Oftheard
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SEO client onboarding questionnaire: the questions to ask every new client

An SEO client onboarding questionnaire decides how good the next three months are. Ask too little and the pages say things the business cannot stand behind; ask the wrong things and the campaign chases searches nobody makes. These are the questions Oftheard’s own onboarding asks, with why each one matters. Copy them freely.

Oftheardfrom the answers we keep ·22 October 2026 ·6 min read

The business

  1. What is the website? The one address the work is for. Not a Facebook page or a directory listing.
  2. Which country do you sell in, and in which language do buyers search? Search results differ by country and by language.
  3. What do you sell, and where? Each service or product, and each town or area you serve. These become the searches.
  4. Why do customers choose you over the others? One line. A line anyone could say (“best quality, good service”) says nothing a buyer or an AI assistant can repeat. Ask for a number, a year, a place or a method only this business can claim.
  5. Who are your three main competitors, with their websites? Their own sites, not their listings. They become the comparison every week.

The goal and the starting point

  1. What would a win look like in twelve weeks? More calls, more enquiries, a page on Google for one search. One goal, written down.
  2. Where are you now? Ranks, AI answers and visits at the start, so the end can be compared with something.
  3. What questions do your buyers ask before they buy? The questions people put to ChatGPT or Gemini, in their words.
  4. Which AI assistants matter to your buyers? ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Claude.

The facts the pages may use

  1. Prices, offers and figures you are happy to see published. A page should never invent a price, a count of customers or a year. Ask for the real ones, and get them confirmed.
  2. Proof: awards, certifications, years in business, numbers served. Only what the owner will stand behind.
  3. Contact details as they should appear: address, phone, hours, service area.

Oftheard keeps these as a fact sheet the owner confirms, and every page draft reads the confirmed facts first.

  1. Who approves a page before it goes live? One name and email. Nothing should go up without a yes.
  2. Access: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, the Google Business Profile, the website admin (for WordPress, an application password is enough), and who holds the domain.
  3. Does the owner agree to the work? If an agency fills this in, the business owner should confirm it. Oftheard sends the owner a code at their business email.

Using it in Oftheard

Oftheard’s onboarding asks all of this in eight steps: website, site check, products and contact, Business Profile, goals and access, customers and AI, account, and plan. It refuses a vague one-line pitch, a competitor given as a listing page, or the business’s own site entered as a competitor, so the campaign starts from facts. An agency filling it in for a client gets a signed link for the owner to confirm. Start with the free site check, or see how agencies run clients.

Questions

What should an SEO onboarding questionnaire include?

The business and its market, what it sells and where, one line on why customers choose it, its competitors’ websites, the goal and the starting numbers, the buyers’ questions, the facts pages may use, who approves pages, and access to Search Console, Analytics, the Business Profile and the website.

Why ask for a one-line pitch?

Pages and AI answers repeat specific claims, not praise. “Since 1998, same-day repair in Coimbatore” can be quoted; “best quality service” cannot.

Is this template free to use?

Yes. Copy the questions into your own form. Oftheard’s onboarding asks the same questions and checks the answers as they are entered.

What access does an SEO agency need?

Google Search Console, Google Analytics, the Google Business Profile, the website admin and who holds the domain. For WordPress publishing, an application password for a user who can edit pages is enough.

Found on Google, named by AI. Start with the site check.

Oftheard runs a twelve-week SEO and AI visibility campaign for one business in India: the site fixed, the missing pages written from facts you confirm, and Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews and Google’s AI Mode checked every week.

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