If you are a web designer or developer, you may be thinking about how you can grow your business this year. Selling more website-related projects is one option. Adding a brand new (and complementary) service — SEO — is another. Here's what you need to know about offering SEO services as a value add for your clients.
Benefits of Offering SEO Services
Adding SEO to your services comes with several benefits including:
- Maintain and Improve Relationships — SEO requires ongoing collaboration and partnership, so you’ll have a reason to communicate more regularly. Offering SEO services creates an opportunity to deepen a client relationship as you work together to help their business evolve and grow.
- Solve a Problem — Getting found in Google is a nearly universal problem and if you’re offering SEO services, you can help. Your clients need your expertise to guide them in the right direction.
- Win New Business — Your sales process will be more competitive because you will offer a more comprehensive solution to your customers’ big need which is driving new business and generating new sales.
- You are Already Doing SEO — Site speed, user experience, responsive design sound familiar… you are already checking the box on elements that the search engines value. Let’s get you credit.
- Build Recurring Revenue – SEO is a great add-on service that complements your existing monthly maintenance contracts. It’s scalable, it’s predictable, and it is best done and billed on a monthly basis.
Hesitant to Offer SEO Services?
Adding a new service to your business is a big decision. Once you put it out there and take on clients, you’re committed. To evaluate whether it’s the right move for you consider the counterarguments.
Here’s why you might not feel equipped to offer SEO services:
- Lack of SEO Expertise – We often hear freelancers and agencies express concern about depth of expertise. It can be nerve-wracking to start a new service, and it’s understandable that you want to be prepared. What we’ve found, though, is that you don’t need to be a cutting-edge SEO expert to be able to offer great value and provide results. Instead, you need the right process. A proven series of steps to follow and complete so you know you’re delivering the right amount of service.
- SEO Changes Too Much – It’s inevitable, isn’t it? Just as you’re hitting your SEO stride, Google will release an algorithm update. Don't fret. A holistic approach to SEO will see you through. If you follow SEO best practices long-term, you’ll begin to realize that SEO evolves more than it changes. With that being said, it's easier to stay up-to-date with than most might imagine.
- SEO is Overwhelming – There are so many tools and so much data in the SEO landscape; it’s hard to discern what you need to do and what flags are just noise. At Pathfinder SEO, we’ve used our experience and expertise to develop a solution that includes exactly what freelancers and agencies need — a process, tools, and a coach — to make SEO accessible and actionable.
Put Yourself In Your Client’s Shoes
Let’s step back and remember your customer’s pain at this junction. When your customer hears “SEO,” they may say it’s too expensive, too complicated, there’s too much data, or it takes too much time.
You can overcome all of these hurdles with your customers. Remind them that SEO services will increase their sales, leads, and traffic. Their investment will be more than paid for, and they’ll establish a long-lasting foundation that will continue to reap search engine rewards.
For your own business, offering SEO services means increased recurring revenue, as well as more stability and predictability.
The Ingredients for Success
Interested in adding SEO services to your web design and development business? Here are the next steps:
- Create a packaging and pricing model.
- Start selling your services to new or existing clients.
- Follow a proven process to deliver the services and create value for both you and your customer.
Want to learn more about growing your business with SEO? Check out the SEO as a Service section of our Field Guide to SEO.
Want a consultation with a Pathfinder SEO coach to better assess if offering SEO services makes sense for your business? Request a demo here.
