Conversion Matters

Earlier today I received an email asking for advice about starting an SEO business:

“I’ve been reading your blog and website a fair bit recently. In April of this year, I set up my own SEO company as a part-time venture whilst still working as an in-house SEO for a British company. I’m looking for this to become a full-time venture shortly and wondered what advice you could give to a young, enthusiastic person who really wants to do things the right way and make the most of this.”

I can only assume that he is yet to check out my about page, where he would discover I am also just a young, enthusiastic person, with no experience running a company (yet). My only experience is experimenting on my own projects with various different business models/monetization ideas.

Nevertheless, always one to provide as much help as possible, I have tapped into the knowledge of some industry contacts and other entrepreneurs, as well as my own advice to hopefully provide a few key points and tips that may help you succeed - it’s actually more than five but you have to try and write catchy headlines right?

5 tips for starting a business

Firstly we have five ‘top tips’ from a successful entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of an SEO/web development agency:

1. Never give up - resilience/persistence/stubbornness whatever you call it, it’s the most important thing. Even when things are really, really bad you have to believe that you will make it. In my experience the only difference between people who make a success out of their businesses and those who don’t are the ones who DON’T GIVE UP no matter how awful it gets (it can get pretty awful…).
2. It’s all about the people - you can’t do it on your own, find and keep only the best people and make them part of your ‘family’.
3. Cash-flow is king - Make everyone pay at least a part up front before you start any work and collect the final money before you hand over the last bit of the job. 90% of businesses fail because they don’t manage their cash-flow and they hate asking customers for money.
4. Make decisions quickly - don’t agitate over what to do in any situation, choose one of the options you’ve got and go for it. Plenty of people get paralysed by all the things to decide on and end up getting stuck. Martin Sorrell (head of global media company WPP has a great quote “a bad decision on Monday is better than a good decision on Friday” ) - in other words just keep things moving quickly on by being decisive, you can always change your mind if it isn’t working.
5. Have fun - if you love what you do it isn’t a job, it’s a way of life. And if you love what you do you’re going to be great at it anyway.

Advice from an SEO

The following tips are from the perspective of a pure SEO professional:

1. Do not to over promise on jobs
2. Accept only what is achievable according to a detailed project plan
3. Develop a network of other like minded talented individuals that you can pass off work to in the event that you can’t fulfil yourself

She also finished up with going to an agency but I guess that’s not really what you had in mind!

Thoughts from a freelancer

The following advice comes from someone who has recently branched out into freelance education and training consultancy. While that is obviously very different to search engine optimisation, the general business principles are still relevant:

1. Don’t ask people for a job or work - it will only embarrass them if they haven’t got anything to offer. Instead, tell them about the service you are able to offer and ask them if they have any contacts who it would be worth speaking to (if they are interested themselves, they will say so).
2. It’s a pyramid - you have a few contacts, they each have more contacts and so on. The majority of work offers come from second/third-hand contacts. Find out if people are happy for you to give them a call every few months to update them on progress - if they’re not interested they’ll say so.
3. Be clear about what you do have to offer - provide examples (where
   possible) of real products/activities/experience. Don’t over-promise, but make it clear that you have relevant and specialist expertise.
4. Look at the fees charged by others working in the sector - establish a range of fees depending on the timescale and complexity of the work - don’t overcharge and definitely don’t undercharge to get work.
5. Develop a business plan - include targets (turnover/profits etc) - be ambitious, but realistically so.

The marketing mix

I want to take a quick look at three of the four ‘P’s of the marketing mix (place isn’t applicable on the web).

Pricing

Do not undersell yourself at the start. It can be easy to think that the only way to successfully compete with other SEOs and agencies will be by charging less than them.

While this may work in the short-term, it will mean you have to work harder for the same money as others. It will also mean if you decide to change your rates in the future some of your initial clients will be unwilling or unable to pay the higher fees and you may be in a position of having to completely rebuild your client base.

If you really feel you do need work on a project for free or cheaply to get your foot in the door, then look at some of the Non-Profit Organisations or charities and see if there is anything you can do to help them out.

This way, you get to feel good about yourself for giving away your services, you won’t feel demotivated due to feeling like your being exploited by large companies, and you’ll [hopefully] have some great recommendations from the project.

If I was just starting an SEO or web development business I’d probably be a bit unsure of how to price myself and I think the best way to solve that would be to conduct some market research. Now I’m not sure how easy this would be but I’d suggest working out who you consider to be you’re competitors and phoning up asking for a quote.

Maybe only a few will give you an actual figure but it’s at least a reference for when you decide on your own rates. Also check out this post from SEOmoz about SEO pricing. It’s pretty thorough and although it’s in $dollars it’s another good reference to use when deciding upon rates.

Product

What are your core competencies? Try and work out what about SEO you most enjoy and are best at. Is it link building, content creation or viral marketing? Once you’ve found out what your core competency is, focus on it as it is going to be your competitive advantage over other SEOs and agencies.

I’m not saying turn down work just because it’s not what you’re best at but do seriously consider if you’re going to be able to provide a level of service that you would want the prospective client to tell other people about. If not, don’t just say no, refer them to someone else who can provide the services.

This means your still adding value to the prospective client and you’re networking with other SEOs and agencies (in the hope that they might throw some work back in your direction).

Promotion

Blogging is a great way to market yourself as a freelancer or small business. It’s an avenue for showing your expertise on certain topics. It’s also a great way to network with other talented individuals in your industry by linking out to relevant articles.

While my blog is not technically a business front, I am using it for brand building and I have had a few business enquiries through the blog. I want people to read this blog and learn from the blog as I learn so that in three years time when I come out of university I’m going to have something else to differentiate myself from all the other graduates with a 2.1 in Computer Science.

The same can be applied to business blogging. It’s a way to differentiate yourself from all the other SEOs and agencies. Blogging can also be a sideline of revenue depending on how well it takes off. There’s a great article on freelanceswitch about the five reasons freelancers should blog.

Final thoughts

You need to be passionate about search engine optimisation, or any other industry you want to start a business around, so that you’re willing to continuously learn about the topic.

I would suggest stuffing your RSS reader with as many relevant blogs as you can handle, I mentioned quite a few SEO blogs here.

Don’t forget to network like crazy!

You should probably focus on ROI as much as possible. I imagine that is where the industry is headed.

Don’t give up and Good Luck!