Improving SEO with no blog

[everestagency]

I have a client who understands the value of content for SEO - however getting them to provide some content has proven an impossible task.

I've tried every way to make it easy for them. I've offered to come over to their office myself and see if I can just take 15 minutes of their time and record their answers to a few questions. The response is that's a great idea, we'll set up a time...and no time is ever good.

So I've thought, what can I do without them? Unfortunately, their industry is so technical and so niche I'd need to have a law degree to even begin to understand exactly what they do, and as they are in law it's probably better to have no content than content with something even slightly incorrect in it.

For now, all I can do is summarize and share news from a government website to their social media accounts. It's not highly effective.

Their on-page SEO for the main site is completely optimized. I've placed them in every free listing I can possibly find - both industry and local sites. I have them update me on any local events, conferences and/or trade shows they attend for possible backlinks.

What else can I do? I suppose I fear that if I can't provide them any additional results, they will stop seeing the value in SEO services, and I'd have a hard time disagreeing as I can't think of what else to do for them.

Thanks for any help!

[MiriamEllis]

I hear ya, Egol.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kat,

You're getting some good ideas from the community here. I want to add just a bit ... from reading your story about this client, I am getting this:

1. It's the client who has a problem here - not you. Failing to follow through even when you are bending over backwards, offering to come their office to take notes like a stenographer is all on the client - not on you. I've been writing copy for businesses for well over a decade at this point, and if a client can't take the time to fill out my questionnaires or keep phone appointments for follow-up questions or content brainstorming sessions, then they are not giving me what I need to do my job properly for them. It sounds like this is the situation you are currently in with your client.

2. There are two ways to be visible on the Internet. One involves all of the efforts you'd like to use on this client's behalf. The other is a straight monetary transaction between the business and advertising space. So, if the client cannot make the time to facilitate you making the effort to create content (plan A) then they should take the money they would have spent on this, likely increase the budget and start funneling all of that into paid advertising (plan B) that leads to a decent site, if they cannot run a great one.

Likely, the lawyers are simply too busy to sit down and think out a clear plan. They may be flinging money here and there hoping something will work, but then they're failing to back that up with the effort of teaching you about their business. So, there may be one more appointment you need to make with this client: to discuss whether PPC would be a better route for them than a halfhearted effort to win visibility via content that never gets created.

I totally feel for you in this situation and have been in it myself. If I didn't understand this type of lack going into a project, I've refunded the client and moved on. Good luck to you in this!

[everestagency]

That's not a bad plan! I will see if they have any pre-made information available. I actually did take a long document they had and make it into a few mini-posts myself, and it was helpful, so it would be wise to see if they have anymore. Thanks for that idea.

I thought about posting semi-related things to their niche, but their firm needs to be seen as highly respectable, 100% professional and serious, so I fear that anything like that will make them seem...frivolous?

We do a variety of marketing services, but bill SEO as a separate service, which I am responsible for. Trying to explore every avenue of what I can continue to do for them.

[everestagency]

Thank you for the response Highland!

I'm with you, honestly. I don't think they need a blog - while I could think of quite a few pieces of good content for them, it would require more time and effort than they can give, and I don't really blame them for that.

I do work for a digital marketing and design agency, and we provide them with marketing collateral materials for tradeshows and whatnot, but the agency bills SEO as its own separate service, a service that I am in charge of.

They do show up on every local keyword search since I optimized their site, and on mobile searches as well. It's not that they rank poorly in any search related to their industry, could be better of course, but still my job is to have improvements to report to them every month that I am unable to deliver, now that I have run out of things I can do without their input.

[EGOL]

Getting content from some clients is like pulling molars from a stubborn mule.

A long time ago I used to have clients and after experiencing this problem I decided to start writing content and placing it on my own site.   After doing that for about 15 years, I have a lot of content that brings in a lot of traffic and I am far better off and enjoying myself a lot more than if I were still doing dental work on mules.

Have you thought about doing this?  Content producers are the most valuable people on the web (far more valuable than SEOs    And, if they know a little bit about making a website, doing a little SEO, and maybe a little about marketing they can make all of the money that their content produces year-over-year-over-year-over-year... etc..  you get it.... instead of selling it to mules for a one-time fee.

[Joe.Robison]

Highland brings up some great points that I agree with. I definitely am learning as well that for some clients that are larger and has an in-house team that you support as an SEO, they might just want you to focus on SEO. But if it's a smaller company you're working with that maybe doesn't have their own Director of Marketing, then you kind of want to take on that role and provide a variety of services. It's kind of a business-dependent approach, meaning every company has different needs - no two are the same. Although productizing the services for clarity, ease of pitching is a good idea too.

In response to your question, I would agree with you that it is a difficult situation - writing content for a law firm that you don't have the technical chops for. Assuming that you're dealing with lawyers - I would imagine they are super busy and their billable hourly rate is so high that they're incentivized to work on their own client work rather than help you write content.

Perhaps rather than a blog, you can organize and repackage lawyer-approved information and helpful guides to post on their site. Think about who their clients are and what the clients need help with and serve them the best info possible on the site. Showcase the trust and authority of the firm with evergreen content.

If you do decide to continue blogging, perhaps take the Movado approach - where in their real estate niche instead of talking about real estate jargon and industry issues, they broaden out to talk about cities, neighborhoods, and local topics in cities across the world.

[Highland]

Why do you NEED a blog? More importantly, why do you need a blog for what is a highly technical (and probably arcane) topic?

Blogging is not for everyone and everything. Blogging is for where there is some form of dialog or constant change where you can generate fresh content people want to read on a regular basis. I have one website where a blog makes a lot of sense. It lends itself to lots of artsy-deco blogs and we have some talented young ladies who have found a niche in writing that. Their readership isn't stellar, but combined with social media efforts it works decently well. I have many other websites where we have no blog and never will, because attempting to blog about those topics would be pointless because nobody would ever read them. Instead, we put the information out and then market the sites as best as we can.

It sounds like you're a bit too niche here. If all you do is SEO, and don't offer, say, online marketing, you're really missing out because SEO as a job by itself is really hard to sustain. Offer to set up an Adwords campaign or offer to do some work on their social media. Maybe they need more local efforts. Do they show up on your phone if you search for what it is that they do? I find myself using Google Now a TON for local because Google makes it stupid easy to find. Websites, maps and phones numbers (with one click to open up my dialer and call).

Offering more services should help keep your clients happy. Especially if they don't have the time (or drive) to work with you on SEO.