Sell SEO as agency or free agent specialist? srs

[rusvik]

Serious question here for SEO guys. I'm sure many of you do a bit of SEO consulting on the side besides your own sites.

I'd like some of my income to come from selling SEO. I don't want a lot of customers 3-5 would be good. If they could put down $1500-2000 month and up, then that would be ok with me. Would go after lawyers, dentists and similar greedy professions with plenty of money.

However, I don't want to run an agency if I don't have to. I'd rather just be known as the guy to go to for a select few people who can afford paying for SEO. But I wonder if a one man show (plus outsourcing to freelancers) is enough to land these types of clients? Or do they need to walk into a nice office with staff?

If going the freelancer way, it would probably help to have a strong social media and blog presence right?

Any advice on maxing out SEO client money while minimizing admin and staffing?

 

[mikeshinobi]

I always said that if I ever decided to attempt to do client work, I'd land clients by doing this:

1. Find some small inner page on the potential client's site
2. Rank it (track the rankings in case they don't)
3. Contact them and be like "Noticed you're getting a lot more traffic from xxx keyword lately? Yeah, that was me, and for $x/month I'll do that for your entire site."

I dunno if it'd work, but it sounds good.

 

[rusvik]

P.S. Real estate brokers and car dealers are professions you can get huge amounts out of.

Lawyers
Dentists
Car Dealers
Real Estate Brokers
Plastic Surgeons

Any other ideas for high paying clients?

My main challenge with the lone wolf model is lack of social proof. I mean, I suppose some of that could be offset by leasing a Porsche or Ferrari and inviting them for a pitch lunch at some expensive place, but having an agency in an expensive location is how most of these 'Media Agencies' do it right?

You could of course be active in the blogging, social media world to build authority, but that's also a huge time waster. I just doubt that salesmanship alone is going to land you a big contract.

I suppose if you do your job well, then after a while you'll get referrals though.

 

[jeffrey]

I think it's a good idea to specialize in 2 or 3 niches. Then you can travel to your surrounding cities and strum up more of those high payers. Industries that you have experience in, know their lingo, work on similar content and linking strategies, etc. With that said Real Estate Brokers are the best niche to go after in my experience. It's a niche that your services can REALLY help. For example; there's probably 50 keywords you can work on for a Real Estate Brokerage in your city. A dentist, maybe 5.


Chiropractors, Lawyers, Auto detailing and repair.

Contractors are good too: roofing; pools; landscaping.


Don't be afraid to fail, work on the lower paying niches first and go into meetings with them. Get your pitch perfect. Get comfortable talking with them in a meeting, addressing their concerns and convincing them you are their problem solver.

Trust me, you don't need social proof in the form of a nice suit or a fast car. You're just procrastinating when you think of this stuff. Hit the phones, get appointments, and knock em' out. You'll get a client in no time if you're persistent and driven. Your energy and enthusiasm for helping them out demonstrated in a meeting will work much better than your appearance physically (stylish clothes, leather suitcase) and professionally (belonging to a company).

I used to work in labor, was broke and finally I got laid off. Moved in with my mom again to try online, I was 18 so it wasn't that demoralizing. I started perfecting my pitch, and my services. I cold called, setup meetings and rode my mountain bike to my first two prospects offices. A tanning salon and a karate school. I showed up sweaty, completely stuttered my way through the pitch. I failed miserably but I kept fucking doing it. I nailed a client eventually, still riding my bike to meetings, my first one a catering business. At that point I was very comfortable and social proof absolutely meant nothing just because I was confident and generally wanted to help them out and get $$$.

Anyways good luck bro. Just don't be afraid to fail or have them say "no you're a bum". It's no big deal.

You've reached your daily useful post count of 5. Please stop now, you're making the rest of us look bad.

 

[wetsponge]

It all sounds good to try and land some niche business with money to spend but my experience is that most of these guys haven't a clue as to what SEO is or its value. And if you rank one of their sub-pages for a term and get it to #1, what if that doesn't translate into X number more phone calls that they can notice? You're relying on some receptionist to tell their boss that they're getting 10% or 20% more calls. Most people in these positions won't rise to that challenge.

Finding clients is tough. I'd work on finding your first and then after you make them happy, ask for referrals.

 

[blureach]

I have an agency (2 years old) and my partner is a full-time salesman for us. I handle all the SEO work.

The only way we have reliably acquired the type of clients you are talking about with long-term high dollar contracts is through partnerships with media buyers and ad agencies.

Not saying you can't do it yourself but all the niches you listed are pounded every day by SEO companies from around the world. Getting into the door of a lawyer to sell him a 2k/month service without a referral is very difficult.

If I were to start my business over, I would focus solely on relationships with every web designer, ad agency, and media buyer in town. 0 direct sales.

 

[Pb.com]

Partner 50/50 with midsized very tech savvy web development agency. Use their client base and kick ass. They already have strong client relationships, billing, relations, etc. in order.

That is what I do and it takes roughly 8-12 hours per week of my time plus a full time "client relations manager" ($12 an hour because I'm cheap as hell). The most time consuming thing is the relationship with the clients. 7/10 of them want their hand held and want to feel in touch weekly. I have my manager email each client once per week per $k that they spend monthly even if it's just asking some basic questions like what they think of this new blog post, if there is anything they'd like to change, and that we updated the title on their XXXXXX services page.

Makes a damn easy life style. The part that kills you is not having a client manager. You can do it yourself half assed but be prepared for attacking statements to come from you from clients 3-4 months down the road even if they are top 3 for everything. They will want to know what you do. I did this half assed and only lost one client but obviously, I'd recommend doing it right the first time.


/Rant.