be running duplicate copies of the
website to be optimized). If this is a long list, send them in a separate document/spreadsheet.

How often is the site updated?

Is your website e-commerce?

How long has the website been live?

Do you have a sitemap? (Google sitemap? XML, Other?)

Are any site functions (forms, shopping carts, etc...) hosted on a server other than the one that hosts the
Web site?

Should the sites usability be reviewed and improved?

Should the sites copy and visual appeal be reviewed and improved?

6. COMPETITION

We will perform analysis of their websites to get an idea of how they are ranked by the major search
engines, the degree of optimization on their websites and what they are targeting

Who are your main competitors?

Who are your competitors online? Competitor URLs (list the top 5):

What competitor sites do you dislike and why?

List the URLs of other sites you find compelling. What specifically do you like about these sites?

7. KEYWORD INFORMATION

Do you have a comprehensive keyword list? If so, will it be available to us?

What are the major search terms/keywords for this site? Please use the blank section provided.

What search terms are currently generating referrals? (company, products/services, industry, locale, etc)

How do your customers refer to your business products and/or services? What words are used within
your Industry?

Have you tested these keywords via paid search?

Explain which keywords have driven the best results, in the past. If possible, send the SEO firm a
spreadsheet showing Impressions/CTR/Conversion Rate/CPC for each keyword, etc.

In case you have already provided your final keyword report as per your business requirements, do you
want further research on the keywords, which are best for your business?

8. EXISTING SEO OVERVIEW

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Has your website ever been audited?

Has the site been optimized correctly? Meta tags, title tags, etc

How does the site rank currently?

How do you rate your current website on the search engines?
How much traffic does the site receive now (unique visitors, repeat visitors)?
Do you have traffic statistics or logs for us to review? If so, please include or send the details and files
separately.

Do you track other metrics, such as conversion rate, profit per sale, cost per visitor, etc.? If so, is this
information available? (logs and tools)

What is the current conversion rate?

What is the current revenue and profit per visit?

What are your best performing keywords/keyphrases?
Are you currently using pay-per-click advertising?

If PPC is being used, is it profitable? What is the current ROI?

Do you have a Google Webmaster Tools account?

9. HISTORICAL SEO OVERVIEW

Have you undertaken website search engine optimization in the past?

If yes, please provide us with your previously targeted keyword information

What was performed and what were the results?

Have you ever undertaken a link popularity and building campaign for your website? If yes, please
provide detailed information about your backlinks.

How have you generated links to your website? (natural; some natural/some paid; some requested;
press releases; reciprocal; any ROS Run of Site links; for those that are paid, if any, do they expire
any time soon?)

IF YOU HAVE PARTICIPATED IN PAID LINK INITIATIVES, list URLs here. You may already know that
Google has guidelines about paid linking initiatives
(http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66736 )
Have you already invested a substantial amount of time and money towards SEO with less than desired
results?

10. SOCIAL MEDIA

Is the company currently active in social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube?

Do you have a blog? If so, whats the address?

If so, who is responsible for maintaining your social presence?

How do you measure success of your social marketing efforts?

Can the SEO firm have access to your social marketing team and help to drive strategy?

Does your company have video content?

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If so, do you have this content on YouTube?

Please list any social channels you currently use to promote the business ie Facebook. Twitter etc

11. EXPECTATIONS

What are your goals and objectives for search engine marketing?

What are your secondary objectives? (examples include increased sales, marketing/branding
awareness, and fewer customer service calls.) Please discuss both long- and short-term goals.

What are your expectations from us in terms of deliverables? How would you qualify success?

Higher Rankings in Search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK etc.

Increased number of unique and targeted visitors

Sales and Registration Conversions

List any specific details other than above that you would want to accomplish with further SEO marketing.

How will you measure the success of the solution?

What is the expected time frame to realize a positive return on investment for your efforts? (search
engine optimization does take time; expectations must be set appropriately).

If the current conversion rate is too low, how much does it need to increase?

What would be considered a success? A failure?

What existing strategies (both on- and offline) are in place to meet the new business objectives?
What would you consider to be a realistic monthly budget to allocate towards achieving these goals?

Do you have any project content ready (keyword lists, reports, conversion metrics.

The major search engines would you like us to specifically target are?

Google.

Yahoo

Bing

List others below.

12. BUDGET

This may be an uncomfortable thing to share during the request for proposal process, however if we
know what your budget is, we can provide the most suitable solution for you based upon your allocated
budget. This will assist in terms of expiditing the initial process, reduce miscommunication and prevent
time wasting.

Do you have an estimated budget amount per month for SEO work? Based on this figure, we can let you
know what can be done within this budget or recommend a strategy: Refer to project agreement.

What is your budget for online marketing? Overall?

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What is your allocated budget?

If you have any general comments, questions or concerns please list them below.

13. FLEXIBILITY

What changes are you willing to make to the website?

Add additional pages?

Change site navigation? (from image-based nav to CSS/Text, etc.)

Change web copy/header tags?

Change home page copy/add home page copy?

Change Title Tags?

Rewrite/Change URLs?

Produce digital assets (video, webinars, slideshows, apps)?

Please list anything that cannot be changed below.

14. INHOUSE SKILLSETS

Do you have:
Content creation/publishing skills? Yes:___ No:___
HTML skills? Yes:___ No:___
Database skills? Yes:___ No:___
Server-side development skills? Yes:___ No:___
FTP experience? Yes:___ No:___
Website management experience? Yes:___ No:___
Internet marketing knowledge and experience? Yes:___ No:___
Would you require web marketing upon completion of the site? Yes:___ No:___

15. ONGOING SEO MARKETING AND MAINTENANCE

Do you need us to provide ongoing search engine optimization?

16. WEBSITE OBJECTIVES

What do you wish to achieve from your web site? Please check.

Increase traffic
Attract new clients
Sell more products

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Generate leads and sales

Aid marketing or increase presence
Aid image development of the company/organization
Offer customer service (increase communication with existing clients/members, ex. accepts
email)
Provide information, especially for potential clients/members (rates, type of work, how service is
done, FAQ)
Provide information regarding new services, specials, promotions, and events
Position your company as technologically advanced
Survey customers/prospects
Accept payments
Increase overall efficiency of the company/organization

17. SCHEDULE

Current date.
Estimated completion or target date (when you wish to achieve final results)

(If the project will launch in phases, list proposed milestones and dates.)

18. GENERAL COMMENTS

If you have any additional questions, comments or concerns please list them below.

19. CONSIDERATIONS

Are there mandatory requirements or considerations for this project that we need to know?

20. CONSTRAINTS

Are there any constraints or restrictions for this project that we need to know of in advance?

21. CONCLUSION

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