A few weeks ago we asked a few folks on Twitter to complete a short (okay, maybe not that short) 22 question survey, looking specifically at the business side to working in SEO. We asked the all important questions, including:

Where are you based? What kind of business are you? How many people work in the business? What other services do you offer besides SEO? How many clients do you currently manage? Do you contract your clients for a set period of time? What is your usual client contract arrangement (i.e. how do you charge for your work)? Your average charge per month for SEO services? Typical client retention period? Biggest issues facing your business today? Biggest barrier to sales? Biggest source of leads? What activities are included in a typical campaign? Link building tactics- what tactics do you employ for the majority of your campaigns? Do you buy links? (what SEO survey would be complete without this question? ;)) What 3rd party tools do you subscribe to? What keyword tools do you use primarily? How long on average do you spend reporting to a single client? What metrics do you include in your standard reports? How did you get into SEO? What skills do you consider to be the most important skills for an SEO? Have you ever had a site penalised?

The results of the survey are pretty interesting- take a look for yourself below: