My tried and tested SEO Proposal Template

At SEOHive we often help agencies (through our strategy sessions) prepare SEO pitches and proposals for their clients – and we’ve seen SO many different obstacles that agencies have put in their own way to close projects.

First and foremost – anyone considering your services is making an investment in their own business. If you don’t have a clear defined process to walk them through the sale, you’re already not instilling confidence in them, and it’s an uphill battle from there to convince them that you’re the supplier to part them from their 💰💰💰…

All that changes right now…

Over the years, I’ve refined an SEO proposal approach that consistently closes deals. It’s not about fancy design or aggressive sales tactics – it’s about presenting an opportunity backed by data, having the right conversation first, and structuring the proposal so it’s easy to say “yes”.

Let’s walk through it together…

Discovery (Do This First)

🚨 Here’s the most common thing I see agencies get wrong (and it’s the FIRST thing they do!)… They try to write a proposal without really understanding the client’s situation.

You can’t write an effective SEO proposal from a 20-minute chat. You need proper discovery – and that discovery should be paid. Go and see SEO Weekly #33 for more on this… 

In summary: why paid discovery matters:

When someone pays for discovery (even a token amount like £250-500), they’re invested. They take it seriously. You get better information, and you’re not wasting time on tire-kickers.

Here’s what I tell prospects: “Every SEO Strategy is different. Before I can put together a meaningful SEO strategy together for you, I need to do some discovery work. This includes analyzing your current rankings, your competitors, your site health, and understanding your business capacity. This discovery costs £X, and at the end, you’ll get a detailed proposal showing exactly what we’d do and what results you can expect. There is absolutely no obligation to proceed, but you’ll have a roadmap either way.”

Most serious prospects say yes. (And I reckon the ones who don’t probably weren’t going to buy anyway!)

The Questions That Matter

During discovery, I’m not just looking at their website – I’m trying to understand their business  – including it’s capacity, how they actually make money, and how much each new client means to them.

This is crucial and often overlooked: Can they actually handle the business you’re going to bring them?

Ask questions like:

❓ How many new customers can you realistically take on per month?

❓ What’s your current lead-to-customer conversion rate?

❓ Do you have capacity to fulfill if we double your enquiries?

❓ What’s your average customer value?

❓ How quickly do you typically convert a lead?

Why this matters: If you’re going to generate 50 extra leads per month for an electrician who can only handle 10 extra jobs, you’ve got a problem. They’ll be overwhelmed, service quality drops, and they’ll blame you for “sending bad leads.”

You have a moral obligation to ensure they can deliver on the leads you generate. Otherwise, you’re setting everyone up for failure.

Again, all of this is covered in SEO Weekly #33 👍.

The Data-Driven Proposal Structure

Once you’ve done discovery, here’s how I structure the actual proposal:

1️⃣ Current State Analysis

Show them where they are right now:

✅ Current rankings: What are they ranking for? (Usually not much, or not the right things)

✅ Site health: Speed, mobile-friendliness, technical issues

✅ Backlink profile: How many links do they have vs. competitors?

✅ Keyword opportunities: What should they be ranking for that they’re not?

This isn’t about making them feel bad – it’s about establishing the baseline and showing the opportunity. It’s really about saying “now I’ve done this work, I think your business COULD look like this…” – and them going “Wow, I want this! Where do I sign?”

Pro tip: Always use actual data and screenshots in your proposals. “You’re currently ranking on page 3 for ‘plumber Manchester'” is way more powerful than “your SEO needs work.”

2️⃣ What Should You Be Ranking For?

This is the money section. Show them the keywords that matter for their business:

• Search volume (how many people are searching each month)
• Current position (where they rank now, if at all)
• Opportunity (what it would mean to rank in top 3)

Connect it to their business: “‘Emergency plumber Manchester’ gets 1,200 searches per month. If we get you into the top 3, you could expect 15-20 extra enquiries per month from this keyword alone. At your conversion rate and average job value, that’s £X in additional revenue.”

Make it real. Make it tangible.

3️⃣ The Process (What We’ll Actually Do)

Break down your approach into clear phases:

✅ Content Creation: We’ll create optimized content targeting your priority keywords 

✅ On-Site Optimization: We’ll fix technical issues and optimize existing pages
✅ Integration: We’ll ensure everything works together (internal linking, schema, etc.) 

✅ Link Outreach: We’ll find authoritative backlinks to increase your domain authority

Don’t just list services – explain why each matters and what it achieves.

4️⃣ Timeline & Expectations

Be honest about timelines. SEO isn’t instant, and setting false expectations kills trust.

I typically say something like: “We’ll see early signs in the first month. However you’ll start seeing noticeable movement in rankings within 2-3 months. Meaningful traffic increases typically happen around month 4-6. By month 6, we expect to see X% increase in organic traffic and Y additional enquiries per month.”

Give them milestones so they know what to expect and when.

5️⃣ Investment & What’s Included

This is where you present your pricing (we covered this in detail last week!).

Be clear about:

• Monthly retainer amount
• What’s included in that retainer
• Minimum term (I recommend 6 months)
• What happens if they want to add services

Pro tip: Frame it as investment, not cost. “£1,500/month investment to generate an additional £8,000/month in revenue” sounds very different from “£1,500/month for SEO.”

6️⃣ Next Steps

Make it easy to say yes. What happens if they want to proceed?

• Sign the agreement
• Initial payment
• Kick-off call scheduled
• Work begins [specific date]

Remove friction. The easier you make it, the more likely they’ll move forward.

Appendices (The Secret Weapon)

Here’s what separates good proposals from great ones: detailed appendices.

Include:

• Full technical audit report
• Complete keyword research (all opportunities, not just the highlights)
• Competitor analysis
• Backlink gap analysis

This serves two purposes:

1. It demonstrates you’ve done serious work (justifying your discovery fee)
2. It gives them something valuable even if they don’t proceed

True story – I’ve had prospects not proceed immediately but come back 6 months later saying “We used your report to try DIY SEO and realized we need help.” That appendix kept you top of mind.

The Psychology Behind It

This proposal structure works because it:

Presents an opportunity, not a service: You’re not selling “SEO” – you’re showing them how to capture revenue they’re currently missing.

Uses their data, not generic promises: Everything is specific to their business, their keywords, their market.

Demonstrates expertise before they buy: The depth of analysis proves you know what you’re doing.

Makes the ROI clear: They can see exactly what they’re getting for their investment.

Removes decision paralysis: Clear next steps make it easy to say yes.

What You Can Do Right Now

If you’re about to pitch SEO to a prospect, here’s your action plan:

➡️ Charge for discovery. Even a small fee filters out tire-kickers and gets you better information. Frame it as “investment in understanding your opportunity.” (If they’re shopping around it also means that you become a “cheaper” discovery proposal, against full monthly retainers). 

➡️ Ask capacity questions. Make sure they can handle the business you’ll generate. This protects both of you.

➡️ Gather real data. Use tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or even free tools like Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights to build your current state analysis – or grab a set of SEO Scout Reports from SEOHive. 

➡️ Calculate the ROI. Work out what ranking for their priority keywords would actually mean in revenue terms. Make it tangible.

➡️ Structure your proposal clearly. Current state → Opportunity → Process → Timeline → Investment → Next steps. Make it easy to follow and easy to say yes.

➡️ Include detailed appendices. Show your work. Demonstrate expertise. Give them value even if they don’t proceed immediately.

If you want to see the exact template I use, you can download it for free at: seohive.co/seo-sales-presentation – it includes all the sections, example slides, and the structure that’s helped us close hundreds of SEO deals. It’s also fully brandable 🤓

Remember, a great SEO proposal isn’t about selling – it’s about presenting an opportunity backed by data. Do proper discovery first (and charge for it), understand their business, show them the specific opportunity with real numbers, and make it easy to say yes. 

The proposal structure matters, but the conversation that leads to it matters even more.