The Ultimate Guide to Selling SEO to Local Businesses: What & How?
Offering SEO to local businesses has been a key part of any business. We believe selling websites and SEO to local businesses is one of the easiest ways to make money as a freelancer, especially when you're just starting out. So there are three stages to selling SEO to local businesses: knowing what to sell, knowing how to sell it, and knowing how to deliver it.
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What to Sell
The first phase is knowing what to sell. You can’t just tell local businesses that you’re selling SEO in general because that’s what everyone else is doing. It won’t appeal to prospects, and it will be hard to set expectations. Instead, you should offer specific SEO packages with clear deliverables and prices. If you don’t, you might either not make enough money or fail to deliver good results for your clients.
Here are two tips. First, now is a great time to sell SEO because people understand what SEO is, or at least know it’s important. It’s common knowledge that SEO and Google rankings are important for local businesses. So, most people will agree with you that it’s something they need, and your job is to show them how to fill that need.
The second tip is don’t promise or guarantee results, especially when you’re just starting out. Telling clients they’ll rank number one on Google can be risky since you’re still building your skills. Instead of promising results, focus on following a proven process and offering guaranteed deliverables every month. This way, you won’t feel the pressure to guarantee rankings, since Google controls rankings, not you. As you gain more experience, you can consider promising results, but for now, focus on packages, deliverables, and a proven process.
One more tip: prospects may want proof or a case study. We recommend ranking at least one site before selling SEO. The best way to do this is to rank your own agency’s site locally. This will serve as a perfect case study and help you land new clients.
When we talk about deliverables, we mean the actual services you will provide each month. Some examples of deliverables include monthly blog articles, backlinks, and local citations. These are things clients will see. Another important point: these packages are based on at least a six-month agreement. We recommend going even longer if possible. Getting clients locked in for longer gives you more time to show results. You don’t want to offer SEO on a month-to-month basis because by months two or three, they might not see results and will cancel. But if you can lock them in for 6, 9, or 12 months, you’ll have enough time to deliver results and keep them as clients.
The main thing is that you should have your packages clearly laid out like this. Then you can figure out your expenses and profit margins. The goal is to outsource most of the work so it gets done properly without taking up too much of your time.
The first phase is knowing what to sell. You can’t just tell local businesses that you’re selling SEO in general because that’s what everyone else is doing. It won’t appeal to prospects, and it will be hard to set expectations. Instead, you should offer specific SEO packages with clear deliverables and prices. If you don’t, you might either not make enough money or fail to deliver good results for your clients.
Here are two tips. First, now is a great time to sell SEO because people understand what SEO is, or at least know it’s important. It’s common knowledge that SEO and Google rankings are important for local businesses. So, most people will agree with you that it’s something they need, and your job is to show them how to fill that need.
The second tip is don’t promise or guarantee results, especially when you’re just starting out. Telling clients they’ll rank number one on Google can be risky since you’re still building your skills. Instead of promising results, focus on following a proven process and offering guaranteed deliverables every month. This way, you won’t feel the pressure to guarantee rankings, since Google controls rankings, not you. As you gain more experience, you can consider promising results, but for now, focus on packages, deliverables, and a proven process.
One more tip: prospects may want proof or a case study. We recommend ranking at least one site before selling SEO. The best way to do this is to rank your own agency’s site locally. This will serve as a perfect case study and help you land new clients.
When we talk about deliverables, we mean the actual services you will provide each month. Some examples of deliverables include monthly blog articles, backlinks, and local citations. These are things clients will see. Another important point: these packages are based on at least a six-month agreement. We recommend going even longer if possible. Getting clients locked in for longer gives you more time to show results. You don’t want to offer SEO on a month-to-month basis because by months two or three, they might not see results and will cancel. But if you can lock them in for 6, 9, or 12 months, you’ll have enough time to deliver results and keep them as clients.
The main thing is that you should have your packages clearly laid out like this. Then you can figure out your expenses and profit margins. The goal is to outsource most of the work so it gets done properly without taking up too much of your time.
How to Sell It
Now that you know what you’re selling, let’s talk about how to sell it. The first step is to identify what type of prospect you’re dealing with. This will determine how you approach them, talk to them, and sell to them.
There are three types of prospects:
1. Prospects who already understand SEO and are doing it to some extent. They may be doing it themselves, have an agency, or have someone like their nephew doing it. These prospects are good because they already know they need SEO and have a budget for it. Your job is to figure out if their current strategy is working. Do some research, run an audit on their website, check their traffic, and see if they have good rankings. You might find areas where you can provide more value than whoever is currently handling their SEO.
2. Prospects who know SEO is important but aren’t doing anything with it. These prospects may be overwhelmed with other marketing tasks, don’t think they have the budget, or had a bad experience with a previous SEO agency. Once you understand why they’re not doing SEO, you can adjust your sales approach. Often, these clients just want to feel heard, and if you can address their concerns, they’ll be more likely to hire you.
3. Prospects who don’t know what SEO is or don’t understand how important it is. This is rare, but these prospects are harder to sell to. In addition to convincing them to hire you, you’ll have to sell them on the importance of SEO itself. This adds an extra challenge to the sales process.
Now that you know how to identify different types of prospects, let’s discuss ways to grab their attention and get them to hire you.
The first strategy is upselling your website clients. If you’ve just completed a website project for a client, it’s a great time to offer an SEO package. Or, you could bundle SEO into the website package and have them pay for both at once or split the payments. This increases the chances they’ll stay with you long-term because they’ll be paying for both the website and SEO.
If you don’t have website clients, here are some other strategies:
● Offer free site audits: You can run a quick audit with SEO tools and share the results with prospects. This could be through cold emails, cold calls, or with businesses you already know. Go to them and say, "Hi, I checked your website for SEO and have some ideas to improve it. Can I share them with you?" This way, you can help first before asking them to hire you.
● Target businesses with bad or no Google reviews: These businesses could benefit from your work. You can help them get reviews and optimize their Google Business profile, helping them appear more on Google Maps.
● Offer a free trial: I don’t usually recommend this, but if you think a prospect is a great fit, you could offer a one-month trial. This might include setting up their Google profile, doing some reputation management, or doing basic SEO to show them what it’s like to work with you. Providing immediate value helps build trust.
● Rank your own website: If you can rank your website and get traffic, you can sell those leads to businesses. It’s much easier to approach prospects when you have a website that shows rankings and generates leads for you.
Selling SEO to local businesses involves three main steps: knowing what to sell, how to sell it, and how to deliver good results. First, offer clear SEO packages with services like blog posts, backlinks, and local citations. Don’t promise to get clients to number one on Google, especially when you’re just starting. Focus on providing consistent, quality work.
Second, understand your potential clients. Some may already know about SEO, while others might not. Adjust your approach based on what they know. You can offer free website audits, upsell SEO to website clients, or help businesses with bad reviews.
Finally, prove your skills by ranking your own website. This shows clients you know what you’re doing. By offering value and building trust, you can create long-lasting client relationships and grow your SEO business. Patience, consistency, and good communication are the keys to success in SEO.
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