I know, client acquisition can be one of the most tedious parts for an SEO, specially when starting out. Hundreds of methods being promoted by gurus and SEOs. Hundreds or thousands of emails sent without response.
Although not relevant, I'll introduce myself. I've been in SEO for 6 years now, long enough to humbly consider myself really good at it. Going into it, many made it look like it was super difficult and fair enough, there's a lot of information to digest, learning basic coding languages and understanding many things in regards to analytics, the ins and outs of a search engine, CMS... but all in all, once you learn it, you have to be aware of algorithmic changes, update your knowledge regularly and keep doing what you do best. I started as a technical but soon became a "fullstack" as I like to call it and learned how to do it all, not to do it all but to know how to. In my previous role I worked as an SEO & PPC Manager for a super large Digital Marketing Agency and learnt so much, I also learnt that perceived notions are enough to set a price. We were doing a hell of a job but the clients could've gotten the same for 1/10 of the monthly fee, they were paying for the company delivering the service, rather than the service.
In 2019 I quitted, the job was great, the salary was pretty awesome, so were the working hours and freedom... I was a bit tired of filling the pockets of the Agency knowing that having a background in d2d sales, Telesales, PPC (email marketing too..) and SEO, all I needed to learn was business management and I was ready to launch my agency. I took 3 months just to understand the ins and outs of running a business, built my site properly and got the monthly organic users to a respectable number, gathered some case studies I had from my own ventures while on a full time job and began outreaching.
It was tough and I was rusty. I was only one week in, 10 hours a day and it was exhausting. I had one of those "it'll be easy" mindsets and I was wrong. I began doing research on the best way to acquire clients as a small business. I refrained from cold calling and began sending FULL SITE AUDITS for free. Yes, I know... not automated from SEMRUSH or anything like it. Did them all myself. Hours and hours and hours of work without any guarantees that I'd sign the clients. I spent many hours a day just on audits. I did about 26 audits with my voice narrating everything in an easy to understand manner in one month, the next month, I sent them all over, got a response from 20 businesses and closed (signed) 14 of them, I felt goosebumps all over my body. Some of them were a bit on the fence, so I got on the phone with them and was very transparent, prepared an ROI estimate presentation. I told them who I am, what I do, who works with me, our mission and the plan for their business. Most of them are baffled that someone would take the time to do it with no guarantees of a reply.
Apparently, most emails they receive are a basic copy and paste sent to 1000 business owners emails hoping it works, and what stood out was the actual intent behind it. I closed those business owners for an average of £2500 per month give or take. Was it exhausting? Absolutely. Very exhausting and repetitive, was it worth it? Yes. Sometimes less is more. In the beginning I had to do everything myself, now 1 year and a half into the Agency, we currently have 23 clients, we lost some, we gained some, but we work with many day ones and none has anything negative to say as we set realistic expectations and tend to under promise and over deliver.
I work with 6 other guys who are frankly amazing on the deliverables and I transitioned into Client closing and managing it all. I too sometimes get involved on deliverables as it is fun but love how things are going, we'll soon add PPC in our service list as that's my bread and butter too and will have a performance based model. No monthly retainer. All performance, it is risky indeed but the guys I'll be working with have done some amazing things and if the standards haven't dropped, 5-10 PPC clients could overtake the whole revenue of the SEO side of the business. Don't lose hope guys. Learn, adjust and patience. That's all you need.
I too have received emails offering services and now I understand what those business owners were saying. Stand out.
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from Search Engine Optimization: The Latest SEO News https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/qwdk9z/seo_client_acquisition_method_that_allowed_me_to/>
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