The second business I ever started was an SEO agency. By no means did I see myself creating an agency… I more so stumbled upon it. But before I go into how I built a seo agency and made millions from it, let me give you a quick background on how I stumbled upon it…
The first website I ever started was a job board called Advice Monkey and I was trying to get the website ranked for terms like “job search” and “tech jobs”. I hired a few SEO agencies to help me out, but none provided any results. After tens of thousands of dollars gone down the drain, I had no more money, and I had no choice but to learn how to optimize Advice Monkey for search engines… all on my own.
From reading sites like Search Engine Watch and SEObook, I started to get the hang of SEO. I made on page changes to my own site and learned how to build links by talking to people like Patrick Gavin on a weekly basis.
Sooner or later I started to rank really well for job related terms on Google, but the business didn’t succeed because of these reasons.
When my first venture failed, I decided I was going to quit entrepreneurship and just get a college degree like everyone else, and get a job after graduation. To get a head start on things I started to take college classes while I was in high school.
The first college class I took was Speech 101. The professor asked us to give 3 speeches on any topic of our choice. One of the topics I chose was on seo… it was called “how search engines works”.
One of the gentlemen sitting in the room during my speech was a sales rep at Elpac Electronics and he approached me after my speech. He then told me that the company he worked for was looking for a seo. He introduced me to the marketing manager at the company and they hired me as a contractor for $3500 a month.
After a few months of working with Elpac, their rankings shot up to number 1 on Google for terms like “power supplies” and they were so happy they introduced me to other companies they knew. Within months I was pulling in around $20,000 a month from SEO consulting.
That’s when I started a SEO agency… here’s how I built it to 7 figures:
The best clients come from referrals
I know this goes without saying… the best clients you will ever get as an agency is from previous customers, friends, or even family members. When someone refers you, the chances of you closing that deal are really high.
But if you treat that client poorly, not only will they stop paying you, but you’ll notice that the number of referrals you get on a regular basis will slowly start going down. For this reason you have to have a clean reputation and be known for taking care of clients even when you don’t think it makes sense to. By doing this in the long run you’ll continually gain new clients from referrals.
When I first started the agency, referrals were my primary source of revenue, but once I learned how to gain customers through marketing, it become our 4th most popular channel.
You can’t rely on referrals
I used to rely on word of mouth marketing and referrals to be my main revenue source. It’s easy to build a 6-figure SEO agency assuming you can provide. It’s really hard to create a 7-figure business from it though.
Here are the main ways I got new customers:
- Blogging – consistently blog about seo, social media marketing, conversion optimization and content marketing. The more technical your blog posts are and the more often you use data to backup your points, the more leads you will get. For example, this post on “how content length affects rankings and conversions” drove 51 leads, while my post on “don’t forget the marketing in content marketing” only drove 18 leads. Both posts did well on the social web, but the one on content length contained more stats and data. In general I’ve seen that posts with stats and data drive roughly 3 times more leads than posts that don’t contain any data or stats.
- Speak at conferences – seo and marketing conferences used to be the place to get new customers. I used to pick up at least $100,000 per marketing conference I went to that had over 1500 attendees. Sooner or later all of the other seos and marketers started to speak at the same events and the amount of new revenue I acquired from these events drastically shrunk. I later learned that the best events to speak at are non-industry events. For example, when I spoke about online marketing at an online gambling event, I was able to lock PokerStrategy.com in a $1.2 million contract. From finance to fitness and everything in between, non-industry events typically brought in 4 times more revenue than industry events. You just have to make sure you are speaking at conferences that charge at least $1000 per ticket as that means you are usually talking to an audience that can afford your services. And when you speak, you have to have to talk about specific tactics people can leverage, show examples of companies using those tactics, and wrap it up with data that shows it was successful.
- Help out bloggers – the last method I used to gain new customers was to reach out to the Technorati 100 and offer them free SEO. Most of them didn’t take me up on the offer, but a handful did. From TechCrunch to Gawker Media… I used to do their SEO for free and in exchange they would put a badge on their site that said “SEO by…”. That badge would link back to my site and drive leads. And if I got lucky, they would also do a blog post on the results I provided them, which typically led to over $250,000 in new revenue as those blogs had a large following.
Out of all the methods I mentioned above, speaking at conferences was the leading way to gain new customers, blogging was the second, and helping out bloggers was the third.
There’s always churn
Whether a client is referred to you or they found you through some other mean, sooner or later they are going to leave you. SEO is a business with high churn… it’s very rare that someone will stick with you as a client for 3 years.
Because of this you want to survey your clients on a monthly basis. Find out what issues they are having with you, your team, or company. Let them know that they should be transparent and not hold anything back.
Some of the questions you can ask are:
- Are you satisfied with the level of service you are receiving?
- What is one thing that we aren’t doing for you that you wish we did?
- Is there anything we can improve upon?
Once you have that data you should try and fix it. If you do this with them on a monthly basis and you see the survey responses improving, you are doing well. If not, you have an operational problem within your business.
In addition to surveying your clients, make sure you also provide them with a monthly report and weekly calls. The more you communicate with them the faster you will find out if they are happy or not.
What I’ve also noticed is that the more you communicate with the client, the longer they will stay with you. And I know this process may seem like a pain in the butt, but it’s harder to get new clients than it is to keep your current ones paying. So cherish your clients.
Be results driven
I had this philosophy from day 1 because I got burned by paying other seo agencies. They took all of my money, and didn’t provide much in return. Due to this, I only took on clients that I could provide results to… but I never explained that to potential clients in a way that made sense to them.
What I started doing was estimating how much more traffic I could drive companies. I would take their current rankings and use the multiplier from this table. So if they ranked number 6 for a keyword that drove them 1000 visitors a month and I thought I could take them to number 1, I would estimate that I could drive them 10,400 visitors, which is 9400 extra visitors than they currently have.
I would then take their current conversion rate, lets say 2% and their average value per sale, lets say $100 dollars and then show them how 9400 extra visitors could drive them $18,800 a month in extra revenue. I would then do this for each of their keywords and estimate how much more money I could make them each month.
By showing a potential client how much more money you can make them versus how much you are charging, it makes their decision to go with you pretty easy. The only thing they have to worry about is if you can actually provide results. To combat this you would use testimonials and case studies to show what you have done in the past.
And ideally you want to use detailed case studies that show how much money you have made other companies as well as outlining what you exactly did to achieve those results. In addition to that you want to list all of the big brands you have worked with as it provides you with more credibility.
What I also learned through this process is that though the majority of our customers were mid sized businesses, they wanted to see all of the large Fortune 500 companies we worked with, even though they were no where near that size. When we showed potential clients all of the small and medium businesses we worked with, our conversion rate of locking them in as a customer decreased by almost half versus only showing them large brands we worked with.
Once we learned this we started to work with as many large brands as possible, even if the large brand wasn’t willing to spend much with us… heck we were even willing to lose money or do their work for free.
Give away the farm
When you are building your agency, you need to focus on getting clients that pay you 6 figures a year. It’s hard to build a profitable agency and provide great results when someone only pays you a few grand a month.
The best way to get companies to pay you 6 figures is to give away the farm. Within your proposals you should have one section that breaks down everything the company is doing wrong, how they can fix it, and what it would cost for you to fix it.
Don’t worry about a company taking everything you gave them and doing it on their own… people are lazy, they rather pay you to fix their problems.
By showing them what you will fix for them in advance, they are more likely to go with you compared to if you only listed out the services you offer in a proposal. By doing this, not only will you increase your close rate, but also you can charge them a lot more.
Make sure you don’t negotiate on your prices as well because I bet other seo agencies won’t go into this much depth to lock in a potential client. Yes you maybe more expensive, but at least the company will know what they are going to get with you versus competing seo agencies.
Leverage business development
In the short run you will lose money from business development, but in the long run you’ll be able to make it up. The quickest way for you to increase your revenue is to be the outsourced arm of bigger agencies.
As an SEO company, look for ad agencies to partner with, as there are way bigger ad agencies than seo agencies. Feel free and cold call them, offer to help them for free with their own website, and if you do well they’ll drive a lot of clients to you.
It’s a tedious process, but it works really well. We used to do this and we would get a steady flow of leads from ad agencies. You just have to be willing to lose money upfront, as you will be doing their seo for free in the short run.
When dealing with these ad agencies let them know that your minimum price is 6 figures a year, as they shouldn’t have a problem locking in big contracts for you. They’ll probably try to white label your service, which you should be ok with as they will be driving you revenue and taking out a lot of the hassle by dealing with clients.
Never stop giving
Last, but not least, one way I grew the seo agency was by helping out people for free. When I first started out people helped me out for free, so I would try and pay it forward by doing the same thing.
Even to this date I try to respond to every email I get and I respond to every comment that gets posted on this blog. Whatever I can do to help people out, as long as it doesn’t break my bank, I do it. Why… because I really care about you, just like people cared to help me out when I was a kid starting his first venture.
You will build up a lot of karma points and some how, you’ll notice that people will say great things about you to other businesses or people, and it eventually will get you more business. But the key is to not expect anything in return when helping out people.
Conclusion
Using all of the methods I covered above, I was able to build a business that did well into the 7 figures a year in revenue and profited millions of dollars as well.
The one thing to keep in mind is that I didn’t touch on the fact that my agency actually provided real results. From ranking companies in the top 3 results for terms like credit cards and life insurance, to helping boost their sales, we provided a positive return on investment. If you do everything I mentioned above, but fail to provide results as a seo agency, you won’t be in business for long.
This amazing course will teach you, step by step, how to double if not triple your traffic over the next 30 days.
hey,
Excellent post. It seems that you have done a lot of hard work. Also How many workers are there in your team ?
Thank you
That was a amazing post man! Rightly said John, thats lot of hard work! Looks like you are using some problogger techniques.
Rohan Shankar
Thanks Rohan,
I am not a hundred precent sure what you mean by that…
Thanks John,
Currently with KISSmetrics we have 30.
Bro. I am so glad that you have that dough. You are gonna have to pay for those ladies according your mug.
This is great especially for what I am doing too! I really like the part about surveying clients and seeing how satisfied they are with everything.
I spoke at local places and those have gotten me a ton of leads and clients, I believe I e-mailed you about that once. Speaking is definitely the best thing to get business, build credibility, and networking. I’ve never been to and SEO conference, but I can imagine how a non-SEO conference would be better to get leads.
-Amir
“Help out bloggers” is i think the most prominent one now, as many novice writers out there are simply resorting to the blogging mode to increase their reach to the readers. So, reaching out to new bloggers, and established ones too will surely help you to make your business flow in the recent times and new SEO trends.
Definitely, you want to constantly be expanding your network with new and established bloggers.
Yep, customer feedback is the best way to make improvements.
Hi Neil
I like the title, ‘giving away the farm’ because we did something similar, not in terms of us giving information but we made the decision to break even on some deals that we did, so after our costs, we didn’t earn a bean!
Sounds crazy I know and it’s not something we would advocate anyone else do, but we were in a hugely competitive market at that time and we needed to do something that would grab people’s attention.
It worked for us and once we were established, we started charging the going rate (our charges were one offs-not residual income) because people were able to see the work we did and would start asking us to quote. If we hadn’t of done that then we would never have been heard of.
Sometimes you have to take risks…
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with everyone Nathan. Sometimes you do have to take risks or losses in order to make it in the long run.
Excellent article. I think cracking that 6 figure mark for one client is challenging for people because they probably have a lot of local clients they are helping out and making enough to get by on.
It is tough but once you get the hang of it you can get many more 6 figure clients.
Hey Neil! Thanks for the ideas, I am planning to have my own SEO agency too! If this will happen, I am the only SEO agency in my place.
Thanks!
Awesome, best of luck! Let me know if you have any questions as you go.
Congrats on making a lot of money, but I think most people realize that SEO is the new snake oil. Charging a company $3500 a month to add a few meta tags to their web pages is great work if you can get it, but hardly an honest gig.
The fact is that its impossible to guarantee a move up the Google rankings except by the documented ways that you would expect – get more incoming links etc. There are no ‘secret tricks’, so essentially SEO is based on hoodwinking old company bosses who have no idea how the internet works.
It’s a shame that this is the reputation that the industry, to a large extent, has earned…
If that is what it is then yes, it is a shame.
Couldn’t disagree more. If you think SEO is changing meta tags and that there aren’t “secret tricks” that the majority of SEOs don’t know about, then you’re definitely the 99% and not the 1%.
I don’t take on SEO clients per se but I’ve done some (highly priced) SEO consulting that one client told me at one of our monthly consulting call that he’d happily pay 5-10 times what I was charging him. And that was with him doing all the implementation of the plan I lined out.
Neil is absolutely correct, if you provide value that is greater to the client’s bottom than what you’ve charged them, they will happily keep paying (and recommending).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the matter.
You’re opinion is correct if you think people getting paid thousands of dollars to do fundamental SEO anyone could figure out in a week of research using Google is true. I’m sure this does happen or has happened.
I used to work in the SEO department for a basement systems company and you have no idea how intricate a proper SEO company is. They owned a network of thousands of quality domains, blogs and websites whose sole purpose was to constantly build links back to the multiple business properties they owned. They had one main business but owned multiple domains to rank in different states and regions. Not to mention the managing of their anchor text, and conversion testing to see how a keyword would perform. The on page stuff is basic, the real value an SEO agency can provide now a days is a proper network of diverse high quality sites to provide links and knowing how to give those links and for what keywords.
Yep, when properly done it is much more intricate then most people realize.
There is a lot of link building involved as well as content creation and paid ad a management.
@Fredo ” so essentially SEO is based on hoodwinking old company bosses who have no idea how the internet works.”
And your job as a Seo Consultant is to make them understand the value of having more exposure for ther business by using Interactif Strategies on the net.
Thanks for chiming in Walid.
Good stuff as always Neil. Really appreciate the insight and strategies. Many of them are strategies we stumbled into and have implemented without the roadmap you outlined. Wish this post was made 5 years ago lol.
Thanks Justin, I am glad you enjoyed it.
Helping people for free is still so under-rated… especially for newbies really trying to build a brand. I think this is the most powerful tip on this list as it allows you not only to build genuine relationships but affords you the opportunity to provide direction and advice on websites that are potentially much larger than your own (or any of your current clients for that matter) and see the results; building both trust and brand awareness at the same time.
Yep, you have got it Nick.
Thanks for the great info again. Your SEO practices and tips have been more than useful for me. I always come back for more. Blogging and helping out other bloggers have proven to be useful for you. I have taking note. Cheers Neil.
Great, glad to hear it.
This is a serious post about building 7-figure business.
I love your marketing approach. Especially on doing some research at Technorati, then give them the irresistible offers.
Smart people will grab that offer. And it is simply a win-win situation.
We are figuring out what value can we offer for our potential customers. It is important to define every business forte (expertise).
Thank you,
Keep up the hard work!
Thank you so much Neil for your insight on SEO. I have become a huge fan of your emails and blog post. I always look forward to what you’re going to write about next. You give away many Gold Nuggets Neil about SEO, thank you!.
Thank you Norman, I appreciate it.
Great information!
I have always wanted to know how you got started and grew your business.
I already, added some of your questions and I’m going to create a monthly survey.
Thanks
Thanks, let me know how the survey works out for you.
re: heck we were even willing to lose money or do their work for free.
You see, this go against what most of these experts say/preach. Don’t do anything for free. I on the other hand believe in doing what you did.
Meaning strategically, work for some “powerful leaders” with the understanding that IF I do this for your organization, you will refer me to your folks.
I am glad to see the strategy for you Neil.
Yep, it may not be the usual advise given but it has worked for me and it could work for you.
A ton of helpful and inspiring info in this post Neil. Having guys like you and Rand that give this kind of transparency is appreciated.
Thank you for the kind words, Rand is an awesome guy !
Excellent post. Your breakdown of how to price yoru service is applicable to nearly any revenue generating sales pitch (including salary negotiations.)
Here’s the thing, lots of people like Grind say, “Neil is absolutely correct, if you provide value that is greater to the client’s bottom than what you’ve charged them, they will happily keep paying (and recommending)” and I am definitely someone like that. But, I’ve yet to find someone that can produce those results…..
Thanks Andrew,
I am sorry to hear you haven’t seen any results. I myself had trouble getting results from the SEO companies I first hired.
Great post and great insight into your success. “Never stop giving”…that really says it all.
Thanks Laurie, it really does say i all.
I love the transparency in your posts and the way you share the knowledge instead of hoarding it. Yes, part of it can be due to business reasons like getting leads, traffic etc., just like you’ve stated. But, I am more taken in by the Human You in these posts…which is your genuine desire to share and educate.
Thank you Vimal,
For me it really is more about helping my readers out as much as I can. I want to see other reach their goals and have success.
Neil, what a priceless post! Every single word worth gold.
Although I think the title is a bit misleading, should be more like “How I Built a 7 Figure SEO Agency and What Any Business Owner Can Learn From It.” These same lessons apply to consultants, lawyers, realtors, you name it.
I am not in SEO business in any way, but subscribe by every word you wrote there. My consulting business (nothing of your magnitude or level, but still) was growing and doing well – but then started to slip and went down substantially. If I am to list reasons why, all of them are contained in this post of yours – because I was not doing what you are listing. Well, you learn as you go. This year I am set to turn things around.
I would add though a couple of things:
1) Recognize your strengths and build/grow on them. Recognize your weaknesses and either stay away from projects and opportunities involving those, or do something to overcome those weaknesses (e.g., through training), or outsource.
As simple as it may sound, but a lot of those strengths and weaknesses are not immediately clear and only become clear with experience and time and trying various things, which can take some years. Also, opportunities based on your strengths may not be readily available, so one needs to put focused effort in that direction. For ex., I have realized by now that there are some things I am really good at, they come natural to me (to the point that I was taking them for granted), and they happen to be difficult for a lot of people/competitors. So I am now trying to focus on that.
2) Always keep in mind that it is so much easier to prevent problems than trying to fix them after the fact. A lot of the things you are listing are actually so much easier to do than not do them and then end up with problems and try to fix them.
E.g., I remember a project – the client had some money to spend (a government agency) and had some very vague idea. There was no clearly defined scope with clearly set expectations of deliverables. I took it. Man, it backfired. It turned out there were several other people in the picture, “stakeholders” as they would call them in my field, and they all had strong and loud ideas for what they wanted to be done, and there was no consensus. I ended up spending endless time facilitating endless discussions with them of what should be done etc etc etc, all of which after the contract was already in place. The end result: I spent ridiculous amounts of time, nobody was happy, the amount of money was small and totally not worth it, and I was to blame for everything. Man, I learned a lot from that one project.
3) Have very clearly articulated expectations. Sometimes it is not possible to have everything clearly defined in terms of what eventually needs to be accomplished. For such projects I have learned over time to make sure to include in the contract (a) clearly defined tangible deliverables and (b) clearly defined activities that I would do. For ex., if I am doing a Needs Assessment for a community-based organization (CBO), I wouldn’t now just say a “report with findings and recommendations.” Because a “report” can mean totally different things to different people. I now would actually spell out anticipated page number range, and actually bring to the client several examples of such/similar reports (my own and others) and nail it down with the client (and “stakeholders”): “Here, is this the kind of report we are talking about? If not, let’s agree what’s different you would like to see, etc.”
3) I work now almost exclusively with government and non-profit agencies, and they have their own peculiarities. Different from the private sector.
Well, I’d better stop before I get carried away again
THANKS, Neil, for taking the time to share your wisdom with us!
I really appreciate the thoughts. Comments like these is what really makes the Quick Sprout community.
Thanks for the title suggestion as well.
Great post, but you know what they say about those that teach
I do… that’s why I teach and do.
Hi Neil:
I’ve been reading SEO research for 12 years as I have been an SEO consultant for that long. It’s very rare that someone actually tells you their methods for getting clients. Wish I had read this 12 years ago.
Love your posts.
Rob
San Diego
Thanks Rob, it is always nice to have positive feedback from a professional.
“Hurry, only 1 spot is available.” on case study about Timothy Sykes website, simple and brilliant! Good old marketing school
.
Yep, sometimes the old way is the best way.
Excellent post Neil. There are only quite a few blogs that I read and you’re one of them (1st) and always looks forward for your emails. I really love your stuff.
I do wish this post was made 5 years ago too as what @justin McGill said.
I appreciate it Nelson, thanks for reading Quick Sprout.
I graduated from a music college and one of the best professors in my department always told us, “never do anything for free.”
I started my own digital media strategy company 3 years ago and during the lean years if I would have listened to that advice and applied it to my company, I would have failed miserably.
Do quality free work for people and it really does pay off.
Great article, Neil.
Spot on with everything you mentioned.
Most people would not recommend doing work for free, but for me it has helped get me more business long term. I am glad to hear it has worked for you too.
Very inspirational post Neil, I admire your passion and the way you shape your clients businesses when helping them with SEO – great job, both post and real day to day SEO work
Thank you Martyna for the kind words.
Cool to hear your story Neil! You getting that first company such great results is what catapulted your SEO career. So many so-called SEO companies are robbing small businesses and not producing results. Good to hear you’re not on the “dark side” my friend.
Thanks Mike, glad you enjoyed it.
Gold, Gold, Gold…
in Today’s blogging atmosphere you can only get guessing labeled as “7 non sense that tricks your mind” lists and called posts. for me, right now right here is the moment to improve and start reading only real gold like this post . technical posts of expertise
Thanks Yassin, I am glad that you found this post informative.
Thanks for sharing this Neil. I’m curious to know how you do SEO differently for a 10k+/month client as for a 3k client. Is it just more hours spent? More money spent on designers and programmers? Thanks for the inspirational post!
Yea, more hours spent… more links built, more content created…
Interesting post. I hope that I can be as successful as you have been!
Thanks Michael,
Best of luck to you!
It’s really inspirational that how you built up a six figure company .
It’s really very interesting post and even I can’t stop reading till end as such I am a person who skips mostly all article in between . But I read it fully . Thanks for such awesome tricks
Awesome, thanks for taking the time to read through it all!
I’m curious if folks would agree that SEO is much harder today. It used to be, I think, that most people didn’t know much about SEO, most websites did none of it and the search engines were less saavy. So…you could do simple things to get ranked higher.
Today, it seems to me, it’s much harder. You really have to earn the rankings by providing true quality to the visitor. So, it seems to me, SEO (if it’s alive at all) is now much more about helping clients build quality sites — quality content, putting the quality content in front of the right audiences and of course having a strategy for profitable keywords, etc….
Curious what folks think.
I would agree, now it is all about quality sites and information.
@Andrew, maybe you should hire Neil
It is tough to find a credible company these days with so many in the market, but if you know what to look for it is very possible.
It’s also best if you can educate yourself ahead of time using the resources Neil mentioned above (SEW & SEOBook). Plus check out some tools like SEOMoz and Hubspot. The more knowledge you have about the search engine landscape, the better equipped you will be to find a good company to work with.
Knowledge is key. The more you know, the better off you are.
What an excellent story!
I think there is plenty to takeaway here: speaking both as a professional SEO and as a nonfiction writer. But I also feel there is a unique and direct message to plenty of potential entrepreneurs reading this. I really feel that there is a clear point in your narrative that really stands out – one that I am going to call your “one-in-a-million” moment. I’m referring, of course, to this:
“One of the gentlemen sitting in the room during my speech was a sales rep at Elpac Electronics and he approached me after my speech. He then told me that the company he worked for was looking for a seo. He introduced me to the marketing manager at the company and they hired me as a contractor for $3500 a month.”
To go from starting a business that isn’t successful, to being a student, and then happening into a $3500/month consultancy gig is truly phenomenal and, unfortunately, too good to be true for most young entrepreneurs. I can’t help but think that an opportunity as rich as this doesn’t just come about on a whim. I’m curious to know if there was any thing that influenced that sales rep to be in attendance that day.
However the case, I would love to hear more about how this opportunity shaped your future. Particularly, I’d be interested to learn more about the immediate aftermath and how you turned a classroom proposition into a super success!
I guess a lot of it was luck…
It didn’t really shape my future until a year or so later. It helped me be a lot more aggressive and business minded. But it was a slow transition.
Hey Neil – I’ve used some of these strategies myself to build up a 7 figure agency at Powered by Search. As the business has built up we don’t tend to do a lot of ‘free’ work anymore but we do quite a bit of pro-bono work for non-profits who need our help.
Partnering with agencies of all kinds has been great and it’s lead to us working with larger brands as well.
Once you hit that growth stage, what really matters is making success repeatable. This means blogging with consistency, meeting new agencies to partner with consistently, and following up with existing customers to gain an understanding of their satisfaction consistently too. It sure takes a lot of work but if you love what you do (and I definitely do) it pays off in spades.
That is great, thanks for sharing what has worked for you.
I got introduced to you and your blog when I read a your blog about lessons learned from SEO Agency. ( http://www.seomoz.org/blog/7-lessons-learned-from-running-a-seo-agency-14225 ) After that I have been reading every blog from you be it on Kissmetrices or QS.
Reading your blogs seems to be living with you and seeing your personal growth as an entrepreneur as you always mention how you learned all these things. I am mentioning the kind of revelation you made about 51 leads and 18 leads.
BTW, I wonder What is your conversion rate Neil? Just curious
My conversion rate for which site? They all vary a lot.
NeilPatel.com changes a lot to dependent on the month and traffic sources.
Hey neil.!!
)
I am a high school student and currently doin on my bodybuilding site.. I am further looking for my career in seo, and the reason is you!! Hope some day ill be like you….!
#respect
Great, I wish you luck! Let me know if you have any questions as you go.
Great to see your Helpful attitude.
Hey neil,
This is an awesome article for all the aspiring SEO consultants and agencies…
Thanks a lot for explaining your “Search Engine Revenue Methodology†in detail…
You provide pretty valuable information here free… Which could easily be sold as a premium.
Thank you Mohan, glad you liked it.
So easy to get braided into the complexities of SEO…nice to hear some good, solid, positive outcomes…thank you.
Happy to share, hope you find these lessons useful.
Epic post Neil!
You gave away the farm.
It’s probably the best ways to go and the hardest things to do to.
Thank you for caring.
Thanks, it is indeed hard but usually worth it.
In the professional SEO world results matter the most. If you are able to show results, then referrals would follow you. What many of the SEO agencies miss is that they do not track the success of their campaigns and they fail to let their clients know they did it for them!
Exactly, glad you get it.
Thank you very much for this open and honest post, Neil.
No problem, glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent post Mr. Neil,
You gave really good advice to all of us…
Thanks, happy to hear it.
Hi Neil,
Great post. Most of my SEO clients come from referrals and they are converted from leads to clients by, as you say “giving away the farm” (I like to call it consultative selling). Once they see what can be done its a no brainer. I now need to get some bigger clients to turn my agency from 6 figure to a 7 figures.
Cheers
Roger
Great, thanks for sharing how this tactic has worked for you.
That’s a great post. Really loved reading it. I like the concept of giving away the farm because it will be reciprocated. And they will naturally feel that we are the experts in that.
Yes, that is correct.
Do Elpac still trade?
They got bought out years ago.
good post…. really full of information that i needed to jump start my own seo agency… thanks neil …
Great, hope it helps.
Hi Neil,
As you advice we do, you have given away the farm here.
With this, who knows, my SEO business just got a boost.
Thanks so much for providing this quality of specific actionable steps.
Happy to do so, let me know how these tips work out for you.
Hello Neil,
I can’t get enough of your timely advice and this post is just as informative as it is helpful.
I agree with you that speaking at conference is effective and I will like to go in that direction. What is you don’t have access to conferences, what do you do? How can you get one going most in a rural area?
Thanks
You figure out how to get access. Fly to them… borrow money… do whatever it is you can to get there.
Neil, thanks a lot, as always, for sharing your story. It’s very inspiring and touches on a few things relevant to any kind of business: drive results, care about clients, think big and don’t be afraid to do some free work at the beginning. Loved it!
Yep, I like the way you have summed it up.
Very informative – goes to show that all success is as a result of hard work
Definitely can’t get there without it.
Thanks Neil! You continue to inspire me!!
Thanks Matt, appreciate it.
Another wonderfully written and descriptive post Neil! As usual you laid everything out and like you mention people are lazy so half of us wont bother to do as you say. Hey don’t forget to go meet the guy for lunch that got you started!
Thanks, hopefully my readers will at least implement a few of these lessons.
Neil,
I love your detailed posts. Anyone growing a business can benefit from the information you’ve provided in growing your own SEO business. Isn’t great how sometimes life works out? You didn’t go to school to become an SEO but through unexpected events here you are making millions with a successful company.
Yep, you have to be willing to change and adapt when life throws you something unexpected.
Thank again for this inestimable info to success in SEO business
No problem, glad you found it helpful.
This is seriously impressive. Tons of ideas on how to build a solid SEO agency. My only fear now is that all SEO companies trying to get off the ground are going to start doing some of these things and make them less effective.
Thanks Steve!
Great read, very informative. I think the best part is that most of these things can be applied in different industries.
Just a quick question, how old were you when you started Advice Monkey? Just curious since I am relatively young, and have ideas left, right and center, just have to teach myself how to execute.
Thanks!
15 or 16 years old.
Very informative!
I am stuck in a dilemma, should I be concentrating on ranking my own SEO Service site or should I spend my time cold calling and other methods of client acquisition?
There are roughly 880 exact matches for “SEO Service[my city]” should I concentrate on trying to rank for it at all?
Thanks,
Michael.
Up to you to pick. I would try both and whatever you have the best success at, focus on that channel.
Thank you Mr Neil, I like your approach. I definitely get the best outcomes from your article. You always help me to set my directions. Nothing to be add on great and complete article.
Regards,
Great, glad to hear it Umar!
Hey Neil great post
We’ve been giving away the farm for quite some time when we write proposals.
What we found was that quite often the contract in question would be given to someone who has done a really fluffy, shiny, glossy, visually lovely proposal in comparison to ours. More often than not the proposals said very little and we would have to read between the lines to work out what the agency said they would do for the customer.
We know this because we’re extremely honest with the clients and more often than not they will show us the competing proposals.
Anyway to cut a long story short, I use to get angry at loosing a potential customer to someone I thought were not going to do the same standard of job as us.
One day I took a look back at the clients we had got and laughed. They were fantastic. There is a lot of mutual respect and we are doing work we are really proud of.
On a side note we’ve heard back from more than one of the customers we’ve previously missed out on.
Word of advice to businesses hiring agencies. If the proposals for you work are fluffy… dont expect the service you get to be any different.
Duncan Johnson
Yodelay
Thanks for sharing your personal experience and added input.
great post. Sounds like your very busy working for yourself and been successful. Its good to read a blog from someone who is proven in SEO
Thanks! I hope it helps you out with your business.
I love your blog! Excellent info here thanks.
Thanks Tony! I put a lot of time into it.
Hey,
Excellent post. It seems that you have done a lot of hard work to build this SEO agency. What i think is, If you do hard work then you will get rewarded one day.
Same is the case with SEO, you keep on doing work on slow pace and you get the reward in the end.
Nice post Neil
Thank you
Yep… you shouldn’t go for the quick and dirty win. Go for creating value by writing great content and building clean links.
I have similar views. Helping people does help in growing business.
It really does. That is the main reason on why I’ve done so well… I really enjoy helping people.
@Neil, ALSO
0. Use Google+.
Google is pushing it really hard right now.
1. don’t guess at your keywords.
- use google adwords traffic estimator to accurately plan
- create emotionally surprising content for that keyword and related alternates
- compare traffic vs ctr vs conversion.
(the terms that bring the biggest traffic don’t always bring sales)
2. if you’re not a professionally trained writer, hire a college student for $35.
Google reads grammar. You’ll get penalized
3. Phone call bloggers.
Ask them to link to you. Offer unrefusable value back
4. Use a high speed server.
Google wants to feel fast. They can’t if you’re site takes longer than 2 seconds to load. Use a site like Pingdom or other to test yours.
5. Join 20 DOFollow Discussion Forums.
Do NOT use the signature to place links. It’s all duplicate content. Personally write DIFFERENT signatures with varying anchor text links to your site.
6. Use Reddit under the right SUBREDDIT. It’s DoFollow.
And bloggers link to Reddit all the time
7. The other 19 Google SEO checklist strategies are at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbZcykUNUg8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml7tx3sff4Y
Thanks for sharing the tips. I should have mentioned using the Google Traffic Estimator to figure out overall traffic volume and using exact match versus broad.
It does take time but the effort pays off and its worth it.
Nothing worth while happens in a day or a month or even a year. It can easily take 5 years for your business to boom.
This is great info right here, have to share this on my Breaking News website..
Thanks for sharing it. The more people who read it, the better.
Neil, you simply rock! You write with such an excellent perspective on life. Thank you for this post.
Thank you! This post took a while to write.
Your dedication and hard work is the key behind your success. Your success is really inspirational for other SEO professional, even for others also. All the best. Thanks.
Yep, it has definitely gotten me to where I am today.
That’s awesome. English is not my mother language but i’ve read all of this article. Thank you for your post again and again.
Glad you like it. Your grammar/spelling is pretty good.
Thanks for the ever practical examples and Great advice as always!
You are welcome Eric.
Great post – really goes to show three things. 1) You can find a great business idea from anywhere as long as you keep your eyes open. 2) That hard work really does pay off over time, and 3) we, as small business owners, can learn anything we set our minds too. Great post.
Thanks, glad you found it useful.
Incredible post, Neil and thanks for all the info!
This is more of an open question to everyone – does anyone know of a more up-to-date version of the Jim Boykin table Neil linked to in the 2nd paragraph beneath “Be Results Driven” for click rate for top 10 search results? I’d love to use this strategy but I imagine these figures are much different nowadays.
If you find one, please let me know.
Thank you Neil, this post is full of nuggets! We will take what we are not doing now and change. One question, what’s your advice on signed agreements with Clients? Is 30 day, mth to mth good? On one hand you don’t want to make people feel trapped and on the other you don’t want them to quit on a whim without at least being with you for 6-12mths. Is the industry standard of 1-2yr good enough? What’s a good balance between sustainable revenue for agency, and good commitment & partnership between an agency and a Client?
There is no standard. Do whatever the client is comfortable with. If you provide results, they will stay with you longer and longer.
Very inspiring story Neil!
I agree that the best deal comes by referrals. That’s true.
People love to hear from their friends. This word of mouth bring big impact in term of getting new contracts.
Yea, you have to do both. Some people can build a business off of referrals, but I wasn’t able to.
Re: ” I only took on clients that I could provide results to”
Without out a doubt, this is *the most* important eleven words in this whole post.
That said, thanks for sharing Neil. This was, once again, great good for thought.
It is.
People really forget that results are the most important thing.
Thanks a lot for explaining your “Search Engine Revenue Methodology†in detail.
You are welcome. It’s a ton of work, but it helps ensure the client’s needs are put first.
Solid advice. If only the results were easier to come by.
Nothing worth doing or having comes easy though.
Yeah, I guess that’s just my lazy side coming through.
To be honest… I think the hardest part for me to deal with is lack of hope, not needing to put in the work.
Basically I could work 10 hours a day for the next five years if there was some guaranteed result, but I guess the uncertainty until you hit it big is just something you have to deal with when making money online?
Yah, unfortunately there is no guarantee. All you can do is give it your all.
All the above – Knowledge is King, and Experience is Queen. If you can get both, then you’ll be the front of others. Sometimes people can talk but cannot deliver. This is why many SEO Guru, cannot becoming the next billionaire.
Thanks.
Yep, you have got it!
I know practical is the best thing but did not mention which technique you used for better ranking either on page or off page. How to work for better ranking my site keyword is not in the search engine please suggest me….
It was usually link building that got me the rankings.
Great post Niel, like always!
Really useful and you know what you are saying-this is why you have the results that you have:-)
Do you happen to have a schedule of daily activities that a new blogger needs to do? Like : how many post -where+ what else, but all in a concise , user friendly format?
That will help me a great deal.
Many thanks,
Aleksandra
Sorry Aleksandra, I don’t have anything like that. :/
Hi Neil,
I am really inspired by your success story and i also appreciate that you always make effort to reply to your readers comments.
Thanks, I do my best.
Yes…I also appreciate it as it is a very tough Job to reply on a every Single comment.
Thanks.
Hi Neil,
I’m a struggler…was reading your post very carefully from past 1 hour! You words are very real & motivates people like me.
Pls. Answer my Question:
If I have a SEO Agency in India. Can I target different countries? Can I raise a sale?
Great Tips. +1 for the attention to being value-driven. The more value, the more revenue, plain and simple.
Thanks Simran, you are correct.
I’m starting to get my head around SEO; its less of a mystery than it was a year ago. The main difference has been read blogs such as yours.
Lewis
That is great, happy to hear these post have been helpful.
Hey Neil,
Excellent post. I think that if you work hard on Internet marketing and if you think that you could work on laptop 10-14 hours a day in right direction then you will get some where after few years. Your experience teaches you every thing !
Thank you
Yep, it takes a lot of time and dedication.
Neil,
Awesome post! I concur with the advice that consistent blogging about seo topics backed with facts and samples is very important to get known and build Authority for your services!
Thanks you, glad you agree.
Hey,
Excellent post, I think you have done a lot of hard work and it seems to me that i need a lot of work to get on that stage where you are. You are my role model.
Thank you
Thanks John, if you ever have any questions let me know.
Mr. Patel,
Earlier I was Reading Seth Godin and he spoke about storytelling and how every startup has a compelling story and how important is to tell it right.
I always have two favourites example that I always give to anyone…One is Buffer and Second is Neil Patel…
You are a marvellous writer and a very true Entrepreneur….
Thanks for sharing it with us….
Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words.
Hey, great post!
What type of profit margins are we talking here to make a 7 figure income?
If it is costing me the following to SEO a site a month:
$1000, how much should I on sell for?
$7000, how much should I on sell for?
Thank you.
It ranges… but at least 30 to 50%.
Mind blowing
) $20k a month is dream for every SEO agency across the Globe.
Truly Inspiring article for upcoming SEO’s
My motto is “you can always do better.”
Excellent post Neil.
Referrals whether through social media or from face-to face clients are always the way. Although we deliver a service that can easily be supplied remotely, building relationships is the way to build a business sustainably.
I really like the idea of setting out exactly what is wrong with a client’s approach and the process they need to take to improve, it really helps to show the value in the SEO service delivered, and backing this up with real life data that demonstrates the cash value to their business is the clincher.
I am always trying to give information out, even though I often feel that I’m working for free (my FD certainly thinks so!) as it just builds your reputation as the go to expert when people have a problem that they cannot solve.
How do you justify to non-believers that Always Giving is valuable?
I justify the value of giving by showing it. The best way to convert others is to lead by example.
Thanks for the great info Neil! You really put the smaller clients into perspective and I like how you seem to focus on the Pumpkin strategy and building bigger clients. I think that’s one area that I can use a lot of improvement in. Needless to say I’ll be updating my companies strategies and plan of attack based off of some of these recommendations.
Also a quick question for you. Does your Case Study link always say: Hurry, only 1 spot is available? I love it!
Yea, it does… but there is really only 1 spot left. It’s hard to find the ideal customer…
My name is Brian Wambua from http://www.StretchGO.com. Just a bit of introduction though.
Neil, you wrote great stuff. However, you did miss stating at the beginning of all your posts that “MOST OF THIS INFORMATION ONLY APPLIES TO THOSE WHO HAVE MONEY TO INVEST AND USE WHEN STARTING UP”.
Why? Most bloggers and internet marketers need to make a coin every time they meet a client to survive. It is not until they make that coin that they will be free to lock in great 6-figure deals or work for big companies. for free to earn the name.
All in all, I do agree that all what you write about applies to any person who is funded to run a company (may be that is why you already introduced that you are kind of a big deal). But for non-funded bloggers and marketers from developing states and companies, wait for sometime before you take all this information from Neil. Otherwise, you will not celebrate the first birthday of your Domain name.
In other words, as a “small” deal, try to deviate most of the time from some of Neil’s information until you become a big deal like him, then you can take all the information that Neil posts here.
Thanks Neil Patel.
Brian.
I am a tennis coach in Philadelphia, and have been looking for help with CEO. This has been a very inspiring story and advice for me. Thank you for the motivation and help!
Glad you found it helpful!
Hi Neil ! it’s great lesson for me. As a newbie, i have got many ideas from this post. i always love to read Neil’s blogging ideas. i have been reading this site for two years and always get different ideas. best of luck.
Awesome, thanks for your support!
Hi,
I’ve been reading SEO research for a year as I have been an SEO consultant for that long. It’s very rare that someone actually tells you their methods for getting clients.
Thank you
No problem, I am happy to share what I have learned.
Neil,
Thanks for the great post! I also read your recent one with the site review sample for your website. Do you have any sample proposals that indicate all of the ideas you talked about? It’s hard for me to visualize this for some reason and I think it would be super helpful. Thanks for your time!
Casey, If you go ahead and email me I can get hopefully send one over to you.
Hi sir
i am totally impressed i have read your story vary interesting . i have loose my confidence but now when i have read your this article . now again my confidence is high i have little bit knowledge in Seo but i want Seo expert like as you hope sir if i need your help in future you will do help . thank you thank you thank you so much .
Thanks
vikram
Vikram, keep your confidence and keep working at it
Thank you sir
Thanks for reading
thanks for information us. I know building agency is too difficult option. because i am also running. To get an clients i ran 3 years to proposed by speaking, blogging, chatting, etc.
Definitely, thanks for reading
Very Inspiring Story Neil , Keep going
Glad I could help
Excellent Post, thank you for the info
Glad it was helpful..
I just found about you today my friend shared your article on facebook and your articles are really good and inspiring. I wish I could earn $20k a month lol
Great article for that attention to being value-driven. This informative article makes me know a lot more about entrepreneurship. Keep going.
Katharine, glad you found it helpful
Hi Neil,
Thank you for your post, it made for a very interesting and well worthy read. I am from the UK and going for a second job interview with a local SEO company very soon. One of the tasks in my interview is to present to them how I will drive new business for their company. They currently only work from referrals but want to rapidly expand their client base. I have been studying my socks off learn all I can about SEO and how to drive business. The main way, I can think of personally, would be to cold call local businesses. Now I understand that if we ‘were that good an SEO company then we shouldn’t have to cold call’, but my argument is that we would just be using any advantage we can in order to develop our business. They already use Twitter and Facebook and go to shows and seminars etc. Do you think cold calling would be a useful way to drive business into an already reasonably well established SEO organisation? If not, do you have any more advice on how I could do this. I am determined to get this job and any constructive advice from anyone would be greatly appreciative…
I think cold calling is always a great tactic. You never know what will come about by cold calling, so you must do it when you feel the need.
Wow, pretty sick , 7 figures , kinda far away from me , but I will get there , nice accomplishment
Tom
Tom, definitely with hard work and perseverance.
Hi Neil, I tried posting this question a number of times, but it isn’t being approved or is getting lost in your comments alerts. Anyway, I’m trying again in case there is some problem on my end.
The gist of my question is this: how, exactly, does one offer free SEO services to businesses? Write an article and post it on a Web2.0 property? Bookmarks? Tell them they’ve missed an alt tag?
Obviously, it is quite expensive and time consuming to dedicate a monthly campaign to a non-paying client; so I’d like to know exactly what you recommend doing to justify value given to the client? Do you say, ‘I’ll do x for you, in return for allowing me to post your logo on my site as a client?’
Lots of people want freebies, and I’ve been reluctant to give away too much…I will give clients a quick overview of their site/competitive environment as a way of justifying the need to hire an SEO agency; but I find that some have no intention of buying because they see this as a freebie and hope to get more freebies…I’m wondering how much one should ‘open the kimono’ during these early stages, and if one realizes that the company isn’t going to be a client, whether it is worthwhile to say: ‘Look, I’ll make you a deal, we’ll do x for you as a free service in return for allowing us to wear your logo on our site.’?
You just do the work and you eat the costs. That’s how you do free SEO work. It’s a loss leader in hopes that it will make you money in the longrun.
Yes, you would have to work out with them on what you will exactly do and what you will get in return for how long. I usually have them put my logo on their site for a few years.
Giving your clients an effective intro into SEO and the search engines. Make them have the knowledge the web works, and how their business could profit from a good website and also SEO optimized website.
Katharine, great points. Thanks for reading
I do SEO and have done so for about a year and my clients are getting to first place in Google but they only pay a few hundred a month. They are very small businesses. But they are getting me referrals. I wonder how do get it to the next level. Another SEO company much bigger than I am just asked me to do SEO on their own websites. So maybe it’s starting to happen.
Hello just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the images aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but
I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different web browsers and both show the same results.