The aim of this post is to describe a few of the ways SEO agencies (or, in some instances, in-house SEO's looking for more budget from the boss) can use SEOmoz to pitch and close SEO projects.

We use SEOmoz at several different stages in our sales process.

Pre Sales

A customer rings up and says 'I want to rank first page for bicycle shop'. While they're on the phone, the sales team can figure out a few different things about this client using a range of 'moz tools.

Whether they have a clue what they're talking about:
See where they currently rank for this keyphrase, check out their performance on the toolbar and maybe (if they're going on a bit), do a quick crawl test.

What their chances are of ranking:
Stick their keyphrase into the Keyword Difficulty tool (along with the Wordtracker count) and see how strong their site needs to be in order to rank. You should already have a good idea of the rough strength of their site from the toolbar information and the crawl test.

The usefulness of the 'moz tools here is how quickly you can use them to gain some useful insights about potential clients. You haven't sold anything yet, but nor have you expended a great deal of time or energy working out whether there is anything to sell.

Pitching

So you've got the attention of your boss or a potential client- what now? There are lots of routes you could take, but a natural one would be to show your boss or the client the opportunities open to the site and, crucially, make them understand the work that would be needed to fulfil that potential.

Recently, we've used Linkscape to do this with great success. Run a report for the site and have a look at the domain mozRank, Domain mozTrust and the number of external links from unique domains. Now look at a few competitors that outrank the site you're interested in and see where the differences are. I find circles and arrows useful at this point. That shop that wants to rank for 'bicycle shop' needs to understand what the competition is like on the first page.

If you, your client or your boss wants some help visualizing this, take a look at this great little feature in the 'moz Labs (only Pro).

Being able to display the data in this way is great for getting across to a non-SEO what needs to happen in order for their site to perform as well as their competitor/s. I'd also recommend that you take a little time to explain what each of the axes a) means and b) means for their site. If, for example, the site has potential to rank well for longtail traffic, it would be most excellent if they could appreciate that links from high Trust sites and lots of links from a diverse range of unique domains are the way to go. You can pull all of this out of a Linkscape report as well of course.

Closing

The last step in this process is to close the sale. With all this Linkscape data at hand, you are ready to outline what you will do to fulfil the potential that this website has. Make sure you connect your proposal to the metrics that the site owner now understands and appreciates; sell the benefits of each deliverable using these metrics and then, in turn, connect them to what the site wants to achieve.

If you need some ideas for deliverables, have a look at the Pro Top Pages tool. Looking at the site you're working with will let you know if there's any naturally linked to content, which could either be promoted more heavily or imitated in some way. Looking at the top pages on a competitor's site will show you exactly what's working for them and, if you show it to your client or boss, will reassure them that the work you're proposing has succeeded elsewhere. Fingers crossed, this tool will also help you along in the actual SEO strategy for your site (whether that's creating some linkbait or going after directories).

We've found that a final sweetener to the deal is to reassure clients that we'll be keeping a close eye on the impact our work has. For this, we tend to set up a few terms in Rank Tracker alongside analytics data.

It'd be great to hear of any other ways you use the 'moz to help you pitch and close SEO work either internally or to potential clients. Thanks.