Struggling to sell SEO services... HELP!

Why don't you offer some form of a guarantee? $300 per month with at least 2 leads each month guaranteed or your money back.

Also, I don't understand why people here talk about ranking keywords. Businesses care about leads, not rankings.

First can you show them results you have had? Loads of these companies here the same thing over and over again. Also did you show how it would benefits them.

For example let's use the hotel. How much would they earn off of one extra customer? Let's say 50 profit. Now how many more customers would they get from your efforts if once it got going it was 10 or more they can see real value in what you bring. If they are only going to get 1 or 2 they would be stupid to invest the money. See how this works? It's not about the cost but the value you bring.

I don't care if I am ranked number one on google. Is google where my customers find me? Do they buy? If the hotel gets most of their leads from hotels.com or something like that can you show they will get more and have it cost less from your service? Now when speaking to the hotel did you consider you were compeating against hotels.com and similar lead sites?

You have to think about it this way. You potential clients have a marketing budget. To get your service they either have to add to it or take some from aother company to pay you? Can you show better ROI with your service? Or are you pitching what is in it for you vs what is in it for them?

A couple suggestions.

1) Don't emphasize to them the length of time it will take to get the initial ranking up X amount.

Promise 1 dramatically improved keyword (if you've made no leeway on any keywords by the end of the month, which probably isn't going to happen, you can can show them ranking #1 for their own site name after optimization not marketing.)

Let them know though that marketing really doesn't start organically taking effect until months 3-4-5.

Most companies I've dealt with don't really like the idea of having an "indefinite" search engine marketing team on board.

I usually go about saying marketing efforts take at least a couple months to take effect but there is a saturation point, a point where they're as good as they can possibly get in the SERPs.

All you need to do is get ready in 12 months to present to them how you can continue to improve on their current ranking.
By this point though you'll have a nice folder full of keywords and actual statistical analysis of site metrics and ROI to back up your claims though.

2) From a cost perspective give them an introductory rate on the first month that covers costs + 5% or so.
Improve their rank and give a detailed report + teleconference at the end of the month. Then insist on a 6 or 12 month contract at your regular rate.

I usually go into my first sit down or teleconference with a FULL folder of analysis on the specific company before I pitch to them though.

I also use SEO as an amendment to my web development services.

Good luck!
I hope you're not in the Toronto area :-P

Thanks for the advice so far guys.

I do guarantee rankings yes. I advise that if we don't achieve the rankings within X number of months, then we'll continue working on the campaign free of charge each month until the rankings are achieved.

I would love to guarantee leads, but that would rely on the clients website to sell there own services, which is largely out of my control.

The main objection being the time it takes to get ranked, so they are unhappy (or put off) that they will have to invest 6x195 before they can start to see a positive return on their investment... Any pointers how to justify / get round this?

Thanks again :-)

JSTEF

Step 1

Get paid upfront to SEO their website.

Local keywords should NOT take months to rank, unless you're slacking off or don't know what you're doing.

Step 2

Show them the improved rankings and explain to them that they will drop without monthly maintenance.

Win

I'm not sure that you are approaching the right businesses. If you can only bring a business 5 leads a month, and the average new customer spends $50, it doesn't make sense for them to be spending $300-500 to bring in $250 of new business. I like to package services together. With web design, I offer a web design and SEO package, which is just a one time fee and isn't designed to get them #1... but to experience a little bit of a boost to want to go monthly.

Seems to me your problem is your positioning and lack of proper prospect qualification.

Fix these two things and watch your results drastically improve.

~Dexx

Dexx has it right - you need to qualify them.

You say "I think they have money"... Don't think... KNOW! Because you're running into a situation where you're guessing and they don't have the money.

Find companies that are making the kind of money to support marketing, along with narrowing down even further with companies that aren't FOREIGN to the concept of "internet marketing lead generation". If they are currently spending money online, and you know they make $2mil - $5mil a year in profits, they're a great candidate for a $1,000/mo. package.

Don't waste your time and energy guessing, or else you'll get tired of all this prospecting and start posting on the WarriorForum (oops! ...too late)

I definately think it has to do with the businesses that you are going after. For example for a barber shop that only make $20-$30 per new client you bring it $300 a month might seem like a lot. On the flip side for a painter that is landing $500-$1,000 per job the $300 might not seem like very much.

Also, keep in mind you need to keep telling them the benefits of your service. Not just the features. A feature is that you'll get them listed on the first page and benefit is because of this they'll make more money. You see what I'm saying?

Hope that helps!

Sean

Consider offering something unique. I am both an offline marketer and an offline business owner. My offline business gets prospected several times per week for SEO services. EVERYONE has a first page guarantee. You need to set yourself apart based on something other than price.

I heard this over the weekend and the guy could not remember where he heard it, so definitely not my original thought. Think about your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Or think of it as Unique Super Power. If I needed to hire a super hero, who would I hire. They all help stop bad guys, have super human strength, et al, but they all have UNIQUE powers. If I needed someone to stop a bullet, I would hire Superman. But unless Superman told me he can stop bullets, all the other super heroes look the same.

But, as said above, if the business does not have the cash, it does not matter how great your USP is.

One strategy I heard over the weekend was a marketer that charges one months fee up front, and then does not get paid again until certain keywords get to the first page (most often by 2nd month with local SEO). So if offering for $500 per month, get $500 down and then you do not get paid again until first page rankings are reached. Then paid monthly that fee while the keywords retain ranking.

So both the marketer and the customer have skin in the game, but minimal risk. This same marketer did free SEO early on, with a commitment to pay once rankings were reached, but often got stiffed by the customer.

A bit rambling, but hope it helps.

Dexx and Voasi - thanks very much!

Will be going back to the drawing board to learn about positioning and pre-qualifying leads.

Will also write down my ideal client so Im not throwing darts at an invisible dart board.

If anyone else has any other ideas I'd love to hear them (or even some pointers on the above!).

Thanks :-)

iamchrsigreen, seantrepreneur and aukev - thanks a bunch!

I'm learning alot from you guys, so you're all giving me food for thought...!

Definitely will have to change my approach, and I'm now starting to see the wood for the trees!

Thanks chris, appreciate that. I've already committed to myself that I'm not quitting. I am earning enough from this on a monthly basis to cover the essentials bills. So there is no financial worry, just a burning drive to run a successful business.

I'm not getting despondent, I'm just eager to learn from the hiccups and 'how to do it right'!

You can never fail if you never give up, right? ;-)

I have to agree with what many have said here. What I'd like to add is this...

Please get in the "results business" and out of the "SEO business" ASAP! No one cares about backlinks, on-page, off-page, articles, press releases, social book marks, link wheels, or any other tactic used to get RESULTS... They only care about the results. As soon as you can, with confidence, let your prospects/clients know that you are in the business of helping them get business, they will be much more eager to pay you. And the faster you deliver, the more eager they will be to keep paying you forever, and I promise you, you can easily double your rates from what you charge now if you do that!

Keep Rockin!
--Ben

Chris - nope this is my full time occupation now. Only one month in, 3 paying clients, a handful of partnerships with local web designers and a few other fingers in a few other pies...

I'm still really learning the basics and how to sell the service to clients, but as you can see from my first entry in this post, I'm learning from experience and learning how/what to improve as I go along :-)

This URL also will help to sell SEO service

http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...-services.html

Add YouTube ranking to your mix. If done right you will show some good, quality results to your client while you work on pushing the site up. Lots of posts on doing this. Would also suggest implementing true video seo (hosted video not YouTube embedding) to the site to help speed up rankings.

YouTube is a great way of showing your potential customers just what you can do!

What has worked for me, when it comes time to talk money:

"I take a $797 set up fee, includes changing the way "google reads your website" , not how it "looks", and then starting on the "off-page" SEO process. Once I have ranked at least 1 keyword, we start a recurring monthly payment of $500 for the 5 keywords. This maintains the rankings, and is sort of a retainer..so I do not work with your competitor"

Before I got to that point -

If they backed off the set-up fee, I dropped down the setup fee and said something along the lines of "I understand you have been burned in the past, and your current SEO company hasn't ranked you, how about $147, I'll rank you for a keyword, to show you I know what I am doing? Once I rank you for that keyword, we can talk a larger amount of work?"

Then I just take the $147 from the $797, for the set up fee , I give them 1 month "free", and start the monthly 30 days out from the set up fee in this case. Now to date, I have had some good luck with the client being "impressed/happy" and it turning into something more, but it doesn't mean if I keep these up I will keep retaining them, if they are looking for "cheap" SEO work.

The dropping my price, was so that I could get those first couple under my belt, it gave me references, and turned into larger contracts. I have also been the direct reason some other "seo companies" were fired.

Also, I pre-qualified every potential one: paying a lot of advertising elsewhere. The only 1 I did not pre-qualify was my first, simply because it was a friend who reached out to me.. not really much to pre-qualify there lol.

Mind you I am still "new" to offline and running my own business. I would say keep pluggin away, you got some really good advice on here from people who are doing this everyday, and are much more successful than my self. It took me a few phone calls to get the hang of it, and I still learn with every lead I talk to. In the beginning I just rambled on about what I did... I didn't know how to ask a question.

One last note, the set-up fee / monthly isn't "set in stone" , it is based on the amount of work to be done really.

Ryan

Consider this,

Stop selling Google Rankings and stop selling SEO. This is what every one else who calls them says.

Do however start selling...

Market positioning, authority, and branding. The rankings are the side benefit so to speak.

After all of the above, add these two factors:

Bad economy
Lack of knowledge

Even selling a #1 website for a query like "gardening companies" people will tell you pretty weird stuff like:

Why do I need a site if we already have a website (although at page 44...)
The economy is bad, so, no investments (even a low one to get 10x the investment in 2 months...).

In fact some companies are refusing to do advertising in some of our TOP 5 sites in high ticket markets like gardening, building, pools, golf, etc etc. They just breath "bad economy" and that's all.

Hard times.

YOu can actually sell seo services on EBay. This great WSO teaches you how:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...imization.html

How are you building up your relationship? Is it just through the phone and email?

If yes then that is probably the reason why they are not biting. Get a meeting with them

People buy from people, they want to see who they are dealing with?

I have 3 clients I work with and I don't think I would have gotten the business
if it wasn't for the meeting.

Ask yourself this, would you buy anything from someone via an email / cold call? It works for some but why make it difficult. Just get in front of them. If you get the meeting, they are 75% sold. You just need the remaining 25% to close it.

Michael

YOu can actually offer your seo services on eBay. You can use those seo services help you land bigger seo clients.

This guide in my signature will show you how..

What we're doing to grab offline SEO clients is simple. We joined several Chamber of Commerce memberships and BNI Groups. Then we let folks know we drive local businesses to page one for free.

Then we upsell them on maintenance links, additional keywords, Google Places Listings, blog creation, ongoing content for their blogs, name reputation and even appointment setting.

The idea is to network your way to new prospects. Takes time and effort but it will pay huge dividends if you actually do it.

Offering the free page one ranking for a locqal keyword is great giveaway

Some good advice here.

Something that is important is to change positioning. I was coaching a friend the other day and made it clear how technical and business people take things differently.

Rankings isn't of interest to a business, but leads is, results is, quantifiable numbers they understand.

Think about it for a min... I offer you 1 thousand leaflets or flyers... I offer you 50 clients who will spend $500 with you... Which sounds more interesting to you? Likewise to a business the clients, the people is what matters.

Numbers games are important but qualified numbers are better! Send out 1 million leaflets hoping to find CEO's or qualify and have a list of 100 CEO's... I know which is more important!

Does this situation happen to all your clients? I guess it has something to do with your introduction upon meeting them. Sometimes you have to keep things by yourself especially when it talks about strategy .

Yea you need to bundle!! I offer flyer distribution and use web design, video production, and much more. So when I go to sell a $500.00 flyer job I will add 5 page website and lead capture page for $1200.00 you need to bundle!!

Hi Guys & Gals,

My hat is off to you selling websites.

Last year I got a list of hundreds of brand new business owners in S Florida emailed to me every morning and gave forty leads out to 30 different real sales people (not slackers).

They where selling websites for $395. I had a website with 2 dozen sample sites to show potential clients.

We didn't sell 1 site in 30 days so, I gave up.

Sorry to say , but this kind of service is quite hard to perform when Google is changing their algorithm almost all of the time. You don't have the control , but Google has the power

My humble suggestion is target local selling keyword as a bonus for your web design service or other service ( Social Media Campaign perhaps ). This a lot easier I think

You need to find SEO clients online.
There are many sites that offer you to sell your SEO services.
Check buysellseo.com, odesk, freelance
Only problem is they pay you per hour and at first you have to lower your price a bit

I'm done with actively trying to sell SEO. It's unreliable and clients run a mile when they don't understand it. Sell leads and other measurable services instead.

Hey mate,

Personally I feel you are charging to little for your services, and maybe you should do 2-3 companies for FREE or at your low rate just for Testimonial reasons to sell higher ticket later.

I feel the simplest way to move forward with this is:

A- Show your potential offline customers the price they would pay for the traffic on a CPC basis in search. This will justify your price straight away, and allow you to potentially get more than a 1% CTR that most PPC guys aim for if ranked on first page.

B- Look at how the paid guys set up landing pages and create something similar, based on clients objectives. Only look at PPC guys that have over 90days worth of data using a paid tool like iSpionage or KeywordSpy.
*(YES seo/ppc traffic converts differently but PPC or paid guys have to convert for an ROI very quickly so you know have some winning intel)

C- Try to implement Content Generation into Business Model, this will ensure you are not held to Search Engines algo mood swings.

Lastly aim to at least have another package to business such as FREE Website audit, if they like your work here then the sale to SEO services become easier!

Hope this helps.