Present the Business Case for SEO/SEM
The first and most important aspect to creating a compelling business proposal, is to properly relay the costs vs. the projected benefits. The benefits come In the form of traffic and you must be able to relay the importance and outcome that comes with an increase in traffic. Whether it is advertising, sales, or conversions, it is important to personalize the presentation so they understand what it means to them.

Quantify the revenue opportunity:

Find out what a conversion or sale means to the company. If you can project the potential traffic and conversion ratios, you can put a quantifiable number together.

To quantify the overall ROI on a search marketing campaign it is relatively simple.

Total Additional Monthly Traffic
X
Conversion Rate (Use Organic Traffic Conversion if SEO Campaign) = Total Monthly Conversions/Sales
X
Average Transaction Profit = Total Additional Monthly Profit
X
12 Months  = Total Annual Additional Profit

Once you can estimate the projected revenue and compare it against the cost of your SEO Campaign, you can clearly identify the business opportunity of the proposal.

Outline the Marketing Campaign Costs
Clearly outline the projected costs and the associated tasks performed to incur such costs. There does not have to be an associated cost with each individual task, but you must have a list to show the work that will be done.

Outline the Goals and Participation of the Company
In every SEO/SEM Campaign, there is a level of participation that is required from the company making the decision on the campaign. It can be programming, redesign, or even content writing. Make sure they are aware of the joint participation that they are becoming involved with. A good marketing campaign involves both sides and is a long term partnership.

Outline the Marketing Campaign Timeline
An effective marketing campaign takes time to identify, organize, and implement. It takes additional time for search engines to effectively index content and changes.

Selling the Proposal
There are a number of groups you must convince that a powerful SEO program is the best way to go. Each group requires a unique approach as their participation and understanding is crucial to the success of the program.

The first group you must sell to are the closest participants within the team. They are the team that will take your advice and recommendations directly and implement accordingly. The HTML, CSS, Web programmers who know firsthand what each change means. The size of this group will vary upon the size of the overall company but it is important to convince them that the insight and changes you will recommend will be the best for the company overall. This team is the ground floor of the company but crucial to the success of the program.

The second groups you must convince are the finance and business people. The numbers have to make sense! You must be able to justify the upfront expense for an exciting ROI.

The third group you must convince is the Branding group. This group is often wrapped up in the PR group as they are concerned with the overall appearance and success of the company branding. Brand people are marketing people and they have to see the overall advantages of your extended reach within the community and what that means to them. Help them to understand how additional reach can increase brand recognition not only through the numbers but also within the offline community.

With a larger company you might also be expected to deal directly with content writers, webmasters, various technologists, and even attorneys. It is important to know who you will be meeting with and who you will be expected to convince, it might be more people than you think.