Adding Content

When client doesn't know much about it

[web_india]

Right now, I find myself am in a situation where I've suggested my client that we need to build up loads of content for his site for better rankings with the search engines. But after my suggestion to him, he asked me to do some web search and suggest him what kind of articles I want to add up to the site. I asked a few keywords from him and he provided me with that. So far, so good.

But problem is the keywords he has given me do not bring up the results of his type of services. To say simply, the client has no idea what his clients are searching for. I am sure, they are not searching for what he thinks are the keywords because they don't relate to his services.

I've asked him repeatedly to let me know of some more keywords to help me but he expresses his serious inability to add any suggestion.

Now the problem is I am stuck with the problem as how to help the client add more content. Since he doesn't know much about search engines, it's my responsibilty to guide him what would get him the best ROI. I do not want to target those non-relevant keywords. But I also know I have to add up those content pages and the right kind of traffic would be there.

And my problem is, his industry is very technical in nature so I don't have much idea about it. Of course, given the right keywords I could do some research on the competitors (to complicate matters further, the url's he provides of his competitors don't seem to be his exact competitors, they are just in a related field)

What do I do to find the right kind of content/articles relevant for suggestion to the client?

Anyone dealt with similar clients before? How have you handled such situations?

[tedster]

I have had one roughly similar situation with a client in a specialized technical field. I finally realized that I didn't need to understand their competition any better -- I had to get inside their existing CLIENT's mind to understand how to find new hot prospects.

The company had a surprisingly weak grasp on exactly what brought people to them and kept people with them. So I asked them to do a survey with some of their existing clients. After they surveyed only a few, we already had a goldmine of marketing ideas - and lots of keywords that their so-called "competition" had never thought of.

There can be so many pathways in any given niche market. The "obvious" ones are not always the best ones, they're just the ones that the pack fights over.

[web_india]

interesting idea, tedster.

and what type of questions you need to ask in the survey to get what you want?

[tedster]

Basic Questions:

1. How did you originally find out about our company?
2. How did you decide to go with us? (What issues were you trying to resolve? What were the main factor that made up your mind? etc.)
3. What do you like about us?
4. Also ask "Where should we improve?" Fix that first, and then write about it.

The key is getting the customer's exact choice of words. One very important thing a business should know, from many, many angles, is a customer's point of view. Once they get clear about that, then they know how to present themselves to new prospects. Each angle presents a new promotional "path of approach" that they, and you their web developer, can groom.

Another idea in this direction is to do some data mining of the company's emails with its customers or clients. Simple word frequency analysis can uncover some gems - including common typos.

I find that the more I work to serve my client's web needs, the more I end up doing overall business consulting, and that's really what this is.

Some organizations already have a load of data in this direction, and others have barely thought of the idea. For those coming to it for the first time, the web development project may tune up everything about the way they operate and be of great value.

Then you can ask for the big bucks ;)