As an SEO agency, one of the biggest challenges you might face is how to get SEO clients. No matter how good your service is, finding new clients can present a unique challenge whether your agency is just starting, or has existed for decades. We know firsthand how this process can slow down your business. To help you discover new clients, we’ve put together this guide of clear and actionable insights to help you find your next client.
Share SEO Experience on Social Media
Social media can be a great tool to build your brand, build relationships, and reach your audience. Using social media to share your SEO expertise builds into all three of these categories. First, it helps build your brand as you show what you know and how to apply it. It’s important that people see you as a thought leader and someone that is willing to share their knowledge. Second, it builds relationships. Through interactions on social media posts, you can find mutuals interested in similar subjects as you and even help each other grow. Finally, it helps you reach your audience. While it may be unlikely for a company that makes car parts to follow a social account focused on SEO, it is extremely likely for that company to begin researching companies and look at their social media presence to see if they’re the real deal. This means they may follow you and continue to come back every time they have questions until they eventually decide to become a client.
Reach Out To People Via Email and LinkedIn
Sometimes finding clients requires a little more action. This usually takes the shape of reaching out to people directly to gauge their interest in your services. The best ways to reach out to people are through email and LinkedIn messages. These methods make it easy to keep the conversations business related and people are more likely to respond to your communication favorably. While email and LinkedIn have some differences in how you should approach these messages, they also share similarities. Let’s discuss these core similarities first and then what makes them different.
First, how should you approach reaching out to a potential client via email or LinkedIn? The most important step to take before reaching out is to do your research into the company and the person. You want to make sure you are contacting the right person. If you contact someone that has no real say in strategic partnerships or SEO, then your efforts may amount to nothing. This doesn’t mean you want to go directly to the person at the top either. It’s always better to speak to someone who will understand what you are offering and can explain that to leadership.
Second, make sure your message is concise. Don’t waste their time by making them sift through the message to determine what your true intentions are. State them plainly, explain your service, and offer a partnership. A short concise message is more likely to be read than a long-winded explanation that doesn’t include the key details.
The third thing to consider before reaching out is your follow-up strategy for both if they respond, and if they don’t. Having this plan in place ahead of time will help you be more confident in your approach, avoid the worry of knowing when it is appropriate to respond, and finally, avoid sending spammy messages. The best practice is typically to send one follow-up message after the first if they don’t respond within 3-4 days. If they do respond, be sure to have your responses ready, but not copy and paste. Now let’s get into the few differences between email and LinkedIn.
One thing to consider for email that doesn’t apply to LinkedIn is providing a place for potential clients to subscribe to your email content. Allowing them to opt-in gives you a clear indication of their interest compared to cold contacting every potential client.
If you are contacting people on LinkedIn there is one extra thing to be aware of. Your profile. Whether you’re cold contacting potential clients, or they found you organically, your profile will be among the first things they interact with. Make sure to keep your profile up-to-date and optimized. This means including recent customer reviews and any content that teaches potential clients about your business.
Offer Free SEO Audits
One of the best ways to find and convert potential clients is by offering a free SEO audit. While these SEO audits may take more time, they typically see a much higher conversion rate. The audit lets you highlight your capabilities and expertise while also showing the specific value SEO can provide the client. Value is a key metric for many businesses, especially smaller ones. They don’t have a lot to spend outside of their direct business. They’re focused on providing products or services and expect people to find them through word of mouth. Of course, this rarely works. Thus, providing free SEO audits demonstrates the direct value SEO and your agency can provide for these businesses. SEO can be hard to explain, so giving a concrete example is only going to help you build trust and find clients.
Attend Events and Conferences
When we say attend events and conferences, we mean just about every marketing-related event and conference you can find. Attending these conferences is a great way to build a network outside of SEO-specific industries and find more opportunities to partner with marketing agencies that don’t focus on SEO. As you build these relationships it’s important you keep in touch after the event is over. These events should also be a time for your company to show its expertise. Sign up to speak or to take part in panels. These talks are great to get the name of your company out there, set yourself up as a thought leader in SEO, and these talks can be recorded and posted online to increase your reach. Eventually, you can even host your own events for your industry or for potential clients.
Create Industry Partnerships
As your business grows, strategic partnerships will become a key component of continued success and growth. In digital marketing, it is unlikely for an agency to specialize in all aspects required for a successful campaign. This means there are design agencies, SEO agencies, social media agencies, and paid advertising agencies. Each of these businesses focuses on one aspect of a digital marketing campaign. Partnering together, and referring business between each other is a win-win for you, the client, and your partner business. It’s ok if your agency doesn’t offer everything as long as you have the partnerships to fill the gaps.
Create Monthly SEO Packages and Price Proposals
One key piece of information new clients search for is the exact services you offer, and how much they will likely cost. Creating specific packages with price ranges goes a long way in building trust with clients before they even sign up for your business. While these packages and prices may not be set in stone, it’s important they’re close to what clients will be receiving so they can predict costs. Of course, this doesn’t mean your packages need to be one size fits all, in fact, these should be starting points for you to create a custom plan that meets the needs of your clients.
Once you’ve established a solid client base and have a steady stream of SEO clients, consider outsourcing your link-building and content services to a reputable agency like BASE. This will allow you to continue providing top-notch service to your clients while leveraging your services to further enhance their results. Contact us to learn more!
