How to find non stingy clients
-
I was browsing around other SEO websites and seeing how they charge upwards of $2500 a month...
In Australia things are a little different, many potential clients gasp in shock at the prospect of paying just $500 a month...
Because of this it seems all the SEOs in Aus have taken to undercutting each other to the point where you can get 'guaranteed' 1st page results for just $200 a month - its become a necessity of doing a guarantee and having a low price just to compete...
How do you find clients that actually have decent budgets? Most of the clients I have so far are from referals from web developers or from my participation on business forums etc. I have thought about trying a telemarketing campaign or a direct mail campaign to try and snag some lawyers, and cosmetic surgeons etc
Has anyone had experience with these methods or can offer any other suggestions to snag clients with deeper pockets?
-
Maybe for these jobs you eliminate the admin work. Then strike a deal with the client.... he pays $250 up front and then another $250 after you have doubled his traffic. Sweet deal for the client and he should be happy to pay $250 after your work makes a kickass impact.
-
Our policy at the moment accomodates and gets results for everyone, I think we even have a $170 client
It is frustrating though because of the increased admin load (reports and client contact etc). It is annoying when a client will spend $5000 on a radio campaign but thinks that a similar value SEO campaign is too risky or not worth it.
I enjoy working with small businesses from a personal aspect but I feel it is not the best for my business financially
-
It really comes down to the overall revenue and industry. Mom and pops gasp. The Target and Deloitte type companies do not.
In my opinion, as a small business owner who gets contacted by SEO folk on a weekly basis, I would hate to hire anyone who thinks I have deep pockets. I am also of the opinion that chasing people/companies because you want the big score is the best way to ruin your SEO business.
The key is being able to explain the value of SEO and internet marketing in a way that makes sense. Whether that is to a mom and pop business or a multinational company, they have to see the value. If you are turned down often by these "stingy" folk, you may be doing or saying the wrong things.
-
In Australia things are a little different, many potential clients gasp in shock at the prospect of paying just $500 a month...
I think that this is true in the USA also. People think that you just tweak the code and the site goes up.
However, in the USA most SEO jobs are either a local job such as "Scranton Auto Glass" which doesn't usually cost a lot - a few hundred a month might do it, or a national campaign selling "brass widgets" that will probably need at least the $2500 budget to become competitive.
Perhaps most of the people advertising the $200 are doing SEO for a small company targeting a single city?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why, my client website sudden gone down its ranking?
Hi Moz, As I am shocked to see sudden drop in my client website himachalpackagetour.com sudden dropped its ranking, here I am sharing single keyword "himachal tour packages" rank = 10th into rank = 250th in Google.co.in ? How it could have happened , I didn't even touch anything with the website. Let me tell How, Why it happened and suggest me to get it back same ranking. Thanks in Advance. Best,
Industry News | | Futura
Teginder0 -
Has anybody used Yext or Universal Business Listings as an automated approach to getting clients into all of the many directories? If so does it work? Or does Google penalize in using these automated services?
I'm trying to figure out if using either Yext or Universal Business Listings is worth it. They have reseller programs for SEO agencies. I just am curious what other SEO folks think of these services as I'm considering using one of them to automate and save time for clients. If you go to Yext.com or universalbusinesslistings.org you can see these. Curious what others say about these. Thanks
Industry News | | SOM240 -
How to Find A SEO Guru?
How to find a SEO Guru I am a looking for a SEO to take over our SEO needs for our website.I am not interested in learning SEO and would rather leave it to the pro's.We already have great traffic 800K+ monthly but we need to take it to the next level and beyond. I have searched through SEOMOZ and read articles everywhere and done all that, I think I am more confused now than when I started on how to find a great SEO. While their are plenty of great SEO guys out their a lot of them I don't feel comfortable putting our business in their hands.Their are some smaller SEO's and some shady SEO's that won't work for us.Then some just don't have the credentials or background for us to hand over our hard earned money and have the future of our businesses in their hands. We want someone who has worked on big projects and had great success and is a industry leader but is willing to work with me and be hands on just not send me reports and suggestions. I am Trying to find SEO guru who knows his stuff and knows it well.I know i will pay good money for this but would like to find some up and comers so I don't have to sell unborn children to afford their services. What would be a good way to a great seo maybe even a guru? Finding the right SEO has become a daunting task.
Industry News | | chrisyak0 -
Clients Slow to Publish Content
Hey Mozzers, Recently i have been working with some larger corporations and i have quickly found that publish new content is a nightmare. Whether re-writing current content to be more targeted or getting brand new content published on their blog it goes through an insane approval process something like this: Approval from Marketing Manager (main point of contact) Revisions Approval from Legal/Quality Control Revisions Approval from someone on the C team (CEO or CMO) Revisions Depending on content, translation for other language sites Then go live With this crazy process i have barely gotten 5-10 pages of content approved and live since the launch of the project. Now I am getting the questions of why we aren't seeing any results. The quickest and most direct answer is - we aren't publishing any new content! But you can't always blame the client. Does anyone have any suggestions, approaches, or strategies to help slow moving clients speed up? Perhaps other techniques to show your value other than publishing new/targeted content? Cheers - Kyle
Industry News | | kchandler2 -
Best way to charge my clients...........I think I finally decided
I have struggled with the best way to charge my clients FOREVER it seems and I think I finally have decided on how to proceed! ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated! (I have read the seomoz blog posts about the subject, the Art of SEO and Search Engine Optimization Secrets book and tons of blogs, etc). I got into this business because of what I was able to accomplish with my party rental companies website and what I had studied and read for months and months. Without knowing any better I tried to get into SEO and online marketing and fell straight into designing websites and subcontractors and hosting and everything EXCEPT seo work! sound familiar? I CAN'T be the only one this happened to 🙂 I have regrouped and finally gotten my FIRST pure SEO client. They agreed to pay me $3,000 over 6 months for JUST recommendations with monthly reporting on traffic, # of links, etc. My plan is to charge clients X amount of dollars broken up over 6 months - $2-5k. (that will include monthly reporting) for a list of recommendations. (on page, link opportunities, design suggestions, kw suggestions, email campaign, on and on). NO MORE $400-500 FOR A WHOLE WEBSITE - INCLUDING CONTENT CREATION! (I was stupid enough to do this - TWICE! I like doing it this way so I can focus on giving them maximum value right from the get go and not slowing spoon feeding my knowledge out to them or them getting burned out after 2 months and not wanting to continue because they haven't seen a miracle yet. I will justify the clients investment by dividing that lump sum by $75 an hour (low for some of you I know) and track the time I spend researching links, their competitors, their on page, etc. and include it in my monthly report. I plan to give my first client their report in a few weeks and it will be pretty comprehensive but not EVERY thing I can think of but enough to impress. They are welcome to pursue the links I found, make the site changes, etc themselves OR I will be happy to have ALL my recommendations implemented for them for a reasonable, fair amount. If they want me to do it I will explain my staff will be doing the work and it will be $25 +/- an hour vs. $75 Sorry for the long post and thanks for hanging in there if you read this far! 🙂 I would love any suggestions or flaws with my plan! Thanks in advance and have an AWESOME week! Matthew
Industry News | | Mrupp441 -
Why do most Local Directories turn around and lie and try to steal your clients?
OK, it'ssssssss RANT TIME! I am quite accustom to clients sending me emails they have received stating how their site is not optimized and the spammer can get the site ranked number one on Google. They all have @Gmail.com so I am assuming that is a very large SEO firm. Occasionally I send them an email from an anonymous account asking about their site and phone number and they have neither due to exigent circumstances (I assume prison left them broke). But, I am ready to declare war on some local directories! I have now had several clients call me regarding inquiries they received within minutes or days of local.com or merchant circle or SuperPages etc. having us post a listing for the client. Ten minutes ago, I get a call from a pleasant young fellow who introduced himself as being from Web.com. As he began to talk (or read) he stopped all of a sudden and said, "Oh, I see you do most of what we do....." I stated hold on a minute, now who are you with?" It finally came out that my local specialist had listed our company or changed our company with them a few days ago and they were calling to tell me how unoptimized we were." NOTE: I am always pleasant to the caller as they are just doing a job. I said, understand that what I am going to say is not about you, but about your company. I sign up multiple clients with you which helps your business and you run around behind my back and tell them I did not do a good job and you can help them. They just need to leave me. He responded, "Sir, we never recommend anyone leave a company." I said, I am sure you don't. In the end he stated that it probably was not a best practice to mess with people who bring your site business. So, here is the question: Why do we put up with this crap?!?!?! When are we going to say: If you have a directory, be a directory and not a cover for a web sales firm? Why don't we start a couple of directories that are exclusive to those who can answer basic SEO questions and have an email address with the same domain as their marketing web site. Why do we keep letting these clowns do this? Imagine, having built my wife a site, she comes in at the end of the day and says: "I got this call from these people who said the site was not optimized correctly and we are not ranking in Google?" That was Local.com, I believe. My favorite was the rep who called and the more I questioned the SEO and ranking knowledge they were professing, she said: "I think I should let you speak to our Google expert." I said, Great. Three minutes later she returned to tell me he had gone to lunch and would call me back." I am still waiting. Hope I hear from a few of you, sorry for the long rant. I do feel better now though 🙂
Industry News | | RobertFisher2 -
What is your Biggest SEO selling point to prospective clients?
Typically, our SEO questions are around "how to's" and etc. So, to change it up I will ask a business question: What is your biggest selling point when presenting your SEO services to a new client? In a spirit of transparency, I will tell you mine ahead of time. With PPC, TV, Radio, and Print at some point in time that ad comes to an end. When it ends, that is it. There is no residual from that advertisement - or very minimal at best. With SEO, once you are ranked well and well optimized you continue to get clients for a much longer period of time. With clients who TV and print, this rings especially true and is easily provable. I can't wait to hear yours.
Industry News | | RobertFisher4 -
Schedule for Panda / Farmer Update rollout for non English sites?
Hey Mozzers, I just read about the global rollout of googles Panda/Farmer Update for English queries, e.g. at searchengineland. Has anyone read something about when google is planning to roll out the update for non-English speaking countries, i.e. queries in other languages? I googled a bit but couldn't find anything, not even speculations. Cheers, Frank
Industry News | | FranktheTank-474970