How to Sell Seo to Local Businesses

How to Sell Seo to Local Businesses – Selling SEO services to local businesses is one of the most challenging tasks you could undertake as an agency owner. It’s because, there are very few successful ways to sell seo services to local businesses because the local business owners have an existing relationship with their current web design agency. To overcome that challenge, you need to know how to build rapport, network, use your resources and leverage your past successes.

Here is the first step to take when attempting to sell seo to local business.

Work on Your SEO Methodology

SEO companies are doing the same thing. Yes and no.

While on-page optimization, link building, and content marketing are the common strategies for ranking websites, each SEO agency has a different approach for its clients. All these depend on their SEO methodology – one that you need to define for your agency.

Let’s dive into how you can build the foundation for your SEO business strategy and establish your expertise.

Develop Your Core SEO Methodology

It’s not about doing what Google says; it’s doing as Google ranks. Your SEO methodology is a culmination of expertise and strategies that ultimately provide value to businesses and their target customers.

In-house or Outsource?

Becoming an SEO consultant then transitioning into a full-time digital marketing agency means establishing your expertise. This doesn’t mean you have to master everything on your own.

There are two tracks to establishing expertise: build your in-house team of experts or outsource the work to experts.

Learn About Project Management

SEO is a never-ending project. Unlike web design that’s often a one-off project, you need to be continuously optimizing a client’s website to make it rank. This calls for learning project management so you can manage expectations, tasks, and – when you become a larger SEO business – manage your team.

Project management in SEO is usually two-pronged: Planning and Fulfillment.

Planning involves research, evaluation, and strategy. This builds the framework of your SEO campaigns, so you have a clear direction of what and when to do things. Keyword research, competitive analysis, website audit, and content quality evaluation often fall under the planning phase. After planning comes execution, and this is what fulfillment covers.

Fulfillment, however, goes beyond delivering what you promised to clients. It’s a matter of implementing a consistent, scalable process to get things done. Do you want to go about the SEO project in an agile way, or are you more of a kanban type of person? Fulfillment can go smoothly if you have a defined sequence—the result being an increase in the number of happy clients and more revenue for your SEO business.

As you learn about project management, it’s best to familiarize yourself with the following project management tools for SEO agencies:

• Zoho
• Asana
• Teamwork
• Plutio
• Basecamp
• Slack

Avoid using multiple platforms—choose one that fits into your current process and team setup. If you have a small team to manage for your SEO business, it’s best to try the free project management tools and see how it goes.

Use SEO Tools

Every SEO starts out with the basic knowledge of Google Search Console or Google Analytics. Both SEO tools can provide reliable reporting metrics that come from Google search results.

But, are these tools enough? Not in the slightest. If you’re looking to establish a solid SEO methodology, you need an arsenal of SEO tools.

Many SEO tools and marketing tools for small businesses are designed to accomplish other tasks, such as keyword research, link building prospecting, and competitor analysis. You’ll find a combination of free and paid tools online—we recommend starting with the free ones, so you can get a feel of how the tool works first.

Be sure to check out the following tools:

• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• Google Data Studio
• Ahrefs
• SEMRush
• Moz
• ScreamingFrog

Pro-tip: Create a manual for SEO software and tools, then cascade to your team. This can become a part of your standard processes to eliminate dependency on individual talents.

Checklist: Things You Need to Accomplish

Before you move forward, be sure you’ve done the following:

• Develop your SEO methodology
• Determine whether to hire in-house experts or to outsource
• Learn project management skills
• Familiarize yourself with project management tools
• Determine which SEO tools to use
• Create a manual on using SEO tools and cascade to your team

 

Market Your SEO Agency

Marketing SEO services and your agency is about positioning yourself as the provider of choice for businesses looking to increase their digital presence. This means one thing—practice what you preach.

Think of it this way: will businesses trust your agency if they can’t even find you on Google? Highly unlikely.

An established online presence tells a lot about how your agency does SEO. Your newly-built website may take a few months to rank, but this doesn’t mean you need to rely on SEO alone. That’s what you’ll be learning in this chapter.

This section covers the best practices on marketing your SEO company and ramping up your online presence to ultimately get more SEO leads.

Inbound Practices

Inbound practices lay the foundation for your agency’s online presence. Think of it as passively getting eyes on your brand. This involves different strategies to attract leads to your agency – SEO, social media, content marketing, and paid ads.

SEO

SEO is the most cost-effective way of building your online presence, but only if you do it right. The key is to optimize your website as you do with clients.

On-page improvements

Do a quick SEO audit of your website and see what you need to improve. Do the pages target the interests of your buyer personas at their stage of the buyer’s journey? Is the website loading at optimal speed? Does the site navigation support user experience? Think of your agency’s website as needing its own SEO hygiene to rank better in search results.

Off-page initiatives

Link building strategies can go hand in hand with your on-page improvements. As your agency’s website is slowly getting organic traffic through on-page optimization, building links can provide you with referral traffic to boost authority to top pages.

Relevant Listings

Set up and claim your Google My Business listing to build your agency’s presence on local search results. You can also add your SEO business on Yelp and other relevant business listings to get more online real estate. However, make sure your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are consistent and accurate across these listing sites.

Reviews

Another boost to your SEO performance is having reviews on top review sites and on your actual website. Be proactive in asking your clients to review your SEO company, but do this without being too forceful. Each review should come from people you have a professional relationship with to attest to your agency’s reliability, work ethic, and integrity.

Social Media

If you don’t have a social media page, it’s time to create one. Businesses spend six hours on social media per week, with Facebook being the most popular platform they use to stay active. Using social media for your inbound efforts requires more than publishing posts on Facebook, though. You need to:

• Customize your message according to your audience and the platform.
• Be a member of social media groups to get insights on what your audience is talking about. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit Groups are great places to learn about updates and topics that your audience is interested in.
• Be human. Don’t be a robot and post just for the sake of engagement. Instagram and Twitter are great platforms to show the human side of your agency.

Content Marketing

Content is (and will always be) king. But, it’s not simply about publishing a blog post and hoping prospects will stumble upon it. A solid content marketing strategy is all about presenting the right content to the right audience at the right time.

Optimize your website content around the intent of your buyer personas. Dive into Google Search Console and look at the queries your website is getting. Choose terms with high search volume and build topics for your content around these. Remember that your content should always be evolving. Update and optimize to align the content with the interests of your audience.

Paid Ads

Using paid ads is ideal for a highly targeted audience. Paid ads can supplement your SEO efforts, as this puts your agency in front of people who have the highest intent of working with an SEO company. You can go about this in two ways:

• Google Ads: This involves text, image, and video ads that appear on Google Display Network or Search Marketing Platforms.
• Remarketing Ads: Ideal for users who have already visited your site, remarketing ads help reinforce your value proposition to your audience.

With paid ads, you can stay on top of your prospects’ minds and be there when they’re ready to hire an SEO expert. Note: When doing inbound, always think of your buyer personas. Everything needs to relate to them at their stage in the buyer’s journey.Reap the benefits of digital marketing, get your free proposal today. Get my free proposal.

Outbound Practices

Outbound practices are strategies that you use to find prospects instead of them finding you. It’s your job to initiate contact with prospects and make your agency brand stick until they’re ready to get your complete SEO services. An effective outbound campaign involves a combination of strategies—this includes inbound practices.

Attend Trade Shows and Conferences

It may be the oldest rule in the book of marketing, but attending industry events can help your agency be more visible to businesses looking for SEO services. This provides you with the opportunity to connect with prospects.

Start with events that are happening within your area. If you know someone in the industry, ask them to introduce you to potential prospects—think of them as your handshake.

Leverage testimonials from a previous client. But, if you don’t have any testimonials to present, that’s fine, too. You can offer them something free and valuable (a lead magnet) in exchange for their contact details. A quick SEO audit is a good example.

Send Cold Emails

This ties with your inbound practices and trade show appearances. When a prospect provides their contact details (whether via a contact form on your site or a lead magnet you sent during your interaction at a trade show), you can pipe them into your email list. While there’s no definite formula to sending a cold email to a potential client, stick to the best practices to evoke the best response from prospects:

• Use a business domain on your email instead of a generic email address.
• Refine your email list—segment your list according to the message of your email.
• Include a compelling subject line and personalize your email message.
• Schedule follow-up emails to get a response—two follow emails can be a good start.

Both your inbound and outbound efforts should point to how your SEO agency can provide value to businesses.

Pro-tip: Use a lead generation tool to find prospects easier and faster for your audience.

Checklist: Things You Need to Accomplish

Here are the things you need to do before going to the next step of starting your SEO marketing business:

• Do a quick audit and optimize your website
• Start building quality links for your agency website
• Set up and claim your listings on relevant business listings websites (Google My Business, Yelp, etc.)
• Get reviews from your first client
• Optimize your social media profiles
• Join social media groups
• Write and optimize content for your buyer personas
• Launch paid ads campaigns to promote your SEO business
• Attend trade shows and conferences in your area
• Prepare a lead magnet to offer to prospects attending the same event as you
• Prepare and refine your email list for cold emailing

Everything You Need to Start an SEO Business 

The beginning is often the hardest, as they say. But, the sooner you understand the basics of how to start an SEO business, the smooth-sailing the next steps will be for your agency. The first thing you need to do is lay down the requirements for starting your SEO agency.

Are You Ready to Run Your Own Agency?

If you truthfully and wholeheartedly answered yes, there’s nothing that will stop you to continue reading until the very end of this guide. But, if your answer is no, that’s okay. We’ll help you get there.

In reality, no one is ever ready to start and run an SEO company. Apart from the ever-changing SEO industry, you have operations to think about. Everything is a learning process.

Before you dive into making your SEO business plan, make sure you tick off the following:

Prepare to Quit Your Job

Let’s get one thing straight first – starting an agency isn’t an excuse to abandon work. If anything, you need to dedicate extra effort and time to get started on your SEO company.

But, when do you quit your job and focus your attention solely on your SEO business?

It’s when you have enough cash flow that matches what you’re currently making at your day job. It’s when you have enough loyal clients to maintain business continuity. It’s when people are asking about your SEO instead of you asking them to hire you.

If you think you’ve met the criteria above, then maybe it’s time to quit your job.

Possess Business Acumen

An SEO agency is like any other business. If you have zero business acumen, you’re likely to have a hard time keeping your agency above water.

Many business owners squander thousands of dollars just because they lack the sense of doing what’s best for their business. There are many resources online and amazing books you can read that can provide you with insights on how to start and set up a successful SEO business.

So, here’s your assignment—be sure to grab a copy of the following titles:

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
• Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Learn the Basics of Digital Marketing

Neil Patel didn’t start out as an SEO guru. In fact, he had to learn SEO and experience a few hiccups along the way.

That’s the thing when you start an SEO business. People like Neil Patel didn’t establish their authority by sheer luck. It’s a matter of educating yourself about the industry.

Ask yourself this: Would you trust an agency that doesn’t have an ounce of SEO knowledge?

Not likely, right?

A wealth of information about SEO and digital marketing is out there, so you’ll have no excuse to skimp on the learning aspect. You can start with some of the downloadable materials we have on the Resource Center that you can access when you sign up. We also encourage you to check on Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, Moz, and Google’s Webmasters Help Community for up-to-date information on everything digital.

Legal Matters to Handle

As with any business, starting an SEO business comes with legal implications. Every decision is guided by specific regulations, and knowing these from the get-go can save you from headaches later on.

Determine Your Business Structure

Before you even come up with a name for your agency, you need to decide on your business structure. Your decision will depend on which provides the best structure when filing your taxes to the IRS. Do you want to operate as a sole proprietorship or as an LLC?

As a Single Proprietorship

Registering your SEO agency as a sole proprietorship means you’ll be running your business with a single owner. This is often the case for many startup agency owners who operate their businesses as freelancers. The flexibility and simple setup make this structure an attractive option for many SEO consultants aspiring to own their own agency, but it may come with a few risks.

As a single proprietorship, the agency may be liable for damages in case problems arise. Single proprietorship also doesn’t require filing business taxes separate from personal taxes. This makes it hard to determine the value of the business when it’s tied to personal assets.

As a Limited Liability Company (LLC)

As opposed to a single proprietorship, registering as an LLC means you can have more than one owner (member) to run the business. Operating as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) poses fewer risks for startup agencies—one of these is having business taxes separate from personal assets. Using this business structure for your agency also provides you with legal protection.

With limited liability, you can protect your personal assets from business debts and obligations. An LLC is also more favorable if you’re planning to reach out to suppliers or lenders.

NOTE: Talk to a lawyer or a CPA before deciding on the business structure for your SEO agency.

Create Your SEO Contracts

A contract may sound intimidating to clients, but trust us when we say you need one. It’s the only piece of document that binds your agency with your clients. However, an SEO contract goes beyond legalities. Think of it as an agreement on what needs to be done and what is to be expected from both parties.

An SEO contract allows you to go into the granular details of how your agency will handle campaigns – from the roles and processes to ownership of assets and the length of the agreement.

Set Up Your Payment Methods

Most agencies rely on the easy way to receive payment – PayPal. But, other payment methods are worth exploring if you want to make the most of every cent that goes to your business.

• Automated Clearing House (ACH) Transfers: Clients send an electronic money transfer from their bank account to a US-based business bank account. This can either be credit or debit transactions.
• Credit Card Payment: One of the most common payment methods practiced by businesses globally. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are often the common card networks used. Many businesses prefer this method because clients only need to enter their credentials over a secure network to complete their transactions, we recommend Stripe.com.
• Online Payments: PayPal falls into this category. Other similar services are Alipay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

When deciding the payment method, think of what works best for your clients. Keep the experience smooth by ensuring each transaction is secure.

Prepare Your Invoice Templates

An invoice is proof of transaction between a client and your SEO business. This helps you organize and track accounts, so you know your agency gets paid within the payment terms. Each invoice should have its corresponding number for convenient tracking.

A standard SEO invoice includes the itemized charges with clear descriptions for each service rendered by your agency. The due date and payment methods should also be clearly stated in the invoice.

Your Agency’s Brand Matters

Your brand is one of the things you need to develop – not just at the start, but also as you grow your agency.

Building your agency’s brand is all about identifying what makes your clients choose you above other SEO companies. It’s what differentiates you from the rest.

Choose Your SEO Business Name and Logo

Your name and logo are the most recognizable aspect of your brand. Both go into all of your assets – website, business cards, online ads, lead magnets, and other digital resources.

When choosing your agency’s name and logo, think of the following:

• Value proposition: What are your main differentiators?
• Audience: Who is your clientele?
• Personality: What emotion do you want to evoke from your audience? How do you want them to perceive your brand?

Identify Your Target Buyer Personas

Your target buyer personas represent the ideal clients you want to attract and convert for your agency. Defining your buyer personas make it easier to understand your clients, their business, pain points, goals, and the digital marketing solutions they need.

Identifying buyer personas come in two parts: their demographics and psychographics.

The first part pertains to their physical characteristics, such as age, gender, location, and employment status. The second part refers to behaviors that influence their buying decision, such as motivations, goals, and brand affinities.

Buyer personas serve as a guide on how you’re going to position your SEO marketing business. These are highly useful when you’re crafting content that aims to nurture and convert prospects.

Choose Your Niche

This is where many startup agencies fall short.

It can be tempting to cast a wide net and take the “sell to everyone” approach when identifying the niche you want to service. However, knowing which niche to serve can make a big difference in how your agency scales. Do you want to offer SEO for small businesses or realtors? Are you into more competitive niches?

When choosing a niche for your SEO startup, consider the following:

• Go with an industry you’re familiar with. The more you’re well-versed with the industry lingo, the easier it will be to connect with prospects.
• Start with your social circles. Leverage the power of referrals.
• Do market research. This makes it easier to do prospecting and qualify leads later on.

Decide on Your Service Offerings

Are you focused solely on SEO? Do you want to expand to PPC, Social Media, or Web Design? Planning to cater to businesses in your area and offer local SEO for businesses?

Making SEO your main product offering provides your business with recurring monthly revenue. The reason behind this is SEO doesn’t stop in the first month. Clients need consistent optimization until they can see a positive ranking movement. Compared to web design that’s often packaged into one-off products, SEO as a service provides you with more flexibility to upsell clients.

Once you’ve already gotten your first few SEO clients and managed to get them to stay with your agency, it’s time to expand to other digital marketing services. For now, you should stick to one solution.

Build Your Website

A website can make the difference between getting prospects and losing them to the competition. At this point, it doesn’t matter if the website isn’t as stunning as most established digital marketing businesses (you can get to that later on). What matters is you have one.

For now, you’ll need:

• Domain and hosting: Choose a domain name that resonates with your agency’s brand and have it hosted on a web hosting site. GoDaddy, Bluename, and WPEngine are some of the domain and hosting sites we recommend.
• Platform: Start with WordPress. It’s reliable, easy to use, and, best of all, FREE. Plus, there are tons of WordPress themes for SEO businesses, so it’s easy to get started.
• Design: Not a designer? That’s fine. You’ll find tons of web design templates that take away the heavy lifting when it comes to design building. But, if you have the budget, you can outsource website design (or have our team build it for you).

Checklist: Things You Need to Accomplish

Have you done the following?

• Brush up on your business acumen
• Learn the basics of digital marketing
• Decide on your SEO business structure
• Create an SEO contract template
• Set up a payment method
• Prepare an invoice template
• Choose an agency name and logo
• Identify your target buyer persona
• Choose your niche
• Decide on which SEO services to offer
• Acquire a domain and hosting for your website

Conclusion

Here are some of my favorite resources for learning how to sell SEO services to local businesses. These resources that will show you exactly how I sell myself as an SEO marketer, talk about Digital Marketing with business owners, and also how to create a blogging strategy to keep your customers coming back month after month.