How to Start an SEO Agency (2024)

so 90% of SEO businesses fail to reach $1 million per year because they're making seven critical mistakes and I only know this because my business plateaued at $30,000 per month but when I finally fixed these seven mistakes you're about to learn my SEO business Revenue skyrocketed I'm Nathan gotch the founder of got SEO Academy and rankability and the author of The SEO entrepreneur since 2013 I've sold millions of dollars of SEO service is and SEO training and today I want to help you avoid the many mistakes I made along the way so let's start with mistake number one which is not niching down so when you try to appeal to everyone you appeal to No One my friend Chris Dryer understands this and it's why he's built an eight fig SEO agency but before he struck gold Chris was like everyone else he tried affiliate marketing Niche sites taking any client that came along then one day he focused 100% of his effort on attracting personal injury lawyers as SEO clients and now his agency rankings. is the go-to option for personal injury lawyers who want SEO help so here's the deal it's a red ocean if you start a generic vague SEO agency but it becomes a blue ocean when you focus on one specific Niche think about Amazon you see it as the monster that it is today but don't forget where it started they only sold books online and how how about Loom which just sold for nearly a billion dollar and it does one thing really well screen recordings now you might be wondering what Niche should you get into well make sure you watch until the end because I'll share something that might help mistake number two is acting like a big agency so never pretend to be bigger than you are and I see this mistake too often and it eliminates the biggest opportunity that you have the truth is when you're small you have advantages that big agencies don't the biggest is a personal touch with the actual expert most agencies get so big that they assign inexperienced interns or entrylevel people to SEO campaigns and that's why you need to double down on the fact that you're small for example here's got seo.com Circa 2013 I didn't know back then but being super personal was highly effective for getting SEO clients and businesses prefer to work with the actual expert instead of just being another number on a roster so take that opportunity to get super personal and show your face and tell your prospective clients you will work directly with them assure them that you're the one who's leading their campaign and that they're in good hands mistake number three is focusing too much on getting leads now here's a catch 22 you need new leads and clients to grow your business but you also need to get these clients results or they'll cancel your services so what should you focus on well first you need to focus on building your SEO portfolio as fast as possible that means you'll need to do work that you might believe is below you this is called eating dirt what or paying your dues and it's a requirement if you're trying to break into a niche and once you've landed a handful of clients you must retain them as long as possible and you may have seen this statistic before according to Harvard getting a new client is five to 25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one and that's why retain ion is the key to long-term success in an SEO business so then the question is how do you retain your clients well there are two ways number one results and number two client experience and you need both of these to keep clients from churning mistake number four is thinking you can Outsource everything I personally love Outsourcing but it's the worst move when you're early on in your SEO business Journey you already know that client retention is the number one variable for long-term success and 50% or more of that equation is based on your ability to drive SEO results you can Outsource it but you'll be chasing your tail and bouncing from one contractor to another all of which have their own philosophies systems and theories and guess who suffers your client so if you're serious about building a long-term cash generating machine like an agency you must build SEO systems and systems are the only way to get consistent out outcomes for your clients mistake number five is endless posting on social media so are you trying to be an influencer or are you trying to get clients well if you're here I'm going to guess that you want more SEO clients and I can tell you this endlessly posting on social media to rack up vanity metrics is the worst path here's the secret that most successful agencies will never tell you the best SEO leads actually come from referrals so how do you get more referrals well you guessed it by getting your clients incredible results and you don't need social media to build a successful SEO business in fact there are dozens of other lead generation techniques that are far superior than social media mistake number six is thinking you need tons of experience to start an SEO business I've spoken with hundreds of agency owners consultants and Freelancers over the years and guess what the number one roadblock is it's impostor syndrome most early entrepreneurs think they need tons of case studies testimonials and years of experience to start taking on clients but there is nothing further from the truth in fact when I started taking on clients I only had a portfolio of results from my Niche projects and only about a year of SEO experience listen you don't need tons of experience you only need some results to prove you know what you're doing then all you need to do is price your services based on your current experience level and it's honestly embarrassing to admit that this but my first SEO retainer was for a whopping $100 per month and I took eating dirt to a new level in 2013 but that small sacrifice now allows me to charge $10,000 per month for SEO services so mistake number seven is having superhero syndrome now each of these mistakes I've shared today will decrease your odds of success but the most devastating mistake is having superhero syndrome and I only know this because I'm the most guilty of this I was the biggest bottleneck in my SEO business when I started instead of getting help I tried to squeeze every penny and convince myself that hard work was smart I was dead wrong I discovered that working hard and struggling to figure things out yourself is a massive waste of time here's the truth you are not rewarded based on how many hours you work and you don't get a medal for struggling to figure things out instead you get lots of stress bad results and a big business hanging on for dear life now the good news is it doesn't have to be that way you don't need to work any harder and you don't need to figure it all out on your own so here's what to do instead find someone who has already achieved your desired goal and learn from them this is the biggest secret to success it's simple learn from someone ahead of you to skip ahead and avoid making many of their mistakes like one of my got SEO Academy students Jared Tangier who went from working a 9 to-5 job to building an SEO agent agency making over $50,000 per month in only a year it took me almost 3 years to get to Jared's level because I was trying to be a superhero so don't be like old me instead find a coach and mentor to guide you so speaking of that you have two options number one invest in the SEO entrepreneur book this book will show you how to start an SEO business from scratch without any experience it sold over 2,000 copies and it has a 4.8 on Amazon with 60 reviews I highly recommend this book if you're below $10,000 per month in your SEO business number two is apply for got SEO Academy if you're making more than $10,000 per month and you want to go to the next level we have six seven and even eight figure agencies who use our systems to scale I'll have links below for both thank you so much and I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Nathan Gotch

Views: 4,332

Keywords: how to start an seo agency, seo agency business plan, start seo agency

Id: 6pDEQJs0ll0

Length: 8min 21sec (501 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024