Over years, I had developed what I thought was a fairly slick proposal template for my search engine optimization business. But still document lacked an edge. I knew I had lost a couple of recent pitches to my competitors and I wondered if there was something about their proposals that I was missing in mine.

You know that a good proposal can make or break a sale. This is particularly case when your only communication with potential clients is via Internet. But how do you know you've covered all important aspects of your services? How can you be sure you've covered all project estimates? What if you need to include some legal contract information in your document but you can't afford to hire a lawyer? How do you make your proposal stand out from your competitors if you don't have any graphic design skills? Are you forgetting an important section in your proposal that your potential client was expecting? I found myself asking all these questions when preparing quotations for potential clients.

The banner ad from Proposal Kit offered a solution to my problem. It advertised "Turn-key contract, estimating and proposal kits for today's Internet professional". That's exactly what I was looking for, so I clicked on banner ad, fully expecting to find some ultra-hyped, over-rated, disappointing backyard software. Boy was I wrong!

What I found was probably most cost-effective and useful tool for online business that I have EVER come across. Seriously!

Sample Proposal Kit Table of Contents Template

Proposal Kit takes guesswork out of drafting a proposal or contract. It automates chore of putting together a complex business proposal. Basically, Proposal Kit provides a comprehensive range of templates to suit any business requirement and helps you build a framework for your proposal to match virtually any product or service offering. You then flesh out templates with your own data and contact details. Templates are particularly suited to online businesses and include documents for initial sales pitch, planning stage, estimating, contracting, project timelines, analysis and even invoicing.

Want to include a Cost/Benefits analysis in your proposal? How about a Production Schedule or a Web Site Design Storyboard? With Proposal Kit, you have a huge range of professional documents available within instant reach to make up your perfect Proposal, tailored specifically for each client. You can even choose a colour scheme or graphic design theme to match your corporate image or that of your client. The style you see in screenshots on this page is just one of almost 30 different styles available.

The Proposal Kit Wizard Interface

But Proposal Kit is not just about creating "knock 'em dead" proposals. Use included Contract Pack and you have access to legal binding contracts, sign off forms, copyright agreements and more. Find a web site stealing your content? Use Contract Pack's "Cease and Desist" letter template to draft your response. Want to provide users of your software with a easy way to report bugs? Use Contract Pack's Bug Report Template. Once I read Quick Start Guide, it took me less than 5 minutes using Proposal Kit Wizard to set up a sophisticated Master Proposal framework to suit my business, incorporating 31 different templates from recommended list.

Here's a summary of different products Proposal Kit offers:

Proposal Kit Pro and Proposal Kit Standard

Proposal Kit Pro and Proposal Kit Standard are bundles of several products, including most commonly used packages. Each collection (proposal, contact, estimate, planning, samples) can be purchased separately, or together in a bundle at a lower cost. These are designed specifically for web, CD-ROM, multimedia and tech professionals. Current retail price for Proposal Kit Pro is USD 197. A stripped down starter kit is available for USD 97. The starter kit is mainly designed for web developers doing small scale projects. The Pro version suits companies with larger projects and a wider range of specialized areas.

Proposal Packs

Back in mid 1990s it was easy to achieve high search engine rankings. Just tweak your META tags and site copy with keywords and submit. Then, as more and more webmasters started to catch on to META Tags, it became more difficult to beat competition. Many companies turned to spam tactics such as hidden text (the same color as background of page), hidden links (using 1 x 1 pixel gifs to hide them), doorway pages stuffed with keywords and cloaked content, all designed to be seen by search engine robots and not humans in an attempt to trick search engines into giving site a higher ranking.

Thankfully, over past few years, achieving high search rankings has become fairer and more straight-forward. The search engines have given less weighting to META tags and more relevancy weighting to sites that are popular, of high quality and contain unique, relevant information. Most search engines have developed comprehensive spam filters that weed out spammers from legitimate sites and penalize sites caught trying to cheat system. Google in particular has led charge for quality over quantity.

Fortunately, web site aspects that most search engines prefer are also those that visitors prefer. Build a quality site with plenty of text, up-to-date, relevant content that other sites link to, a solid navigation system, submit it by hand to popular directories and search engines and you will be on your way to high rankings in no time. It's not difficult, it's not tricky and it certainly doesn't involve any black magic.

That's why I find it difficult to understand search engine optimizers who party like it's 1999 - using invisible text and hidden links in some pathetic, misguided attempt to trick search engines into believing their site content is most relevant. I mean, what are they thinking? I've heard excuses like "the search engine guidelines are unclear so we have no choice but to push envelope". Give me a break. The search engine guidelines are quite obvious to those who are actually good at SEO and understand what is necessary to achieve results for their clients. Many search engines even publish their guidelines clear as day on their sites. Unfortunately, it seems this industry is full of lazy non-performers who prefer to rely on outdated cheat sheets that haven't worked for years.

I am so sick of all cowboy SEO firms who clog up search engine indices with meaningless keyword-stuffed pages, in a vain attempt to dominate search rankings with their client's sites. Don't they do any research? Don't they read search engine guidelines? Don't they understand these tactics are fruitless and ineffective? Don't they know these techniques haven't worked for years and are regarded as spamming? Don't they realize they are putting their client's sites at risk of ranking penalties or outright banning? Don't they care about long term effects and future of their client's web sites?