10 Tips to Get Your SEO Business Off the Ground

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As someone who has been doing SEO for about 6 years, but who just recently left his job to do it full-time on his own, I would like to share with you some of the keys to my success that has gotten me to where I am today.  I realize that each individual may experience different situations than myself, but the concepts are similar and still helpful.

1. Get the Results

In order for you to promote yourself and get people to trust you, they need to know that you can deliver!  Hopefully, at this point you have your own websites on the side that you have generated rankings for…use those as your examples when sending out your credibility email to potential clients.  I found, in the very beginning, even showing clients that I ranked websites for long-tail words, they still seemed impressed.  There’s a couple things you can do here to quickly build some credibility:

• Do some pro bono work - Don’t have any clients yet?  Offer to optimize and market someone’s site for free.  Local companies are perfect for this!  You can easily get a local shop ranked for their specific keywords and spend very little capital and/or time in doing so.
• Trade - One of my personal favorites!  Find local companies that offer services and/or products that you are interested in and pitch the idea of doing SEO for trade.  My wife loves massages, so we found a local day spa in the area and helped them get ranked for their locally-related keywords.  It worked out great for the both of us (especially my wife).  I’ve also been offered trade for family portraits, karate lessons, gym memberships and more…easy to do and a double-benefit for you.
• Promote a Friend or Co-Workers Blog - In this time of social marketing, it’s simple to help out a friend with their individual website or blog.  BOTW’s blog directory is still cheap and highly effective, as well as other high-quality directories that you can post to for free or for a minimal price.  You help out a friend as well as yourself with experience and further credibility.

Before you know it, you have a handful of quality websites you’ve helped promote which will help potential clients believe in your techniques and accept your retainer.

2. Take on the Right Clients

When you first start out, you may feel as though you need to take any and every client, and that may be the case.  It’ll get to the point, sooner or later, that you’ll want to make sure you’re taking on the right clients.  My favorite concept to keep in mind is the 80/20 principle.  I remember in the past I had some clients that took up 80% of my time, yet they were the ones that yielded about 20% of my income.  It’s fairly simple to get a feel for what type of client that person is going to be when they’re signed.  I always found it best to work with the company’s owner.  It’s a much more intimate relationship and you can get things done ten times faster without the need of approvals and sign-offs on your work!

3. Under-Promise & Over-Deliver

I remember tripping over this in my starter days.  I was very confident in what I do, but because of a few circumstances on both mine and the client’s side (and an annoying Google update), I didn’t get them the results that we had discussed one month earlier.  Progress was made, but not according to their high expectations and our initial discussion.  I’ve found that clients are willing to stick it out if you give them realistic expectations (imagine that)!  By letting them know that extra time and effort may be needed for some more difficult keywords, they are totally stoked when you show them the report that shows “better-than-expected” results.

4. Quick Follow-Up’s

Nothing agitates a client more than having to wait a week to get an answer out of you.  Now, I haven’t learned that from personal experience, but I’ve been around people in the industry who have, and it’s not pretty.  Do your best to respond to any email and/or phone call from your clients (as much as you may not want to), they will thank you for it and you’ll retain them as a client for longer as well as gain their trust for referrals in the future.

5. Reporting

Send your clients, at least, a bi-monthly report of their SERPs.  There are many tools out there both free and costly that will do a fine job.  I started by manually putting together my clients’ rankings on a spreadsheet (with a little help from SoloSEO).  It was time-consuming, but also cost-effective.  I later moved on to what I currently use which is Rank Tracker which pumps out a sweet PDF for you clients to see their standings as well as a comparison from last months results.

6. Basic Site Structure

Some of you may consider this as a point that should’ve been brought up earlier.  Not for me, I didn’t.  My homepage for a good while consisted of my logo, a couple H1/H2 tags on my services and my contact info; that was it.  While this may not be your cup of tea, I would highly suggest at least getting your basic pages put together which would include:

• Home (duh)
• About
• Contact
• Services
• Clients

At this point you’ll now be able to refer people here to refer to for examples and details of services.

7. Blogging

One of the things that has been last on my list, but still highly important is regularly blogging on your website.  You blog will become somewhat of a resume to people visiting.  I’m not going to get into detail about why blogging is so important, that’s why we have Copyblogger & Problogger

8. Focus on Reaching Out

I know that designers out there are going to hate me for this one, but when I started out, I didn’t focus on the design of my site.  That’s not to say that I didn’t want to, I just had to focus on the task at hand and what was considered most important to me, which was execution and quick response.  If you have capital aside or have basic design/programming abilities, I highly recommend you set up a good looking site, but if not, consider what may be more important like a good PPC campaign or a simple press release announcing your company.

Towards the beginning of my business, the local directories and Craigslist were my best friends when seeking out new clientele.  You can surprisingly find tons of people looking for SEO services on Craigslist all over the world!  From what I’ve found, response to all your emails will be somewhat minimal and the clients themselves aren’t always the greatest, but if you’re seeking a start somewhere, this is where you can find it.  I would spend 1 hour a day looking through new Craigslist posts and send them a simple email template I had put together that had my info, past experience and contact info.  It was a great platform to get started with.

9. Get to Know the Power Players

This partially goes in play with #10, but by getting to know significant SEOs in the field helps you to not only work on your own game, but to gain their trust as well, which can lead to great tidbits like proper billing and example contracts as well as referrals.  I’ve been very fortunate to know a bunch of great people who’ve been essential in my success (you know who you are).  Going to conferences, or even just hopping on the social marketing sites will get you familiar with any of these guys who are more than willing to have a conversation with you and help fellow SEO out.

10.  It’s all About the Networking, Baby!

I wanted to post this as #1, but I guess I’m saving best for last.  I’d attribute the majority of success to networking with the right people.  I did a lot of it offline, like with my local Chamber of Commerce and Corporate Alliance (I love that place).  Getting to know people for who they are and becoming friends with them has been the first step in a great relationship that has developed into a network of people I can trust, get advice from and get the occasional referral from.

The obvious places like Twitter (add me), Plurk (add me), Sphinn (add me) can all be great places to keep in touch with people and share your knowledge as well as build relationships of trust that will go well beyond SEO or your business.  Of course, one of those perks is that it will help out your business, as it did mine, but the relationship, by far, is a great way to get your name out and build the confidence to take on any client and attack any keyword phrase.

These experiences got me to where I am today.  I enjoy the level my business has attained, but far from satisfied.  Give a few of these pointers a shot and see if it doesn’t do you some good, they worked well for me.

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