Starting An SEO Company From Scratch

As far as I know, the information is freely available. You just have to use your smarts and put in the work. I have a web development agency and, though I no longer do more than oversee operations, I put it together in the way I mention. Save your money; this isn't high-level information.

Tom

If you know seo, you don't need education to start a company. Start ranking your own sites, when you succeed, make offers to potential clients and take it from there.

WOW!

Have to totally disagree with the two posters (EDIT - before Mike who covered another issue overlooked -running a SEO company) so far. Its true that you can learn online how to do SEO but even reading this forum you will see that there are widely different opinions and they can't all be right (some are totally contradictory). Besides ranking your own page has serious differences from working as a SEO company where you end up working on lots of sites

OF course we are at the point where everyone thinks they are a SEO and anyone can pick it up within a day as evidenced by the posts so far.

If you completely understand all the terms and techniques in this list and know how to correct any problems associated with them then I guess they are right . If you don't then they are DEAD wrong

LSI, Pagerank, link bait, Tiered link building, PBNs, 404s, redirects, web crawler errors, authority , trust , tags, reciprocal linking. link outreach, OBL, linkspam, contextual linking, canonical urls, duplicate content, thin content , snippets, citations, geo location.

Just a part of the things a SEO has to know about and correct for companies

Thats just to name a few that come off the top of my head . Now given the deplorable state of this forum will some people/kiddies come charging in and say...you don't need to understand all that he's complicating it you can rank sites without all that yada yada yada? Yep. they'll sing us a I rank Amazon review sites so I know it all

Sure. You can rank sites ...but if you put up the sign as a SEO company and do work on a lot of different sites you WILL encounter issues the client needs fixed with ALL of those at some point

and thats when the "oh its easy SEOs" come in here asking others to tell them how to do the jobs they took money from clients to do because they can't do the job they were paid to do .

Eh.......I should have added though. If you meant what do I need to learn how to run a SEO WSO ....then yeah I agree with the first two responders.

Yeah, I didn't even cover any of the real SEO stuff.

I was focusing on actually running a legit business, which 99% of people that think they are SEOs tend to just ignore.

I work for an SEO company and have done freelance before. Here are some observations that might help you:

1) Set realistic expectations - with yourself AND your clients.

Firstly, you're gonna be doing huge hours and loads of leg work for months, maybe even a couple of years. Learn to live like a Medieval peasant so you can reinvest back into your business. Your hourly rate of income will probably suck for ages.

Secondly, don't promise ridiculous things to clients in order to get business. You cannot guarantee rankings, you cannot guarantee results. You can only work your hardest to improve their online presence.

Also make sure your clients understand your deal with support etc. If a client calls you up to chat about rankings or something else does that count towards their billable hours for the month? Be VERY wary of clients who try to creep free stuff in ... once you've allowed them to do so it will be hard to stop.

2) Get the legal/financial side watertight.

Depending on where you live this may be more or less expensive (and more or less crucial). At the very least you need to have the right structure setup for tax and income, and probably a limited liability company in case you tank someone's rankings and they come after your ass.

Make sure you have a contract to use with clients that is drawn up by a good lawyer.

Determine how you want clients to pay. For example, sending a monthly invoice gives some flexibility and looks pro, but it can wreck your cashflow if clients are tardy with payment. If you run a fixed amount of hours per client each month, look into whether you can set up a recurring Paypal or Credit Card payment. This means you get the cashflow when you expect it.

3) Focus on a "type" of client


This has been mentioned before but it really is a good idea to have a niche or type of client that you focus on.

I'm a fan of working with small local businesses such as restaurants and cafes - this lets me do good work with local SEO, social media etc.

Some big clients with large websites pay well, but you may really struggle to get results.

4) Diversify income streams

One thing I've noticed from working for a few SEO agencies now is that diversification of income is a total afterthought for most. But it's really important to do from the outset - if your entire livelihood depends on "billable hours" and those billable hours dry up, then you can be out on your ass in no time.

For example, look into building and flipping sites, selling PBN links, renting out websites to local businesses etc.

Basically anything that will give you a base of income to cover lean periods. This is super important if you plan to hire staff. I've worked for companies where they hired extra staff to expand, and then that additional work dried up. Those employees were then let go, and it was a painful process. If there had been other work available to do (even just doing basic SEO services on Fiverr to cover their wage) it would have been a lot better.

5) Have the right tools & equipment

Professional SEOs rely on their tools (or at least make great use of them). Think about what tools you need, and then be willing to invest in them. Factor this into the cost of business. Many tools have ongoing monthly costs, so don't ignore this.

Also, have good equipment like a decent computer - a slow old machine can make progress painful.


I could go on for hours here ... but I think you get the gist of it.

I'm always surprised when people post threads like this. If I were looking on the outside, starting an SEO company is probably the least attractive option out there.

I've run my own company for the last few years offering website design as the initial service and upselling SEO along with a few other services.

I assume you already have enough knowledge to perform the service or are you one of the types of people that believe you can outsource 100% of your business?

Mike covered some of the most important aspects that seem to go overlooked on here.

Since getting clients is really the life support, and blood of a business, you really need to figure out how you're going to be doing that. It's simple to pick out a few strategies and implement them like a lot of people preach but the truth is you need to have a message. You need your own brand identity, purpose and message to convey to people.

So many business owners are tired of getting calls and emails about SEO... a lot of them think it's some giant scam and doesn't work. You can thank all the people that think this is an attractive business to get into, so they sell but can't deliver on what they promised.

I personally don't position my business as one that offers SEO... even though SEO is what I'm doing, telling a business owner who isn't savvy or on board lowers the lead to close conversions. Don't ever sell the idea of rankings... sell results. We all can rank #1 for countless terms, but business owners don't care about rankings, they care about revenue.

Anyway, good luck. It's tough starting any business, but there's a different level of competition when it comes to SEO. Even when you have someone in the early parts of your sales funnel, you have to counteract all the BS education they already picked up from other sources.

I'm thinking about becoming a brain surgeon. I'm reading a $7 ebook, can't be that difficult...

I run my own agency here in Sydney, and even with all my years of SEO experience, none of that prepared me for what's involved in running a business.

Staff, insurance, legals, tax, contracts, sales, office space, marketing etc. There's a LOT to it.

If the OP is serious, I would be happy to provide you with professional coaching that will help you fast track the process considerably.

$5,000 per month.

Alternatively, you can buy a $7 ebook.

If you want free tutorials, go to Youtube and search. If you want to get paid training, then go to seobook or udimi.