SEO REPORTS
Many SEOs desire huge corporate clients who may have so much red tape that the SEOs get bogged down and are prevented from doing well. Some small SEO firms try to act big and, conversely, some large SEO firms try to act small. Usually it works best if you act your size and attract clients you can handle.
Partner with other firms so that if you feel that a company would be too much of a research hog or not profitable enough, you can get a referral commission by sending them to someone else.
Don’t be afraid to mention some of the cons of SEO services. If you are the only one who they talk to who sounds honest and mentions risks (such as large algorithm changes or no guaranteed results), then you may get hired. It is usually best to err on the conservative side when estimating returns so that you can meet your goals.
Can’t do everything yourself? It is not uncommon to work out partnerships to make a percent commission off of sales or to mark up the price others charge you for work.
Don’t know all the answers? Nobody really does. It is best to have a network of friends you trust who you can work with and who can answer questions.
Some people are also willing to work as representatives of your company, so you may be able to scale out to handle a decent number of clients without needing to hire a ton of employees. When you outsource work to another person, it is not uncommon to double or triple their fees to make sure you account for your own time and still have adequate profit margin. Don’t forget to include credit card fees and pay yourself for your time.
With how fast things change in the SEO space, having a large number of employees can be more of a negative than a positive.
If you actively harvest leads and pursue them, you will either need to e-mail them, call them, or find another way to contact them. Cold calling is not something I am well-versed in, but if you actively seek out clients in this manner, realize that most of them will not be interested.
The more personalized your pitch and the better you can show benefit to them and feed off their empathy, the greater the chance of them saying “yes.” When you find out what their problems are and restate their problems to them in your recommended solutions, it appeals to their sense of logic and feeds off their empathy.
Many large SEO firms get most of their clients from cold calls. In addition, some firms have tainted the image of many SEOs with their cold calling and lack of follow-through on services.
If you have to build trust from scratch, it may make sense to deliver some pay-per-click traffic right off the start to show its value before trying to sell large organic search packages.
A friend of mine was doing fairly well selling general SEO services, but eventually shifted over to primarily catering toward the real estate market.
He created a forum geared toward the the real estate market. He picks up many leads from current client sites and that forum. Based on that, his firm is now known as leading experts in the real estate field.
Other SEOs have also done well by branding themselves as the link building expert, the keyword research expert, the SEO copywriting expert, the site announcement expert, the Australian SEO expert, and other ideas in and around the SEO scene.
It is important not to get stuck on one specific idea or technique so that you lose focus of the bigger picture. Work clients along the sales cycle without getting too focused on, or becoming to dependent on, any one client.
Some people may want as much as they can get for free. Showing prices on your site may filter out some of the worst leads before they even contact you. When you become successful at SEO, more people will want to hire you than you could possibly work for. It is best to take on a few quality clients instead of trying to work cheap for many clients.
Make sure you do not put 10-12 hours into giving away free competitive research and an actionable plan. You may be able to sell in-depth analysis services prior to selling full services. It requires a smaller commitment of the client while protecting you from working free.
If you want to give away something, it does not hurt to give away a PDF that describes your process.
Dealing with large corporate lawyers can be a pain in the ***. If you have common tasks, try to develop contracts and plans that automate and simplify them. Using your own standardized documents will save you significant legal costs as compared to paying a lawyer to review someone else’s contract every time you have a potential project.
Some of my friends have recommended ProposalKit.com for writing proposals. You might want to ask some SEO friends for a proposal and contract examples to work from. It is probably wise to have a legal person look over a proposal prior to signing as well.
Proposal titles usually look something like “Increasing the Profitability of Company X by Maximizing Search Engine Visibility.” Then, the proposal itself usually fits on less than a page.
When you first quote a price, make sure there is some padding in it—this allows you room to work while still having adequate profit margin, and a higher price
If a client has too many questions about the price, then that might signal there are other issues, such as business partners, lack of confidence, or other decision makers. If the person you are talking to is the decision maker, but is doubtful of the value, perhaps you can try to sell pay-per-click marketing or start their account with a small, test, PPC budget to let them see what type of traffic and conversions they could be getting.
Before you get too involved with a potential client, it is good to know everyone who needs to sign off on a deal. On one occasion, I was talking directly with a CEO of a company who paid me thousands of dollars to do preliminary work. After I did that work, he wanted ongoing SEO services. He was ready to sign off on it, but the venture capital firm that backed his company did not believe in SEO. Given that lack of sharpness, that venture capital company may have killed his company the day they invested in it.
I do not provide any sort of reports to any of my SEO clients, but some people like to use software such as Web Position Gold, Web CEO, Internet Business Promoter, or Advanced Web Rankings to provide client ranking reports. To me, it is important to track the end results (mostly for detecting algorithmic changes), but I usually track those on tools like Digital Point’s free keyword tracker.
If your clients might be impressed by ranking reports, those software products cost somewhere between fifty and a few hundred dollars. I have always tried to focus my clients on results in terms of money in their bank account, so I never gave reports, just rankings and cash.
One of the largest problems many people face when they are doing SEO well is that they become dependent on free traffic. This ends up hurting them in other areas since they can take that free traffic for granted.
Make sure you are working on sites that have specific goals:
• They are trying to build competitive advantages outside of SEO.
• They are maximizing conversion and profit potential.
• They are competitive in the paid ad market.
Also, make sure the owner realizes the free traffic can go away, and that they should be establishing other marketing channels as a safeguard.
Being able to handle large increases and decreases in traffic volume is exceptionally hard for some businesses. It is another great reason why many businesses should use PPC to augment their SEO to have a more reliable traffic stream that can be adjusted as needed.
For the individual, SEO work comes in spurts. To help smooth out the demand curve and allow you to profit and learn during down time, you may want to create multiple affiliate sites around topics you know well and in which you are interested.
You can profit from AdSense, link rentals, lead generation, or affiliate programs. Some of these sites could even target ideal SEO clients working for you on multiple fronts (like Morgan Carey’s Real Estate Webmaster).
Affiliate programs allow you to increase revenues without the burdens that clients place on you. If you are busy on other projects or want to work for just a few clients, augmenting your income is exceptionally important.
Most SEO compensation programs do not compensate the individual directly for the returns of their work. However, there are nice things about affiliate programs:
• You are compensated for each sale you make. Most SEO business models do not do that.
• You do not need to spend time cold calling or looking for clients.
• You can chose to only work in high paying verticals or fields you are deeply interested in.
• Affiliate programs and contextual advertising can provide low-effort, passive income streams.
• Affiliate marketing is much more flexible than client work.
