Ok I have a small web hosting company, added SEO to my mix what I can do for clients. Called a friend I designed and host his site, told him about it -- his response about bleeping time, so he ordered a new site and some basic work -- guy is so cheap he still has the first dime he ever stole! Went into a local metal roof supply, said do you know how bad your site is? Was told yes, we have someone working on it.(Joomla site) I said ok, but why does your title tags show about us. products, etc? Explained this was a few minute fix, why not done? Went through the whole site that way. Then pointed out didnt rank for products on local search -- in a town of 1000!

Left my card and a brochure -- I will get this sale!!!!! If your new at sales, dont sell -- HELP! I pointed out how a unified strategy of facebook, twitter and a good site will make them more money! I offered help, not selling and that will make the sale every time!

Less than 200 bucks to my name, I might have to go drive for a bit but I WILL be making a living of my SEO company by 1/1/2012!!!!!!!! need 5 to 6 customers to start, 350 to 500 each!!!! I can raise prices later! Monday a new rv park with a homemade site!!!!

I will be posting on this about how the biz goes and my own sites too -- have 3 sites done to use for adsense and affiliates!

Like we said in the service Lead, Follow or get the F out of my way and I AM ON MY WAY!!!!!!

Also mailing out 30 brochures for Monday, another 170 over the week!

Yep offering to help works just about every time.

Something else you can do but cost money. Every other month i pull the list for the business that just filed for a sales tax license. I send a post card mail out this last mail out was 8500 names. I do a start up package basic site, logo, business card, letter head, and brochure.

I get an ok response from it and make my money back. What i am finding now is companies that i mailed out to over a year ago are now calling in.

Best of luck to you. Takes a little hard work at first.

Put a game plan together when you get those customers on what you are going to do each day or things will get out of hand fast.

I can get the latest lists for inc filing for free, so like that idea. Yeah once I get a few more customers, will need to structure my day better. Need to sell my tractor to give me enough money to live untill I get some customers.

Went through the yellow pages last night, 10 more brochures to mail -- doing them by hand, but each one gets loaded into excel to build up a mailing list for later, and 2 companies with lousy websites that I will cold call.

Cheers to that, after working 8 months for a small SEO firm with bad money management. I decided/was forced to do the same thing. All smooth sailing. Good Luck!

Good luck to you...I am on a similar journey. One great idea is to make WordPress Templates for local niches and just reuse them for other locations. Target all the businesses in that niche within a 50 mile radius. Now you can dramatically reduce your costs for developing your website design. Most local niches have just terrible sites. You can even do very cheap moch ups and contact them and say your a new design company and want to offer a reduced rate to get referrals.

I have a friend who had almost the same experience and now he is going well.

Ok Sunday, had to force myself to do some work. Printed out contracts and paperwork, looked at a local site and did a report on the flaws, going there in the am to coldcall! Every day do something I do not want to go back on the road!

So in order to get this $350 to $500 income what do you offer? A new website and SEO? Guaranteed SEO? A monthly fee to maintain their SEO and website needs? If so, how much is your monthly fee? How do you determine what to charge? Does it completely depend upon the keywords and how much work the website will be or does the nature and size of a business also factor in?

good work spirit, never accept failure and you'll be doing better than 95 percent

I offer SEO only for that price, and it is based on company size and keywords. For a 1 or 2 person shop it will start at 500 and up. I have also added in the price list a cheaper($200) option which is just white hat link building. For the bigger package, i also include video, press release the whole deal.
A new WP site for me starts at 300 if they supply content, 500 if I do the writing. Both those prices include hosting for the year and about 15 to 20 plugins for security, speed and ease of use.
I passed out 8 brochures yesterday cold, did 2 presentations, had 1 call back this am about redoing the site for WP next week. Just sent them a basic SEO report on what pages they dont show up in, and a price list.
One problem in this area is going to be cost, might have to start spending time in Nashville and Jackson. I am very surprised to see the poor quality websites being offered!
Will be in Illinois Wed, have a friend there I hope to get some business thru. Hes a heck of a salesman!

It sounds like a very interesting journey you are following, Here's another free angle for you...

You say you own a "small hosting company", how does another 30 customer per month sound?

Go to "hosting-reviews dot CO dot UK" and add your hosting services, it's free.
Then spend about an hour answering FAQ's and maybe writing a tutorial or two and you will soon get your hosting company into the top 10 on the site.

The top hosts on that site receive around 30 new customers per month and their is no affiliate links or ads on the site it's a genuine review site!

When you start getting customers, take a look at their website if they are moving over to you, or include web Design/SEO offers during the sign-up you should pick up at least a couple of design jobs every month.

I hope that helps you

Best regards
Arran Wood

Thanks for the suggestions, will be using them all. I like the WP template idea, have a couple to use for that already. Signed for the hosting review site, will have the number 1 or 2 spot by monday! Will meet with a friend in the am, he is an insurance salesman, hope i can get some referrals.

keep up the great work. In no time you will be a player. You know you are making head way when you start having reps from other seo companies in your area calling as asking if you have any jobs open.

Also start looking into who the other companies are working. I found several companies that were paying 20k a month for seo for something that they should be only spending 5 k for.

My call went like this what if i can show you how to save 15k a month and still keep the same amount of traffic or more would you be interested? Answer was yes.

Went in and showed them what was being done now and what could be done.
all said and done a new customer at 5k a month.

other company is not too happy. thats 3 customers that i have taken from them so far.

I dont feel bad they have been around for years and they are a public traded company. So i figure i would take all their customers and then go public with my company and then take all the stock investors. lol

just kidding would never go public with the company.

Well slow day, one guy got hold of me about doing adding plugins(20 or so per site) to about 10 sites. Quoted a price per site and per group, also quoted some seo prices if he sends some biz my way. Did some reading, got some folders to start organizing stuff. Well more in the am, have 2 wp sites I would like done by Monday, hope to sell my tractor this weekend, if I do will give me a chance to stay home for a month and get this going!

Keep up the good work man I am starting something similar and will be following your progress!

Ok lazy day, spent most of it hauling water and visiting some plain people friends. Did some link building on my hosting site and 3 other sites with a trial copy of no hands seo. Wrote a 500 word press release yesterday and released it on a site.Will spin and add to some others including mine. Did do some reading as well and some planing for the next steps. Have 100 perfect brochures to pick up Monday and start sending out.

Had to go back to trucking to keep the bills paid while I get this started. Will be getting new servers in Jan for my hosting company, and right now working on seo. Have taken one new money site and today was on page 1 in Google! My hosting has gone to page 2 for a fairly competitive keyword, and has broke 100 for an exrtremely competetive keyword! Another new money site isnt doing too good in Google right now, in the month since I created it, has gone from as high as 24 to 94 right now. But it is doing ok in Bing and Yahoo. So far everything looks good for a start!

Originally Posted by SpiderMonkeyATX

keep up the great work. In no time you will be a player. You know you are making head way when you start having reps from other seo companies in your area calling as asking if you have any jobs open.

Also start looking into who the other companies are working. I found several companies that were paying 20k a month for seo for something that they should be only spending 5 k for.

My call went like this what if i can show you how to save 15k a month and still keep the same amount of traffic or more would you be interested? Answer was yes.

Went in and showed them what was being done now and what could be done.
all said and done a new customer at 5k a month.

other company is not too happy. thats 3 customers that i have taken from them so far.

I dont feel bad they have been around for years and they are a public traded company. So i figure i would take all their customers and then go public with my company and then take all the stock investors. lol

just kidding would never go public with the company.

How did you find out how much their customers were paying for SEO on a monthly basis? Lol that should be some confidential information, but if it was public that would be insane (great way to capture the decision makers attention)!

Ok been a while since I posted here, been working hard! Driving full time will keep my bills from overwhelming me, but hurts my time online. But heres whats been done lately:
1. Have 7 web 2.0 sites now with all original content, 1 or 2 posts each
2. Have made/working on 7 rental sites, 2 done, 2 are usable but need more posts, rest are themed but may not have all plugins yet
3. did a fiver link to my hosting company site
4. have contacted a friend of my sis, he does wp and seo for a living -- been talking to him about helping for a while, sent him 4 of the rental sites, now he wants to talk on the phone.
5. Just scraped 2000 addresses from yellow pages, have stamped 100 full color trifold brochures, will print labels monday and mail. Am going to do some general mailings as well as targeted.
6. Need to go sell a new design to a company!
Well that is all for last year, now to MAKE MONEY!!!

Congrats! You are on the right track. I know you are looking for ways to get more biz. I just created a thread here in Offline where I talk about how I got my first clients as well. I am using a report method.

In the spirit of helping - hope this helps.

Redhill