Getting the first client

Hello, this is our first posting to this site. Any suggestions on getting the first client? We know that we can provide the services, but are having trouble getting started.

Do you have sites of your own at the tippy top of competetive SERPs? I get cold calls from SEO people all of the time - they want me to let them do their thing for me. I think that I could kick their asses.

That's just my personal rant because I am tired of telemarketers on this topic... but if you want any client that is willing to pay a good fee you need a portfolio of topSERP sites to point at and say - those are mine or my work is behind that.

Another idea is to contribute regularly and generously in forums like this one. I have gotten compensated assistance from people that I have seen posting good stuff here on topics that I want to learn about. Such service lets people know that you are an expert and they see you as a helpful person rather than someone who is out to grab a quick buck.

Be low cost, under big everyone and build up your client list.

then up your prices.

Hi EGOL, thanks for the feedback. Yes I'm working on moving my site to the top. I'm close in AllTheWeb and trying to get a deep crawl from Google. I'm listed 14 out of 1,007,784 for search engine placement services. Not doing as well with Google, but I know why and I'm working on it. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks I'll see an improvement. EGOL, when you started did you have to offer to do a couple of sites for free or did you start by charging day one?

EGOL, what would consider good serps?

I am not in the SEO business. I have retail sites and do my own SEO.

"Good SERPs" is a relative thing... you must have something a lot more impressive than I already have before I would consider paying you to do work or consultations for me.

The other way that I would consider hiring someone is if they regularly and repeatedly posted good informative replies on forums like this one. And they need to have expertise that shows. I would quickly pay any of the moderators here to help me in the areas where they give strong, authoritative advice in this forum.

I always read every post that fathom, SEO GUY, Gringo and Webby makes here... not to diminish anyone else but these four post in my vein of interest... SEOguy is an expert in pagerank and linkage strategies... Webby knows the code and forums... Gringo can tell you lots about adsense and affiliate... and fathom is full of broad picture wisdom.

If you are good you can make a reputation here for yourself and I think that will give you a solid following and clients.

EGOL, I agree that "Good SERPS" is a relative thing. That's why I'm going to get our site listed high in "search engine placement" and "search engine optimization". I figure that if I can get first page listings with these two keyword phrases that I'm competing with the best SEO's.

Although I still feel that I need a client that I can promote through my site and skills.

I know a lot of people get impressed by first place listings. Do you think it would be beneficial to list a search that comes in 1st of 7,510,000? "search ri" without the quotes brings my site up first with these numbers. I'm not all that impressed with the results, because I know how easy it is to accomplish.

I guess from the marketing point of few it would be better to list these types of results while I continue to work toward the top with keyword phrases that will bring me the best results.

First out of 7,510,000 - great. But how many people search for "search ri" every month?

EGOL, I did get two of the four people you mentioned here to join SEOChat as moderators. I deserve some credit as well. j/k ;)

Thanks Rusty... I appreciate your eye for good contributors.

Also, I run your seocount.com tool every day until my allocation is spent. It has helped me understand many things and is helping me control my SERP addition... lol

ha ;) thanks

Hi Manga,

I'm just trying to figure out how SEO's judge how well they rank compared to other SEO's. I've done a lot of research and have found the numbers of serps don't always separate the good SEO's from the others.

My wife and I are starting a SEO business and looking for clients while we are in the process of optimizing our own site.

Over the past couple of months I redesigned my site and changed the direction from being a local web directory to a SEO site. Doing this I lost most of the pages that were indexed in Google and I'm in the process of trying to get them spidered again.

I'm also looking at taking rustybrick's advice on doing a site below cost just to put me on the map.

I think that I'm only one testimonial away from getting clients..

I'm sure it will happen...I may just have to be patient..

Getting clients has little to do with SERPs, IMHO. By that I mean your best bet isn't to chase SERPs, especially a hard one like SEO, but rather to either get good SERPs for someone else, or try to get work by traditional means, e.g. networking, word of mouth etc.

Some ideas: try doing SEO for a charity, a friends site or anywhere else you can. Then, when you attempt to get a client, you will have a portfolio. Also, if you do SEO for free for someone, that person is likely to tell others, and thus word of mouth kicks in. Many SEOs got their start that way: they got the hang of it themsleves, and friends asked them to do their sites as well (how good is that??)

Not only do a lot of SEOs no get their business from the SERPs, but in fact, I would be very surprised if many do at all. The trick is to find a niche you can exploit. Have a web dev friend? Offer to do SEO work for her clients as a value add she can then onsell.

Or maybe approach other SEOs who may have too much of a workload, and offer to do much of the work for them.

Plenty of ways to skin a cat, and lots easier than chasing really competitive SERPs. Good luck.

projectphp,

Good advice, I have been contacting webmasters that I know and scheduling meetings with people that have connections with small business owners in the community. I think that I'm starting to go in the right direction. Hearing it from you makes me feel better about it.

Thanks for the reply..

Whatever happened to good ol' fashioned canvassing?

I'm not a proponent of telemarketing, but when you are just starting up people aren't going to come to you.