So you were hired to do SEO work and it is time to discuss content writing. Should you have your team handle that or should the SEO content be written by the client? This is a pretty old question in SEO, one that is still debated. Obviously, there are people that will tell you that client should write their own SEO content while others say that the agency should handle everything. As always, the truth is in the middle.

Should your clients write their own SEO content?

YES! I strongly believe that this is the correct answer because of 3 reasons:

• Nobody knows the target audience better than the client. The content that would be created would be much better and more interesting for the entire market.
• The client can develop an in-house content creating department that would be highly beneficial for the business while you can focus on what you do best, search engine optimization.
• So many wonderful content ideas come from resources that the clients have access to like what support staff hears from customers in terms of questions or complaints.

Obviously, things are not as simple as this. You cannot always have the client take care of content writing.

When clients cannot write their own SEO content

It is very important to have a conversation with the client and be completely honest about the situation. In order for SEO content to perform well it is vital that it is of a really high quality. In so many cases the client simply does not have the necessary resources to write good content.

As an example, I once talked to a site owner that was selling computer parts. The budget was not that high so it was impossible to create an in-house content development staff. There was an attempt but the content was so technical that it was very hard to read. In this case I had to take care of the content writing side of things.

Have a good conversation with your SEO client and see if he can actually produce high quality content. If not, see how the budget can be moved around.

Remember: The foundation of good SEO is high quality content!

When clients can write their own SEO content

Simply because the client can develop high quality content it does not mean that it will live up to SEO standards. There is a really good possibility you are going to need to make some changes. Examples include adding some related keywords in the content, some synonyms or formatting everything in order to make the article easier to read. You might even have to do some design work to make the page more attractive.

Remember that when the client creates content, you still need to make some changes. You have to factor that into your budget in order to provide really good estimates.