Are you thinking of starting your own SEO agency from scratch? It’s certainly going to take a lot of work, and you will face many challenges on the way. In this article, we will give you a detailed outline of what you need to know and do to start an SEO agency and how to ensure your agency gains good profits.
What should you know before starting an SEO agency?
It would help if you were not too hasty and whimsical when it comes to starting anything, especially an entire agency. Here are four things you need to get out of the way before you go into the actual job:
Learning about SEO in-depth
Stay away from the SEO business just because your friends have told you that it gets you quick money in the current times. Because while that is true, it takes a lot of knowledge and expertise to reach the level where you can fully make a living out of your agency. And to reach that level, you need to know what you’re doing in depth. Yes, even if you plan to hire a group of people who will do most of the work.
This is extremely crucial because you can only lead a team of experts if you are one yourself. You have to ensure maximum client satisfaction, and that requires putting every unique knowledge and skill you own on the table. So do your homework first. You’ll find plenty of resourceful YouTube channels and online courses dedicated to teaching and training in SEO.
Experiencing SEO
Learning the theory isn’t enough; you need to experience the practical application of it. The biggest reason why this is necessary is so that you can find a niche for your business. You need to specialize in a specific field related to SEO and build your agency’s brand around that instead of going for a more general approach.
That way, your agency is more likely to be discovered by a sea of SEO agencies. Moreover, you’ll get clients asking you for something specific, and you can build your knowledge and expertise on that topic.
The best way to do this is to create your own website. Test out your SEO skills and strategies with your website, and apply your experience from the successes and failures to your clients later on. You can also just join an SEO agency and get experience in the field yourself, which will give you a much wider experience.
Selecting a niche service to provide
You might think that the more services you offer, the more clients you will get and the more revenue your agency will generate. Unfortunately, things are not that simple because your agency is simply a droplet in a sea of SEO agencies. In order to stand out from the rest, taking a specialized route instead of a general one will help you get more clients in the long run.
When you’re testing out SEO strategies on your personal website, try to find a niche that you’re confident in. Build the brand of your company around that niche, and make sure it doesn’t look like your average SEO agency’s home page. It will not only help you get a specific demographic of clients but also allow you to focus on developing a single skill.
Making a multi-currency account
Assuming your SEO agency is not going to be a local one, make sure to create a multi-currency account for your foreign clients. You don’t want there to be issues and complications behind transactions because you’ll already be occupied with tons of other things.
How to establish your SEO agency
Once you have established your budget and settled on how much you can invest, you can get on with establishing the agency. Regardless of whether you’ll run it fully online or keep a physical headquarters, you’ll mainly have to do two things to complete the process:
Define the services you will provide
By now, you have found your niche, so you also know what kind of services you are capable of offering. List and define those services at the front of your webpage and wherever you promote your agency. Make sure to be to the point and simple so that the client knows exactly what to expect from you—nothing more and nothing less.
Create your team
Creating a perfect team by hiring the right people is what will take your SEO agency to the greatest heights. But you need to be careful about how much you invest in this. If your budget is small and you don’t want to hire anyone right off the bat, consider hiring at least an accountant. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck doing all the paperwork for hours and barely have time to dedicate to the actual job. The next most important assistant you’ll need is a salesperson.
However, it’s recommended that you don’t start hiring too many staff until your annual revenue is in five digits and your cash flow is stable. You don’t want to be one of those irresponsible entrepreneurs who don’t pay their employees on time. And when you do hire, make sure it’s worth every penny. Take detailed interviews and test out the skills of the potential employees before you hire them. Here’s a good guide on how to hire an SEO employee.
How to acquire clients for your SEO Agency
It goes without saying that your clients are going to be the oxygen of your agency, your main source of income. The more leads you can convert to sales, the more profit you will acquire. But, acquiring clients is the hardest part of building an SEO agency from scratch. After all, there are thousands of other SEO agencies out there, so what will bring clients specifically to yours? So, try out the following proven methods of acquiring clients:
Take the help of Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is an organic method of attracting clients. You’re not going out of your way to tell clients to come to you; rather, you will be letting the clients naturally discover your agency by creating relevant content that will resonate with them. There are many ways to go about this. Creating a website or maybe a YouTube channel is the most common way this is done.
You can either pitch your services directly in the content you post, or you can provide some kind of resource to your visitor/viewer in exchange for their mail address, from which you can then create a mailing list for subscribers. If you’re making a website, try to optimize it for the search engine by using lucrative terms as well as keywords relevant to your niche.
Look through freelancing websites
Freelancing websites like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer have plenty of people asking for SEO work at all times. But you will have to look pretty deep to find actual good clients who are willing to pay you the amount suitable for your effort.
Send cold calls or emails
Cold calls or cold emails are a common and fairly effective sales strategy. But obviously, this is not a case where you will get exactly what you gave. For example, if you send out 1000 cold emails, there’s a good chance only a handful will actually convert to leads, no matter how well you pitch your services. Still, you should keep in mind that every client is worth you a good amount of money, and even clients can multiply your profits by giving referrals or sticking with you for a long-term project.
Share your knowledge on social media
In the current age, there’s no better way to put yourself on the map than to make social media posts based on your area of expertise. Reaching your target audience might be difficult, and the algorithm might not always be in your favor, but you have to maintain consistency regarding what you post. Always try to post helpful stuff that will make people trust you and think that you have a good grasp of what you’re doing. Get them interested in clicking on your profile and eventually on the link to your agency’s website attached.
Pitch a guest post
Guest posting means writing articles for other websites and promoting your own brand through those articles. You should always choose sites with high traffic for this to work out. Post content related to SEO and pitch your services into the content as naturally as possible. Ahrefs Content Explorer is a good tool to find such websites easily.
Publish unique pillar contents
When it comes to publishing pillar content to highlight in your website’s blog, choosing the most basic topics like ‘Best SEO Marketing Tips’ won’t get you too far. There are already hundreds of articles talking about exactly this, and it doesn’t make you stand out. Moreover, most of the people who will visit your website won’t need such surface-level knowledge. You need to offer them something unique, something you’re sure the average buyer will not know about so that you can convince them of your expertise in the field.
Make SEO Packages
Having SEO packages highlighted on your website is one of the factors that’s been proven to be extremely effective in converting leads to clients. And when you’re listing these packages, make sure to list the exact price for each.
A lot of companies, SEO or not, do offer packages for their services but withhold the price. Visitors are asked to contact the provider to know the price, which many don’t end up doing. The reason why this is done is that these companies want to provide a service that is tailored to the unique needs of the customers, and hence, a fixed price cannot be offered. But budget is one of the most important factors for 90% of customers, and they will always prefer to know the price immediately.
The best course of action would be to keep some packages that have a fixed number of services that most people seek for and list down the prices of those. Alongside, keep one customizable package for clients who want something tailored to their own needs.
Reach out to LinkedIn
When doing an outreach campaign on LinkedIn, you have to make sure of two things: not being a pushover and making your outreach message stand out. For the latter, SEO expert and BackLinko founder Brian Dean recommends three methods to get your messages replied to:
- Start off the message with something personal to build a connection, like a person’s name or city.
- Include something valuable to the person in your message, like an SEO audit, keyword search, or tips on optimization.
- Follow up only once and no more than that.
Highlight your achievements and knowledge on the website
The reputation of your agency will be one of the biggest key factors to get clients to choose you for the job. That’s why it’s important that you give potential clients a complete idea of where your agency stands. Fill your site with reputation signals like client case studies, achievements, features, accolades, and helpful blog posts.
Get referrals
Gaining clients is not enough. You need to provide them top-quality service exactly as they ask of you and ensure maximum client satisfaction. This is extremely crucial not only for developing your agency’s reputation but also because it allows your agency to get referrals from satisfied clients, leading to more and more clients. This creates the potential for an infinite growth loop and is ultimately the most effective way to earn more clients.
Establish partnerships with other agencies
This is more of a hit-or-miss scenario and will not apply to all kinds of companies. Web design companies, in particular, can be great companies to partner up with because most of their clients will need assistance in SEO. The way this works is that the agency brings their own clients to you, and in exchange, you give them a part of the commission you earned if and only if the deal is sealed. This can be an effective way of multiplying the number of your clients.
Some Necessary Tools
To run an SEO agency, some tools are needed for keyword research or to maintain communication among the team members. Here’s a list of essential tools for an SEO agency, along with brief descriptions of each tool:
Keyword Research Tools
- Google Keyword Planner: Offers insights into keyword search volume and competition.
- SEMrush: Provides keyword analysis, competitor research, and more.
- Ahrefs: Offers comprehensive keyword research and competitive analysis.
- Moz Keyword Explorer: Helps find relevant keywords with difficulty scores.
- Ubersuggest: Provides keyword ideas, volume, and competitive data.
- io: Generates long-tail keyword suggestions for SEO campaigns.
On-Page SEO Tools
- Yoast SEO (for WordPress): Optimizes on-page content and provides SEO recommendations.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Crawls websites to identify on-page SEO issues.
- Google Search Console: Monitors website performance and helps with indexing.
- Bing Webmaster Tools: Offers insights for websites on Bing search.
- SEOquake: Browser extension providing SEO metrics for webpages.
Technical SEO Tools
- Google PageSpeed Insights: Analyzes website speed and performance.
- GTmetrix: Measures page load times and suggests optimizations.
- Moz Pro: Assists in technical SEO audits and monitoring.
- DeepCrawl: Crawls websites to identify technical issues.
- Sitebulb: Offers in-depth technical SEO analysis and reporting.
Link Building and Analysis Tools
- Ahrefs: Assists in backlink analysis, competitor research, and link building.
- Moz Link Explorer: Provides backlink data and domain authority metrics.
- Majestic SEO: Offers link analysis and trust flow metrics.
- SEMrush: Helps with competitive link analysis and finding link-building opportunities.
- BuzzSumo: Identifies popular content for outreach and link-building strategies.
Analytics Tools
- Google Analytics: Tracks website traffic, user behavior, and conversions.
- Google Data Studio: Creates custom dashboards and reports.
- Adobe Analytics: Provides advanced web analytics and reporting..
Rank Tracking Tools
- SEMrush: Tracks keyword rankings and provides ranking changes.
- Ahrefs: Monitors keyword positions and competitor rankings.
- Moz Rank Tracker: Tracks keyword rankings and offers insights.
Local SEO Tools
- Google My Business: Manages local business listings on Google.
- Moz Local: Helps with local SEO and online listings management.
- BrightLocal: Provides local search ranking and reputation management.
Conclusion
Starting an SEO agency from scratch will undoubtedly be a huge challenge. But if you have made the resolution, keep these tips in mind as you execute it, and do your job with dedication, and your agency might end up becoming the next big thing one day.
