When should I audit SEO?

After sending an email to a prospective client asking me to work together and responding to my survey, we set up an introductory call (Skype or Google Hangouts are preferred).

Before giving the call, I do my own quick SEO mini-audit based on your survey responses to familiarize yourself with the landscape of your market (I spend at least an hour investigating by myself). It's like dating someone you've never met.

Obviously, you will publish them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all other public channels.

Here is an example of how my survey looked:

Here are some key questions you would like to ask the client during the first meeting:

1. What is the purpose of your general business? What are your channel objectives (public relations,   social networks, etc.)?

2. Who is your target audience?

3. Do you have a business association?

4. How often is the website updated? Do you have a web developer or an IT department?

5. Have you ever worked with an SEO consultant? Or, has any SEO work been done before?

Suzanne Patel also has excellent recommendations for questions to ask a new SEO client.

After the call, if I think we are a good couple, I will send my formal offer and my contract (thanks to Halloween for making it an easy process for me!).

To begin with, I always like the first month's offer to my clients as a trial period to make sure we have a vibration.

It allows the client and me to make friends before leaving. This month I will take my time to do a deeper SEO audit.

These SEO audits can take 40 to 60 hours, depending on the size of the website. These audits are divided into three separate sections and presented with a Google presentation.

• Technical: Tracking errors, indexing, hosting, etc.

• Content: Keyword research, competition analysis, content maps, metadata, etc.

• Links: Backlink profile analysis, growth strategies, etc.

After that first month, if the client likes my work, we will begin implementing SEO audit recommendations. And in the future, I will do a monthly mini-audit and a deep quarterly audit.