Timothy Carter

Chief Revenue Officer at SEO Company

Industry veteran Timothy Carter is SEO.co’s Chief Revenue Officer. Tim leads all revenue for the company and oversees all customer-facing teams for SEO (search engine optimization) – including sales, marketing & customer success.

He has spent more than 20 years in the world of SEO & Digital Marketing leading, building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and drive growth from websites and sales teams.

When he’s not working, Tim enjoys playing a few rounds of disc golf, running, and spending time with his wife and family on the beach…preferably in Hawaii.

Over the years he’s written for publications like ForbesEntrepreneur, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, ReadWrite and other highly respected online publications. Connect with Tim on Linkedin & Twitter.

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The Complete Guide to SEO Resellers
Timothy Carter

SEO Reseller: Pros & Cons of Reselling SEO Services

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best white label SEO services a digital marketing agency can offer their clients, but there are a few caveats that make it difficult to execute. It’s a technically complex strategy, so if you don’t have the right SEO experts on your team, you might struggle to get results. It’s time-intensive and hard to scale, so it’s almost impossible to control your costs as you attract new clients. And if you run into issues while providing SEO services, you’ll have no one to lean on for troubleshooting. White label SEO reseller programs exist to help you work on your business, rather than working in your business, allowing you to scale your SEO business faster. But how exactly do you sell SEO services packaged as your own, all without getting bogged down in the minutiae of operations? Let’s dive in. What Is an SEO Reseller Program? Let’s start with the basics. Reselling SEO services. What is an SEO reseller program and how do you resell SEO? An SEO reseller program involves two parties: an SEO reseller and an SEO agency providing SEO services. In this relationship, the SEO reseller attracts new clients interested in digital marketing and SEO services like link building or technical on page SEO. The SEO reseller contracts with the white label SEO agency partners, usually paying a wholesale rate for SEO services, and the SEO agency provides SEO services to increase the search rankings, visibility, and traffic of those end clients. Typically, the SEO reseller appears as the provider of SEO services; depending on the relationship, the end client may never come in contact with the SEO agency, and may never know of its existence. The SEO reseller will also typically mark up the cost of SEO white label services, resulting in a profit. Some SEO resellers act as a kind of sales extension of the SEO agency, selling their services and acting as an account manager. Other resellers offer a suite of marketing services to a set of their own clients, and use the SEO agency as a way to complement or enhance their own offerings. Because the range of SEO company reseller services is so diverse, and because it’s possible to use an SEO reseller program for so many different goals, there’s almost no limit to what you can do with it. In this guide, we’ll discuss some of the types of SEO reseller services you might encounter, and how to best use one for your own SEO company. What Is White Label SEO? When talking about an SEO reseller services program, you might hear about “white label SEO.” This works like other white label services, but in case you aren’t familiar, we’ll explain the concept here. White label involves one company offering services that another company can rebrand as their own. With printed or physical products, there may be a literal “white label” that can be customized or replaced with someone else’s branding. In the context of a white label SEO reseller program, the term is more figurative. You resell SEO services, not physical products. Your white label SEO agency may provide you with materials like keyword research, link building, onsite SEO audits, SEO reseller packages and monthly SEO reports on ranking progress; you can be reselling SEO services and then brand these and send them to your clients as if they were your own. Depending on your relationship, you may also be able to put your clients in contact with an account manager who appears to be part of your own company. In a white label agreement, your white label SEO reseller agency will likely offer some kind of private label non-compete agreement as well; they won’t be able to reach out to your clients without your permission. That is white label SEO. Types of SEO Reseller Programs Within the realm of white label SEO reseller programs, there are many types of SEO reseller services that could be included. For example, you could be reselling an SEO service and/or private label SEO services like: SEO audits. If you’re just getting started with a new client, one of the most important services to provide is an SEO audit. This report will likely examine a variety of different website design features and offsite elements that are relevant to on-site SEO and technical SEO. For example, does this client have their page titles and descriptions optimized for search engines? How much onsite content do they have? What is their current domain authority? A proper SEO audit will explain your current starting point and provide direction on what to do next. Keyword research. SEO resellers can also make use of an essential SEO service like keyword research. As you’re likely aware, much of your clients’ SEO success will depend on which keywords and phrases they’re targeting. But how will you know what to target? A comprehensive keyword research report will introduce you to the high-traffic, low-competition phrases your client needs to succeed—and they may be used to direct the entire campaign. Onsite content. No SEO campaign can succeed without onsite content. It provides the foundation for onsite authority, helps you optimize for specific keywords and phrases, and can be used as linkable assets in your future link building. Additionally, if you employ the help of an SEO agency when developing onsite content and link building, you’ll have a consistent brand voice if you also use them for offsite content. Onsite optimization. Being a SEO service provider, content isn’t the only onsite factor you’ll need to consider. You may also need the help of an SEO agency for things like mobile optimization, local SEO and other forms of SEO service like technical SEO. There’s a lot that can go wrong with technical SEO, so it’s especially helpful for technical SEO resellers to have access to an SEO expert who can help troubleshoot and redirect the campaign. Link building and offsite content. You can only rank higher if you have a

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The Definitive Guide to Link Profile Analysis
Timothy Carter

Backlink Audit: A Guide to Link Profile Analysis in SEO

Link building is a double-edged sword.  Some backlinks help. And, because authority is measured logarithmically, some backlinks REALLY help. Unfortunately, some backlinks hurt. The worst backlinks can be very detrimental. Not all link building strategies are effective. It can be tough to tell whether the time and money you spend on link building services is truly paying off. When it comes to performing a complete audit or backlink profile analysis, most webmasters take a reactive vs. proactive approach. But monitoring your backlinks and referring domains with regular manual and software-based backlink audits is critical in today’s ever-changing world of search algorithm updates, particularly if you don’t want toxic links to harm your organic traffic from search engines. Here we outline the process for backlink profile analysis with regular backlink auditing. Let’s dive in. What Is a Backlink Audit Analysis? Depending on the nature of your site and how much effort you’ve put into building links, there are probably hundreds to thousands of links and various referring domains linking to the various pages of your site. Maybe you were referenced in a press release or noted as a sponsor for a charity event, or maybe you were featured in a series of offsite articles. The sum total of these backlinks, as they exist today, is your backlink profile (linkgraph or, simply, link profile). A backlink audit, then, is the art of studying and evaluating your (or your competitors’) link profile. There are many ways to use this in your favor; for example, you can use it to track how far your reach has grown over a period of time, including how many new publishers you’ve been featured on. You can use it to spot and correct mistakes. Perhaps most importantly, you can tie factors like the quantity or quality of links you’ve built to the results you’re seeing on your website. You can also use link profile audit & analysis as a means of competitive analysis. Instead of auditing your own backlink profile, you can look at the profiles of your closest competitors to examine differences between your approaches, or gain inspiration for new strategies. Backlink Audit Tools Before we get into specifics on what your link profile audit entails and what your linkgraph should look like, you should know how to view and analyze your profile itself. The depth of backlink data available in Google Search Console is limited (likely because Google wants to avoid incentivizing link schemes or simply just to maintain their control over proprietary data) You may keep track of the links and referring domains you’ve built manually, but this won’t tell you any information on referring domains you’ve naturally attracted, which are even more important. Two of the very best tools to use for analyzing your site’s backlinks include: Ahrefs and Moz’s Link Explorer. Google Search Console Both tools allow you to search for any domain and see a breakdown of: how that domain is performing, including an estimation of your domain authority (which can help you track the authority of your site over time) or domain rating (in the case of Ahrefs) the number of both referring domains and inbound links that are currently pointing to your site and the corresponding anchor text the number of different referring domains that have links pointing to your site the total number of internal links on your site and the anchor text used the number of keywords for which your site ranks mix of nofollow links versus dofollow links as websites link naturally using both how many links you’ve gained or lost over a specific period of time There are other tools available to audit and evaluate your link profile, but so long as they provide you with accurate information, the differences come down to UI, so your choice should be based on personal preferences. Every tool on the market has its pros and cons. We have found detrimental links through Moz that were invisible to Ahrefs backlink lookups, so having the complete picture with both tools is helpful. The Ideal Backlink Profile As an evaluative tool, your backlink profile’s main function is to help you measure how far you are from the ideal, and whether your efforts are being translated into measurable results. If you’re not seeing results, you can dig deeper into your link specifics to see which areas are lacking. Even if you’re seeing moderately good results, you can identify key areas for improvement, based on whether they adhere to “ideal” standards. So what are these “ideal” standards? You should be able to judge a backlink profile on the following dimensions, and reasonably determine whether it’s going to be effective in building your search engine rankings: Link quantity Anyone active in the link building or SEO community knows that there’s a danger in excessively linking to your site. If you build too many links or build them too quickly, it will look suspicious, and you could face a penalty. That said, link quantity does play a role in how your site’s trustworthiness is evaluated. Essentially, the more links (and especially the more referring domains) you have pointing to you, the more trustworthy it’s going to seem (so long as you meet a number of other important conditions, which we’ll cover momentarily). Accordingly, it’s good to keep a close eye on the number of backlinks in your profile. This will help you ensure that you’re executing on your goals, like if you have a target of publishing 10 new links a month from different referring domains, but will also help you notice and evaluate links that come to you naturally. Perhaps even more importantly, finding a deviation in your link numbers can clue you into a problem with your strategy, such as a publisher removing your links from publication. Link quantity also matters for your individual pages, since you’ll need to focus on both domain authority and page authority. For a general strategy, you’ll want to build links pointing to a variety of internal pages,

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How Often Should You Blog for SEO?
Timothy Carter

How Often Should You Blog for SEO?

There is a direct correlation between blogging frequency and a website’s corresponding lead generation through organic traffic. How often you post on your blog matters, especially if you want to rank in search engines, improve your SEO or generate leads online. Consider the following statistics when considering how often you should blog: It’s rare to have a website that blogs too much. Chances are, your site could use more frequent blog posts, especially if your winning competitors are posting much more frequently than you. In fact, most websites should be publishing blogs more frequently. But what pace is a good pace for posting frequency? Is There an Ideal Blog Post Frequency? When it comes to blogging frequency, it’s important to strike a balance between consistency and quality. While posting daily can be overwhelming for both you and your audience, infrequent posting can make it difficult to maintain a consistent readership. The sweet spot for most bloggers is posting two to three times per week, with a focus on high-quality, informative content that provides value to your readers. Keep in mind that your blogging frequency may vary depending on your industry, niche, and audience. Experiment with different posting schedules to find what works best for you and your readers. In addition, you may also ask: How often should you blog for your target audience?  How often should you blog for your existing clients and subscribers?  How often should you blog for SEO?  The answer is: “it depends!” Do you run a small site that is just starting out? Do you run a larger site, but happen to work solo or as part of a very small team? If you don’t have a lot of resources to throw at the problem, you’ll do well to post at least once a week. Posting more often than that, while potentially beneficial, but can strain your resources. It comes back to the quality vs. quantity debate; according to Google, in this case, quality wins. Shoot for once or twice each week. Do you run a larger site with a large audience and a team of content creators? You’ll have no trouble meeting the requirements of posting once or twice each week. In these cases, you can post every other day, all five days of the week or all seven days of the week. Blogging every day is advised only for those: Have the resources and/or time to publish a daily blog post Don’t already have a trove of valuable content (likely produced from blogging every day in the past) Enjoy blogging regularly, making blogging every day an enjoyable experience Who have enough blog post ideas to feed the ever-present need for content marketing This is where your judgment comes into play. Perform a few months’ worth of tests; posting on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, posting five days each week and posting on weekends as well. How does your traffic compare from one level of blog post frequency to another? Some variation will come from the content of the posts, of course, but you have to take that into account. Blog Often, But Too Frequent Blogging Can Diminish ROI From our experience with posting thousands of blog posts with thousands of clients, we have found that there is a good max/min for blog posting frequency for SEO. We have found that posting two blog posts per week is a good medium amount for good results, especially for new(er) websites.  Blog posting once per day is a good maximum, as most websites begin to experience decreasing marginal returns after ~30 posts per month. And, without a good, disciplined content marketing strategy in place, a blogging and posting frequency that is unmonitored may actually create keyword cannibalization issues. Some sites, however, can benefit from a higher flow of content. These are the high-tier sites with huge audiences and large teams of content creators. Posting two, three or more times each day gives each author a chance to shine and can scale site traffic more rapidly. Some of these larger sites even split posts among several smaller client sites for added benefit. As a general rule of thumb, more blogging means more traffic, and no matter what your initial conversion goals are, more traffic means more potential customers. Many marketers have reported a 45 percent increase in traffic when the total number of blog posts on their website increased from 11-20 to 21-50. Lead generation also benefits from regular blogging activity. When the frequency of blog posts was increased from once to twice per week, the number of incoming leads almost doubled. The next big jump comes from blogging on a daily basis, which will basically double your traffic. The downside of daily blogging is that each post will remain at the top of your blog only for that day; blogging twice a week means each post will get twice the attention from being in that first position. The other problem with daily blogging is the burnout factor; the pressure to consistently produce at that rate usually results in a decline in the overall quality of your posts, which is the last thing you want to do. High quality content marketing is more important than how frequently you blog on your website. On average, blogging is one of the most cost-effective channels for generating leads, followed by social media, organic SEO, direct mail, telemarketing, paid search, and trade shows. Blogging frequency is also dependent on your audience, your site compared to competitors and the topic/industry. Startup websites with thin or light on-site content, you may need to blog much more frequently to play “catch-up” on your site. That might mean blogging as often as daily (or even several times a day) to get your content noticed and to catch up to competitors in your space. But remember, don’t ever create content just for the sake of content. That is never an advisable strategy. What’s the Lifespan of a Blog Post? The sensible way to start a discussion of how often you

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Local SEO For Lawyers
Timothy Carter

Local SEO Tips & Strategies For Lawyers

Ranking as one of the top lawyers in local search results will often net you the highest return on investment of any marketing you do. In this article, we will detail how important local SEO for lawyers is. You will understand everything you need to optimize your website and business for local SEO. How Does Google Rank Top Lawyers in Local Search? Google measures authority in local searches by proximity, relevance, and authority. Google has to find a consistent way to rank one lawyer website over another, after all. These critical factors mean the following for local SEO: Relevance – is the content on your lawyer’s website relevant to the person doing the search? Proximity – is the business in the city that the person is looking for? Authority – is the overall site quality high, as measured by its site speed, content, and backlinks? Google uses many ranking factors to determine which sites rank higher than others. You will rise in the rankings with relevant content, well-written content, and site speed, but backlinks are also important if you want to rank for critical personal injury keywords. When other sites link back to your law firm website, it’s a vote of confidence in the eyes of the major search engines, including Google. If a healthcare facility or major news organization links to your legal website, that can put you higher in the search rankings over other lawyers. If you set your site up the right way and are an authoritative voice in your market, you’ll rank for critical legal keywords. The larger the geography, the tougher it can be to rank. That’s one of the reasons SEO for large mass tort or personal injury lawyer cases are more competitive and much more expensive. How To Improve Your Local Search SEO To get as much as possible out of local SEO for your law firm, you should focus on your Google My Business listing first. Google My Business or GMB is the most important tool where local companies can provide information about their goods and services so they are included in local Google maps and searches. A proper GMB listing should have your name, address, and phone number so the search engine can give them to people looking for a lawyer. Google utilizes the information in the Google My Business listing for the local pack  and Google Maps. As noted above, relevance, prominence and distance are key factors in how you rank in local search. There isn’t a lot you can change about how close your office is to the searcher. But you can do something about prominence and relevance. How To Become More Relevant In Google My Business A major part of local SEO for attorneys is you must provide content that is as relevant as possible to what the person is looking for. If you focus on car accident cases, you should make sure the GMB listing title has something about ‘car accident lawyer.’ Also, you should have information about reviews and your website. The listing also should have your phone number, address, and detailed descriptions of your services. Keep in mind that what others say about your legal services on Google Reviews can affect relevance when someone searches for an attorney. Good reviews will give you better search results for local SEO. How To Become More Prominent In Google My Business Make sure you have as many positive legal reviews as possible. Also, make sure the Google Reviews are relevant for your articles and directories. Leveraging Google Reviews as much as possible will push you to the top of Google’s local lawyer results. Get More Google Reviews Having a lot of good reviews is a major factor in whether people will find your legal site or not. When you have more Google Reviews, you will be more prominent and have a higher ranking. Google Reviews have even more importance – after all, they are one of the critical things that searchers look for. When you see 50 people giving an attorney four or five-star reviews, that can be a huge reason they call you over someone else. But what should you do to get more reviews? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. Generally, you and your team must focus on providing the best possible legal service in your city. After you successfully conclude a case, have the client give you a positive review. Most people who win a car accident lawsuit or sizable settlement will be happy to help you. If you regularly see clients in your office, give them small cards that request Google Reviews. Of course, you could get a negative review from time to time; you can’t please everyone. If you focus on providing great legal services and communication, you won’t have this problem often. Any time you receive a Google Review – good or bad – respond to it within one business day or sooner. Having an occasional negative review is ok, but how you respond will determine if the review will damage your ranking. How To Increase Engagement With Social Media Social media will not boost your search rankings alone. But having a regular presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others will boost awareness and support better local SEO for lawyers. When more people know about your law firm on social media, you can enhance your prominence in your local Google rankings. Many lawyers don’t know you can add legal blog posts to your Google My Business listing, too, so your local area stays engaged with you. If you share posts, this also will help your law firm show in more searches. Remember To Improve Your Website The content of your legal website also is critical to your local SEO results. A website with a lot of timely and accurate information about legal issues and specific pages with local content will improve your local ranking. It’s also important to optimize your legal website to ensure the site is easy to

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The Ultimate Guide to Title Tags in SEO
Timothy Carter

The Ultimate Guide to Title Tags in SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) requires attention to hundreds of different ranking factors and technical requirements. It’s your job as a search marketer to not only create lots of high-quality content and build backlinks to your site, but also polish and perfect the technical aspects of your site – including your backend code. But don’t worry. That sounds more technically complicated than it actually is. While some on page optimization techniques require some extensive programming experience, many can be completed using even the simplest tools available to you in your website editor of choice. Title tags are a perfect example of this. Title tags are so valuable for your SEO strategy they could almost be considered a technical requirement – and by the time you’re done reading this guide, you’ll be ready to write and publish some of your own. What Are Title Tags? We’ll start with the basics. What are title tags, exactly? Title tags are a type of meta tag – a form of information about a particular webpage that’s found in the HTML code of the document. Information contained in HTML but not presented on the webpage itself is known as “metadata,” and can be seen and evaluated by bots like Google’s web crawlers. Google sends out bots to evaluate title tags, among other meta elements, to determine the purpose of the page, the type of content that will be found on it, and how it should rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). Title tags themselves function as a descriptive title for the page. They’re supposed to concisely capture the purpose and intentions of the page they represent. Additionally, title tags represent the text you see highlighted in blue in most SERPs. When conducting a search, you’ll essentially be reviewing an extensive list of title tags (along with meta descriptions underneath those titles). Why Do Title Tags Matter for SEO? Why are title tags important? Keyword optimization. For starters, title tags are an opportunity for you to optimize your site (and individual pages) for specific keywords. Title tags are treated as important indications of the content of a given page, so the keywords they include are incredibly valuable. Placing one or two important keywords near the front of your title can increase the likelihood of that page ranking for phrases related to those keyword terms. Description and content relevance. Title tags also convey a description of the type of content you’ll find on a given page. Thanks to semantic search capabilities, Google is exceptionally good at evaluating the topic, purpose, and context of a given page. Your description in this field will help it understand. Headlines and click through rate (CTR) optimization. Remember, title tags are often the first thing a potential visitor will see when encountering your page in SERPs. The descriptiveness and wording of your title will therefore influence whether they choose to click through and see your page. If you’re compelling, creative, and persuasive, your title tag can increase the likelihood of someone visiting your site. Additionally, if your page has a high CTR (and other good user behavior metrics), you’ll stand to see a boost in your SERP rankings. How to Use Title Tags Generally speaking, every page of your site should have a title tag. Most modern website builders will include a title tag by default, even if it means simply using a swath of text from the body of the page. Still, it’s in your best interest to write a custom title tag for each page of your site – or at least use a template to generate a unique title tag for each of your pages. Overall, you’re hoping to write title tags that accurately describe your webpage, feed keywords to Google’s search crawlers, and persuade web users to visit your site simultaneously. That may seem like a tall order, but it’s easier to manage than you might think. What Makes a Perfect Title Tag? Like with most other aspects of SEO, title tags require a careful balance between optimizing for users and optimizing for search engines. From a technical standpoint, you’ll want to choose words and structures that appeal to search engine algorithms; that way, you’ll be more likely to rank for the pages that you want. However, you’ll also need to optimize for individual search users. You want them to find your title tags descriptive and valuable; otherwise, they won’t click your link no matter how highly it ranks. These are some of the most important qualities a title tag can have: Descriptive content. First and most importantly, your title tag needs to accurately describe the content that’s on the page. You may be tempted to stuff your title with keywords to increase the likelihood of ranking, but this is going to be bad from both an algorithmic and consumer perspective. Instead, be as straightforward and clear as you can – and set proper expectations for what people can find on the page. Appropriate length. The old standard for a title tag was 70 characters. These days, a title tag of roughly 50-60 characters is ideal. If you have more than 60 characters, you’ll run the risk of having your title cut off in SERPs. If your title is less than 50 characters, you might be missing out on some opportunities. That said, it’s not a huge deal if you’re slightly out of these parameters; you’re not going to be blacklisted by Google just because you had 1 character too many in your title tag. Just make sure to preview your title tag so you know how it looks in SERPs. Keyword optimization (without stuffing). Keywords are still important in SEO. But they’re not nearly as important as they used to be, thanks to Google’s breakthroughs in the realm of semantic search and machine learning. These days, the meaning and context of your words are just as important as the actual words you choose. However, it’s still important to include a target keyword or phrase (or two)

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How to Increase Recurring Revenue for Your SEO Company
Timothy Carter

How to Increase Recurring Revenue for Your SEO Company

If you want your SEO company to be successful, you need to generate revenue. Lots of it. The standard and intuitive approach to generating more revenue is selling more of your products or SEO services. If you currently have 100 clients on monthly retainers, you can hypothetically increase revenue by selling bolstering that to 200. But if you want to grow your SEO business more consistently and more predictably, you might need to take on a different type of revenue generating model altogether. By incorporating a recurring revenue model, and increasing your recurring revenue, you can better fund your SEO company and lay a course for a much brighter future. So how do you do it? What Is Recurring Revenue? Simply put, recurring revenue is revenue generated on an ongoing, consistent basis. Think of it this way. Imagine we still existed in an era with DVD rentals from Blockbuster video. You can rent an individual DVD for $3, or you can sign up for a monthly rental package that allows you to rent up to 20 DVDs per month in exchange for a recurring, $15 monthly charge. As a consumer who rents DVDs somewhat regularly, the monthly fee is a no brainer; if you rent more than 5 DVDs in a given month, you’ll end up saving money. Even if there are some months where you rent fewer DVDs, you’ll still end up ahead. While it might seem like the business is losing some potential money, Blockbuster benefits from this arrangement as well. Instead of being totally reliant on individual choices and fluctuating demand, the business can build itself on the stable income streams coming from its thousands, or millions of customers. Why Is Recurring Revenue Valuable? Why is recurring revenue so valuable for your SEO business? There are several advantages, including: Predictability For starters, recurring revenue is much more predictable than other models. Some of your clients will operate consistently even without a recurring revenue model, but demand is still going to fluctuate. Some clients will demand a high volume of work for a short period of time, then leave for a prolonged period of time. Some clients will buy different volumes of products and services at different intervals. This will lead to various hot periods, where you can barely keep up with demand, and cool periods, where you have excessive resources remaining unused and dry revenue streams. With recurring revenue in place, your income will be much stable and more predictable. As a result, you’ll operate more evenly and you’ll be able to make more accurate predictions about the future of your business. Scalability Recurring revenue also lends itself to scalability. With all your customers paying monthly or annual subscriptions, you can count on a foundation of revenue to support you. It’s much easier to forecast your future needs, and it’s much easier to grow and change your business in response to new external factors. Additionally, growing your business revenue becomes much easier, since you can focus on increasing recurring revenue in a variety of different ways, beyond simply selling more things to more people; we’ll cover these strategies in the final section of this article. Steadier cash flow Any business owner can tell you just how important cash flow is. Maintaining positive cash flow means making more money than you spend on a regular basis. It also means having ample resources to pay your employees, pay your bills, and ultimately keep the business afloat. If you have inconsistent revenue sources, or if you’re subject to demand volatility, cash flow becomes almost impossible to appropriately manage. But with a better, more predictable recurring revenue model, cash flow becomes much steadier. Long-term relationships Recurring revenue models give you a chance to build better long-term relationships with your clients. Without one, your clients will reach out to you only when they need something, and they may be inclined to work with some of your competitors for some of their jobs. If they’re paying an active subscription, you’ll be engaging with them on a much more regular basis, and they’ll be incentivized to remain loyal to you. As a result, your customer base will be far more loyal, you’ll make more money, and you’ll have more rapport with your clients, which can lead to smoother interactions. Better client control Managing a client portfolio also gives you more control over the clients you work with. If you have any difficult, challenging, or abrasive clients, you can let them go or prevent them from signing up for a recurring package. Instead, you can focus your efforts on your most valuable clients – the ones who consistently use your services without making your life unnecessarily difficult. Higher business value If you’re planning on eventually selling your business, you should know that having a recurring revenue model can increase the value of your business. Investors and entrepreneurs typically look for opportunities that allow them to generate income on a predictable and recurring basis. If your business is generating millions of dollars in annual revenue consistently, its value is going to skyrocket. Flexibility Recurring revenue also gives you more flexibility. When you know exactly how much you’re bringing in each month, you can spend in a more intelligent and thoughtful way. You can also choose to use this money however you see fit, reaping profits as a stakeholder or reinvesting into the business. Shifting to a Recurring Revenue Model Your first step is shifting to a recurring revenue model, assuming you don’t have one already. Generally speaking, this means charging a weekly, monthly, or annual rate in exchange for a specific set of services. For example: Consulting Instead of charging an hourly rate for consulting, you can charge a monthly rate for a set number of consulting hours. For example, instead of charging $300 per hour, you can charge $1,500 per month in exchange for up to 6 consulting hours. Content marketing Instead of charging your clients on a per word, per article, or per

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