Here's What I Learnt Doing $150k/Month Last Year on SEO & Content

[Deleted member 1024843]

Note: Can't seem to change the title, so I will just write it here. Its not $150k/month. It is $150k/year. I wish it was $150k/month though

I will keep this thread short, with a hope that there will be a decent business discussion in the comments and we will all learn something from each other.

Our business primarily makes money via two services. Those are content production & our Monthly SEO Service. Then we also have our affiliate site and lead gen part which I won't dig deep into.

For the content, pretty much 100% of our clients are Bloggers & Affiliate Marketers. For SEO, it is a mix. 50% of them are local businesses & the other 50% would be affiliate marketers + Bloggers.

Here's what I learnt and would suggest to anyone who's going to offer marketing services:

1. Try to be on phone with your clients once a month (must if you are working with local businesses). About 50% of them will never open any of your reports and nothing really means anything to them unless you explain it properly and they see phone calls / email leads.

Don't try to educate them on White, Black Hat, backlinks and SEO lingos. It will backfire. On the other hand, if you are working on a regular affiliate blog, feel free to educate them as much as you want. They will appreciate it.

2. Try to send them a report in mid-month. We have tried this and it has worked really well. Instead of sending a report right before the billing date (which we used to do), now we send them a report mid month.

This helps us be organic and doesn't feel like we are sending a quick report because we gotta send an invoice the next day.

3. We use a combo of 2Checkout + PayPal as our payment gateway. They both work fine for us but 2Checkout honestly has one of the worst customer care on planet earth. Your ticket will be open for weeks. But they always pay on time which is good.

4. Try to offer some sort of a rank or refund deal, specially if you are serving to other internet marketers. I know you have been working hard on those audits and backlinks but at the end of the day, they mean nothing if you can't rank a client higher, right?

5. Be open and honest with everything. Trust me, this works. I used to be one of those who always tried to cut corners or at least, fluff the client with stuff we did. Instead of saying, we built a new website for you this month, we used to say we built 20 pages, added Analytics, Search Console and used to make it feel like a big thing.

We changed our approach last year and it worked just fine.

I would love to know some of your thoughts around serving clients & running SEO-ish businesses. What did you learn? What has your experience been like?

 

[Mr Positive]

This is a nice guide however I’m waiting for some arguments to happen regarding the fourth point, though if implemented it will be really nice, but then again what’s to stop Einstein’s to claim a refund everytime, a due process would be needed but if sellers can do it that’ll be really nice.

 

[Deleted member 1024843]

This is a nice guide however I’m waiting for some arguments to happen regarding the fourth point, though if implemented it will be really nice, but then again what’s to stop Einstein’s to claim a refund everytime, a due process would be needed but if sellers can do it that’ll be really nice.

I know, it is a grey area. What we did is, we always offered a refund if we couldn't improve any of the 20-40 keywords we targeted in 3 months. That's fair I would say for most SEOs. If you are working on 20 keywords and if you can't even improve one of them in 3 months, you should not be a SEO (Unless the site is in Sandbox or one of those weird cases).

 

[siimv890]

Hi, really good info!
How you find new clients?

 

[Sherb]

Interesting take. Here are my thoughts on each point:

1. Try to be on phone with your clients once a month (must if you are working with local businesses). About 50% of them will never open any of your reports and nothing really means anything to them unless you explain it properly and they see phone calls / email leads. Don't try to educate them on White, Black Hat, backlinks and SEO lingos. It will backfire. On the other hand, if you are working on a regular affiliate blog, feel free to educate them as much as you want. They will appreciate it.

When I did ORM, I had a hard and fast rule of no phone calls unless absolutely necessary. Almost all phone calls could have easily been emails. If they don't get the email concept, drop them before things turn into a clusterfuck. I dropped a 70-year old woman as a $2k per month easy SEO client because she couldn't understand how to attach an image to an email and instead literally snail-mailed me a cut out picture of her logo. The phone is a gateway to you expecting to be always available. No phone, no instant messenger. Email me if you need something, otherwise leave me alone.

2. Try to send them a report in mid-month. We have tried this and it has worked really well. Instead of sending a report right before the billing date (which we used to do), now we send them a report mid month. This helps us be organic and doesn't feel like we are sending a quick report because we gotta send an invoice the next day.

My clients would get a "five bullet Friday" where I would quickly outline five bullets that were handled that week. Nobody who needs SEO services reads reports. Unless auto-generated, it's wasted time that could be spent on their project instead. I like the mid-month concept though. Makes things not seem rushed to ensure a payment is made.

3. We use a combo of 2Checkout + PayPal as our payment gateway. They both work fine for us but 2Checkout honestly has one of the worst customer care on planet earth. Your ticket will be open for weeks. But they always pay on time which is good.

For local SEO and ORM, paper checks or wire transfers or adios. For clients $1,000 a month or more, it's unsafe transferring that much money in and out of PayPal accounts. Bank to bank, no middleman needed. At least here in the US.

4. Try to offer some sort of a rank or refund deal, specially if you are serving to other internet marketers. I know you have been working hard on those audits and backlinks but at the end of the day, they mean nothing if you can't rank a client higher, right?

I categorize and self-fund and would never offer refunds for lack of results, especially if the client has say in the published content onsite. So ORM client 1 pays me $4,000 in advance, $1,500 of that is earmarked to project expenses, $1,000 to taxes, and $1,500 is mine for labor involved. Repeat times six, and keyword advancements are minimal due to competitiveness, but are moving in a good direction. That's $9,000 you've spent on the project and $9,000 in your pocket. It doesn't matter if the results aren't yet what is expected. Never make promises, never make guarantees, never refund for SEO. If your client doesn't understand that you aren't a magician, drop them.

5. Be open and honest with everything. Trust me, this works. I used to be one of those who always tried to cut corners or at least, fluff the client with stuff we did. Instead of saying, we built a new website for you this month, we used to say we built 20 pages, added Analytics, Search Console and used to make it feel like a big thing.

There should always be full transparency. Good bullet.

 

[Deleted member 1024843]

Hi, really good info!
How you find new clients?

Sales calls (cold), and cold emails....

Interesting take. Here are my thoughts on each point:

When I did ORM, I had a hard and fast rule of no phone calls unless absolutely necessary. Almost all phone calls could have easily been emails. If they don't get the email concept, drop them before things turn into a clusterfuck. I dropped a 70-year old woman as a $2k per month easy SEO client because she couldn't understand how to attach an image to an email and instead literally snail-mailed me a cut out picture of her logo. The phone is a gateway to you expecting to be always available. No phone, no instant messenger. Email me if you need something, otherwise leave me alone.

My clients would get a "five bullet Friday" where I would quickly outline five bullets that were handled that week. Nobody who needs SEO services reads reports. Unless auto-generated, it's wasted time that could be spent on their project instead. I like the mid-month concept though. Makes things not seem rushed to ensure a payment is made.

For local SEO and ORM, paper checks or wire transfers or adios. For clients $1,000 a month or more, it's unsafe transferring that much money in and out of PayPal accounts. Bank to bank, no middleman needed. At least here in the US.

I categorize and self-fund and would never offer refunds for lack of results, especially if the client has say in the published content onsite. So ORM client 1 pays me $4,000 in advance, $1,500 of that is earmarked to project expenses, $1,000 to taxes, and $1,500 is mine for labor involved. Repeat times six, and keyword advancements are minimal due to competitiveness, but are moving in a good direction. That's $9,000 you've spent on the project and $9,000 in your pocket. It doesn't matter if the results aren't yet what is expected. Never make promises, never make guarantees, never refund for SEO. If your client doesn't understand that you aren't a magician, drop them.
There should always be full transparency. Good bullet.

Good stuff. About the gateway, I actually am originally from Bangladesh (now living in Ireland). When we started, routing with 2Checkout > Payoneer > Bank was the only way. We kept it the same.
Thanks for the comments.

 

[davidmartinez]

white hat seo?

 

[adewale090]

wow this is so cute and adorable grate. Thanks

 

[BuildMoreLinks]

sending reports 15 days before billing is actually a nice tip.
what is your revenue from content production.

 

[adewale090]

Yes, please lead me am new here

 

[Deleted member 1024843]

white hat seo?

Mostly yes but nothing is completely white hat as you know

wow this is so cute and adorable grate. Thanks

Well...Thanks ..maybe?

sending reports 15 days before billing is actually a nice tip.
what is your revenue from content production.

I wouldn't want to give you exact numbers ....It is a healthy portion though

Yes, please lead me am new here

Read blogs, BHW and implement what you learn. Don't start a business before you rank a few stuff of your own.

 

[RealDaddy]

Great guide

 

[UNKUT]

Very interesting thread, as im starting this type of activity really soon, it really gave me useful infos.
I also have some questions,

Do you send new e-mails when they don't reply to the cold e-mails ?
Do you offer any type of "free trial" for your services ?

I wish you the best for 2019 !

 

[Deleted member 1024843]

Very interesting thread, as im starting this type of activity really soon, it really gave me useful infos.
I also have some questions,

Do you send new e-mails when they don't reply to the cold e-mails ?
Do you offer any type of "free trial" for your services ?

I wish you the best for 2019 !

We do one follow up if they don't reply. Calls convert way better than emails for us. No free trial. Thanks for the wish.