Developing SEO Clients is Competitive Advantage

Are you a struggling SEO firm, a freelancer, a learner that has had some success but limited customers, or a business owner that needs a competitive advantage and wish to develop a success business in this industry segment?

The obvious question is not -- how can I develop new clients?

It is "what is wrong with by business model".

The value of the client (customer) is four-fold:

The obvious first - revenue -- many however do not look beyond this revenue value.

The second - testimonials -- if you have done your job exceptional well, the client(s) will gladly give you an outstanding testimonial, a good job - a good testimonial, and if you just take, the money and run chances are your testaments reflect this (or you wrote them yourself).

If you are only in this for the money, your client(s) will not give any second thought to referring you when the opportunity arises.

With clients I not only ask for an honest assessment of the service provided, I request posting their personal contact information (direct telephone, email and facsimile). If you allow potential customers to openly approach existing clients (without you in the conversation you become much easier to trust). A client can say more about you and instill more trust for you to potential client than you can about yourself.

Add client referrals (and the personal information to everything) the website, information packages, brochures, flyers, proposals, emails in the signature block (a short tag line and link). Anywhere you can as these are intangible assets of your business and much more valuable than you are just saying, "we guarantee".

The third - more revenue - referrals from a satisfied client are a given, however if the consultant/client relationship is based solely on revenue for services rendered then you are likely missing much more potential revenue.

Client referrals do not come easy - you need to be extra special to them to risk their credibility. No one refers a mediocre service since his or her integrity is at stake if the referral turns bad.

Existing clients are an affiliation of you - many SEO firms add links to their client's sites. Some will say to the client "these are just for referrals only" but we all know that this is only a half-truth. The primarily purpose is to develop link popularity (or PageRank) to the SEO firm's website and this is usually done at the client's expense, and without the client being fully appraised of the gains and/or losses.

Many SEO firms automatically place a link on every page including the mainpage, all pointing to their own website and without explaining precisely why to the client. Some will even hide the links because the need for them to rank themselves is the most important thing - high ranks help develop more clients.

We will stay away from the ethical questions here - simple saying these SEO are in fact reducing their own clients ranking potential, less testimonial potential, less referral potential, and less credibility and trust.

The forth - links - do not just develop your linkage, develop your clients. You appreciate the value of the link - they do not. Your client's links should be all over your site. Their improved ranks give you something to talk about, as well as providing clients a motive to refer you.

If your site is at the top and people click in - obviously, you can get a SEO in the top ranks but my site is "not an SEO site". The more direct linkage to clients in diverse industries, targeting diverse markets - means -- "unique selling points".

Being a successful optimizer is not that difficult - you only need to do one thing; set yourself apart!

There is a genuine need for credibility in this industry segment. This is not saying that all SEO firms are snake oil merchants - just that the nature of SEO (Perceptiveness in design, marketing, technology and the Internet medium) is so foreign to normal business practices.

Business relies on sound decision-making - it is however extremely difficult to make decisive decisions on matters you do not understand. Thus, the need to rely on outsourced services - but if you have no appreciation for optimization concepts how do, you tell a credible SEO from a snake oil one?

This is a catch-22 equation. In reality - unless you share vast knowledge, skills and Internet perceptiveness to prove your credibility, and develop your competitive advantage, which provides the reason a potential client will develop with you.

I often hear - "if I give it all away, they will just do it themselves".

Sure, this is risk management - protecting your unique knowledge and skills to develop anyone as a client means losing those clients that need you to show your service integrity.

There are three types of business people:

1. The Entrepreneur Perspective - Lots of time and limited financial resources. If this group can save expenses by doing it themselves, they will.

2. The Non-Believer Perspective - I had a website for 5 year now, and not one sale. The Internet is a fad that cannot help my business.

3. The Forward Thinking Perspective - My business is successful and I know how to run it. I do not have time to learn about SEO concepts and need someone I trust to do this for me.

Do not waste time concerning yourself about the entrepreneur, when they do develop success and become a forward thinker they are more likely to return to the firm that that got "solid free advice".

Do not even attempt to target the non-believer. They are quite right -- the Internet is a fad that will not help their business and no amount of persuading from you will change that perspective.

Your target market is group #3. Trade secrecy will not work well with this group. Displayed knowledge and expertise, credibility of client referrals, and your own integrity will develop a success SEO business.

Thanks Fathom, excellent post.

I'm only just learning the SEO trade at the moment, what you say here about target markets etc. makes perfect sense and is something that I hadn't given a lot of thought to yet... I'm already thinking about it some more, it's definitely a critical business issue.

Keep up the good posts, I'm learning a lot from this forum (and others), and always look forward to reading your posts, it's obvious you put a lot of thought into them.