How to Run Seo Business – Nowadays seo business is one of the essential part of a successful business to achieve well-known in the market because without proper seo work, it is hard to meet the desired goals. In this competitive market if you are not having a well seo optimized website then you can’t succeed.
Here are the ways to get up and doing when you are about lunching into the seo business
Table of Contents
Develop a Smooth SEO Sales Experience
Now that you’ve done your prep, let’s get down to selling your SEO service.
How Do You Reach Out?
1. Selling SEO over the phone
You don’t want to waste time calling every prospect, so the best way to go about this is to talk to the decision-maker. Can the person you’re speaking with make the executive decision to “go all-in” with your services?
But, remember that talking to them on the phone isn’t where you drop your closing statement. Your goal is to set an appointment with them – this is selling the “test drive”.
Your sales team should have a script when they’re contacting prospects. You can start with something like this:
Hi! I’m looking for {Name of Prospect}
I’m {Your Name} from {Agency Name}. I’m a digital marketing professional and I help local businesses improve their visibility online. I would love work with you by helping you gain more customers to your site. Is this something we could chat a bit on?
(If they answered “Yes”)
Great!
(Proceed to probing questions)
- How do your customers usually find your business
- What was the motivation in creating the website?
- Have you heard about SEO and improving your visibility online?
(If they answered “No”) Do you already have someone doing this for you?
(Proceed to probing questions again)
- What are the results you’re getting right now?
- What was the goal of the campaign?
- Are you happy with the service?
I can prepare a report to look at the status of your website right now and show keywords that could be important to your business.
Should I send this to your personal or work email? I also have some free time to help you understand it. Is {Day: Monday, Tues, etc.} at {Time} work for you?
Note: Calls requiring a commitment are best done during mornings, ideally around 10 AM to 11 AM.
While it’s good to have a script when selling SEO over the phone, never read from it!!! Use the script only as a guide to keep the conversation flowing and natural.
2. Setting a sales meeting and selling in person
Selling in person requires a great deal of prep – apart from the first steps we’ve outlined above. You need to:
- Dress to impress – show you mean business. For some, it sounds rudimentary, but you’ll be surprised that some salespeople pay little attention to how they look when facing clients. You want them to trust you with top dollars, so you need to look top dollar material.
- Bring impressive marketing material to leave behind. This should include material like a comprehensive site and link audit, a pitch deck, and a proposal with all your contact details on it. You should also prepare case studies or white papers to demonstrate the potential impact of your SEO service to their business.
- Don’t be afraid to defer tough questions to a later phone call. It may happen anytime when you’re talking to a client. If there’s a question that you may not be able to answer, tell your client that you’ll review and consult more with your experts (us), then get back to them. Your honesty will be appreciated, and this also creates an opportunity for another touchpoint.
IF ALL ELSE FAILS…Shoot them an email. Your email will act as a receipt of their buy-in. When you send an email, make sure it serves a purpose.
Breaking the Ice
If you’re talking to prospects over the phone or in-person, small talk is essential to establish rapport. To break the ice, ask questions that will make them pause. These are questions that they don’t usually get in conversations.
Here are a few ways to do that:
- Do you have anything exciting planned for the weekend?
- I saw your website, and it looks great! Did you get web design services or did you build it yourself?
- I’m curious about your business’ name. Did you come up with it yourself?
Breaking the ice isn’t just an opportunity to establish rapport; this allows you to leave an impression and show that you genuinely care about the client.
Rapport Building Techniques and How to Use These in Selling SEO
When you have a strong rapport with your prospects, you’re in a better position to influence them in their purchasing decision. This shows that you’re both focused on what the other is trying to say. This is called the “Liking Bias”, and if you believe sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer – “All things being equal, we are most likely to buy from our friends.”
There are different techniques to build rapport with your SEO clients, and these are:
- Cheerleading – Be the first to initiate contact. Be the bearer of good news – all the time!
- Common Ground – This is the easiest and most effective way of accelerating the relationship-building process. Identify one or two things you have in common, and use these in your conversations.
- Humor – Inject humor when talking to your prospects. If you can get them to laugh, you can get them to buy.
- Mirroring – Easier to apply when you’re doing face-to-face conversations; mirror their posture or how they talk or match their pace when engaging them.
- Me-Talk – Give airtime to your prospects rather than you taking the spotlight in the conversation. The trick is 50%. He who talks more than 50% of the time is losing the sale.
Building Desire
The most important step when you’re selling SEO is to let your prospects know how they will be successful with your agency.
1. Send them a website audit.
Provide them with an audit of their website to show areas of improvement, what their competitors are doing, and what their next steps should be. Your SEO audit should be easy to use and explain to your prospects – here’s a sneak peek of a sample website audit:
Sending prospects a website audit not only positions your agency as the expert but also shows that you have the technology and an array of SEO audit tools to find and fix the issues affecting their website.
2. Prepare a proposal that sells itself.
To win prospects, you need a great looking proposal. But, what should be in the proposal? The SEO proposal should include information about the client, details about your SEO process, the proposed solution, the timelines, and deliverables.
Proposals should always be in your sales pitch kit, so be sure to have a proposal template prepared or use a proposal builder tool to avoid spending too much of your time creating one.
The most effective way to build desire is to offer a solution to their problem. Don’t end your SEO sales pitch without displaying the value of your service and what your agency can do for their business.
3. Reinforce what they need.
After you hit their practical heartstrings, start pulling on their personal heartstrings. This technique is called “Selling the Personal Need.”
Now that you’ve helped them visualize your expertise, help them visualize their potential positive experience and their peace of mind when they work with you.
Gaining Commitment
You should be guiding your prospects into what they need to do next. The goal here is to create a momentum that will ultimately move them forward and get them to close. Gain commitment from your prospects by:
- Getting them into a “Yes” frame of mind – Prime them with three questions that will get a positive response. The third question has the most weight.
- Checking for understanding – Be sure they understood what the service is all about. If there is any confusion, don’t hesitate to go back and explain again.
Gaining commitment is like softly checking on someone’s “yes” without “popping the question” directly – yet.
Overcoming SEO Sales Objections
It’s rare for a salesperson to meet no resistance when they’re selling SEO to a business. But, if you encounter any objections during your pitch, it probably means a portion of your sales process was weak up to this point.
Here is the guerilla guide to overcoming sales objections:
- Acknowledge – The most powerful phrase you will use in overcoming objections is “I hear you.” Our primitive brains are subconsciously receptive to this statement and are very powerful at diffusing tension.
- Isolate – Don’t let an objection tailspin into 2, 3, or 4 issues. You can do this by saying “So if I’m understanding you correctly, your primary concern here is (Blank). Don’t say “issue,” or “problem”.
- Own – The most powerful phrase for ownership is “I will…” – don’t disempower yourself by saying “I’ll check with the boss” or even worse – “I’ll escalate this to…”
- Act – Follow through on the commitment. If you don’t, the trust is lost and you will have lost the sale
Here are some of the most common objections you might encounter when you start selling SEO:
Objection 1: “We’re already working with another agency.”
Rebuttal: “I can’t speak for other SEO agencies out there, but what I can say is that there will be no other group of people that will take care of your campaigns as personally as we will.”
Objection 2: “I don’t see the potential of SEO for our business’ ROI.”
Rebuttal: “I can respect that view, especially if you’ve not had luck with a good provider before. But did you know that according to Marketing Sherpa, the ROI for SEO is $22 per $1 spent. We can also send a report detailing how we measure SEO ROI as a reference on the value of this service.”
Objection 3: “I don’t see what SEO could do for me.”
Rebuttal: “I understand. A lot of people begin that way until they realize customers are looking for their business 24/7. 93% of buying experiences begin with a search. If you’re not the first on the first page, it’s a missed opportunity for customers to do business with you.”
Objection 4: “It’s too expensive.”
Rebuttal: “I hear you. And if I were in your shoes hearing for the first time, I might too. But, I‘m in this industry for a reason. After having seen dozens of campaigns perform and happy business owners discover how positive SEO could be to their business I feel it’s important to help you make an informed decision by seeing the potential benefit you might miss out on so you can make an intelligent and informed decision.”
Objection 5: “I’ve gotten burned by a previous SEO agency.”
Rebuttal: “I understand, and I’ve also heard a few horror stories from some of our clients. We have worked with businesses that had been burned by their previous SEO agencies, but we have a 100% batting average in cleaning it up. Here’s what we did to help them recover…”
Closing the Sale
Now comes the hardest and most important part – closing. This is your make or break moment. Before preparing that SEO contract to close the deal, you want to make sure your sales team is using the right phrases to ask for your prospect’s business.
There are three ways to close an SEO sale:
1. Selling the Benefit
Address each of their needs with a benefit. An example closing pitch for this is: “I can book the work for you now…”
2. Assertive Close
This is you assuming the close, but ending it with a question that offers a limited choice. An example of this is: “I can book the work for you now. Would you like me to send the invoice to your personal Gmail account or work email?”
3. Assumptive Close
This approach assumes the close, with the closing line talking about the next scheduled conversation. An example of this is: “I’ve booked your work and sent the invoice. Will you be available to discuss the intake next Monday?”
In every master’s sales book on how to sell SEO, you’ll find one very important tip. Once you’ve done your closing pitch – STOP TALKING! He who speaks first loses.
Conclusion
Search engine optimization (SEO) is about increasing visibility in SERPs through search engine results. Specifically, SEO helps increase the volume and visibility of your site in organic search engine rankings.