SEO advice pages are full of best practices tips, solid ways to make an SEO practice feasible. Unfortunately, there are just two ways to get beyond mere survival and to thrive in the SEO business. The first way is to get lucky by landing one client with deep pockets who is willing to offer you an unlimited budget. Everyone is allowed to dream. The other way is to take big chances with an eye on big gains, or to gamble on big investments. Below are four ways to improve your chances at making it big in SEO resale that may not be for the faint at heart.
1. Leverage business development
You will lose money on business development in the short run. However, in the long run, you can make it up. The fastest way for you to boost your revenue is to get hired as an outsource office for bigger agencies.
Look for ad agencies to partner with. There are many ad agencies that are much larger than SEO agencies. Cold call them and offer to help with their websites. If you do well, they will send a lot of clients your way.
2. Be results oriented
In this business, there is one strategy that will place you head and shoulders above the crowd. That is not being a shill. The SEO Resale industry is filled to the brim with half-trained, hackneyed, fly-by-night snake oil salesmen who think SEO is a racket. They believe there is nothing to search engine optimization other than just finding catchy keywords and using them frequently- and those are the nice ones. The not so nice ones are those who know how hard real quality SEO results can be to achieve and they prey on clients who are naïve.
This all may sound like extremely bad news, but it absolutely is not. What it means is that honesty and work ethics are rare commodities in SEO Resale… -and what does it mean when a commodity is rare? That’s right, it means that commodity is valuable! So, if you’re the kind of person who takes pleasure in making an honest buck for honest work- SEO Resale may be just the line of work for you.
It may take a while for clients to get burned by all the others guys and come back to you. That’s why this route is somewhat of a gamble. But when they do come back to you, you will get the best referrals that can be had under the Sun.
That, however, is just part of what it means to be results driven. Sure, it means you’re not snowing your clients. But it really means that your methods are based on research and experience. It means you can forecast the results of your efforts in order to give your clients reliable estimates and timelines.
3. Your best clients will come from referrals
So, we’ve figured out how to get high-quality referrals. Clients that come from referrals are always going to be your best clients. These are people who heard a glowing review about your firm or service from someone they trust without it being forced down their throats during commercial segments. These clients are going to have a lasting good impression of you and they are engaged with a real-world micro-culture that revolves around you. That real world micro-culture is made up of themselves and the person who referred you- probably someone the referral customer already likes and trusts.
Once you get a referral customer, treat that account like gold- because that’s what it is. Also, keep in mind that the referrals you get from referral clients can be even better- as your reputation for integrity and results grows.
4. Referrals are not reliable sources of income
“What? But they’re the best! Right?” Yes, they are the best clients. But you cannot count on getting them. Yes, chances are you will get some great referral clients if you do top notch work and give detailed and accurate reports. But, like sunny weather, there is no guarantee they will come.
How to get around this? The way to earn yourself a top notch client base is to leverage your expertise. They say that people who can, do- and those who can’t do, teach. But that’s really a false dichotomy. Why? Because some people can do, they do- do, and they teach as well. Consider that the service you provide as an SEO reseller is valuable. So, you sell the service. That means you must have knowledge that is valuable- and if your knowledge is valuable- that means you can sell that knowledge directly.
There are several ways to do this:
Blogging – Writing a regular blog, (on which you may host ads) will make you a resource for those seeking advice and help.
Speak at conferences – This is the best way to get high-quality clients, other than referrals. There’re a lot of people looking to spend advertising dollars at these events, and giving a good speech is a great way to stand out for this crowd.
Help out bloggers – Established bloggers have an established audience that you can tap into if you should help them or contribute to their content.
