SEO Intake Form Template
Everything an SEO needs before the audit — target searches, competitors who outrank you, past optimization history, and Search Console reality.
Rankings have a backstory. The more history you share here, the faster the audit gets past discovery and into fixes.
SEO engagements start slow when the first two weeks are spent excavating history the client already knew. This intake front-loads the excavation: the searches that matter, the rivals who own them, what has been tried before, and whether the basic instrumentation exists.
Customer language, not keyword lists. The target-searches field asks for real phrases customers type, one per line, and resists the temptation to be a keyword-research tool. What clients write here is diagnostic twice over: the phrases themselves seed the research, and the distance between what clients think people search and what people actually search is often the engagement's first finding. The competitors field works the same double duty — clients name business rivals, the audit reveals search rivals, and the delta is worth a slide on its own.
History changes the playbook. "Has the site had SEO work before?" is quietly the risk question. A never-touched site is a green field; a previous-agency site may carry link debt and template damage; a penalty recovery is a different discipline entirely, with different timelines and different promises. Asking on the intake keeps a recovery case from being quoted as a growth case — the most expensive misquote in this trade.
The Search Console question is a capability probe. Yes, no, and "what's Search Console?" are three different first weeks. The third answer is genuinely useful — it signals the client needs setup and education, not just deliverables, and pricing that in early prevents resentment later. Priority and budget close the loop: local visibility on $500 a month is a real engagement; national revenue keywords on the same budget is a conversation about expectations, best had before the contract.
Left off deliberately. Analytics screenshots, CMS credentials, and access grants — never collect credentials through a form; access flows through proper sharing after the agreement. Also absent: promised-deliverable checklists ("10 backlinks/month") that would bake bad strategy into the intake itself.
Who uses it. Independent SEO consultants gate their audit pipeline with it. Agencies attach it to the "request an audit" button. In-house marketers repurpose it to brief external specialists. When capacity fills, the close rules earn their keep: cap responses for the month or set a close date, with a closed message pointing to the next opening — an honest "fully booked" builds more trust than a silent queue.
Adapting it. Localize the outcome options if you specialize (local SEO shops expand "local visibility" into map-pack and review lanes). Add a file upload block for previous audits or penalty notices — PDFs up to 10MB attach cleanly to the response. And export the terms column across all intakes now and then; what your market thinks it should rank for is its own research corpus.
Frequently asked questions
Can prospects attach a previous audit or penalty notice?
Add a file upload block — PDF is ideal and files up to 10MB are stored with the response, so history arrives alongside the answers.
How do we pause intake when the audit calendar is full?
Settings has close rules: a close date, a response cap, or both, plus a custom closed message. Reopen anytime and the same link works again.
Is it safe to ask for website details on a public form?
Ask for URLs and context, never credentials. The form link is public by design; access grants should happen through each platform after you engage.
Can I review all target-search answers in one place?
Yes — the responses view shows every submission, and the CSV export puts each answer in a column, so the search-phrases field reads as one list.