Tips for Start Up SEO Agencies

Running an SEO agency is not an easy job. It is a very competitive landscape in terms of price and quality. Here are some tips that helped me roll my agency to great success.

1. Focus on Small & Medium Business

Having a very good experience of working in SEO agencies backed up by huge sales teams I started my SEO company in 2009. It was the toughest time in my life when recession was at its peak and many companies laid off its employees. I decided to quit my job because, time was not enough for me to handle my freelance contracts and employment. Our target was to sign up with big shot clients showing up my work experience. We got 2 big clients in the ecommerce segment and our earnings grown high very soon. All our experts were fully assigned with these 2 big clients. Our business was very much dependent on these 2 companies. One fine day one company was bankrupted and the project was called off. We were drowning to meet the company expenses. If we had 20 small clients in place of these 2 big clients nothing would have happened if we loose 2 or 3 or 5.

So when you start up, better focus more on small clients and grow in numbers than choosing few high paying clients. You can still be stable if you loose 1 or 2 because they pay you small fee and that is what you lose.

2. It is not Quantity that matters

Focus more on quality than on quantity. It doesn’t matter number of submissions you do to build back links but the number of quality back links you got. Always plan your strategy to acquire quality so you save lot of time going after bad neighborhoods.

3. Research Team

There should be a fully dedicated team to do researches on the latest search trends, write article of opinion for your company, give advises and engage socially with the fellow expert community. Search is an ever changing phenomenon. The more your team is updated, the smarter they beat the competition.

4. Plan your Pricing based on performance and not just keyword ranking

Before you sign up any SEO contract, do necessary homework to understand the current sales figure of the company. It is not a complex mathematics – Check the Traffic Data, Conversion Rate and Average Order Size. Calculate the current estimated revenue from organic search and plan your strategies to double or triple the revenue. When you promise on keyword ranking and achieve it in few months, the client will get bored by the stable results and he underestimate your performance. Normally clients don’t accept your effort in stabilizing the result. What he want is more money each month.

In these cases you can quote a price for multiplying the revenue. Talk in terms of money than in keyword ranking.

5. Offer Exclusivity Only if the client demands

Your client don’t want you to work for any of his competitor. If your client demands exclusivity on your work, he is stopping your agency to enter in to contract with other businesses which are open to you. If in that case, you can ask for a higher price to maintain exclusivity.

6. Always allow your employees to communicate with your clients directly

You don’t need to be afraid in letting your employee work directly with the client. It can save a lot of your time as an agency owner. You can concentrate more on getting new businesses while your team can take care of your client. Make sure you ask them to copy all their conversations with the client so you know the progress.

7. Purchase Pro Tools to make your job faster

We use many SEO tools like – SEO Moz Pro, Majestic SEO, Market Samurai etc. These tools can help you do your job easier.