Selling Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to local businesses isn’t that complicated, but it’s also not like shooting fish in a barrel.
Some of the most experienced sales and SEO teams face problems such as having ambiguous sales processes, a scarcity of sales training or SEO tools, and a lack of preparation before pitching.
These reasons are enough to cost the deal.
What could be preventing you from creating a winning SEO services pitch is the lack of a streamlined process that directs your sales and local SEO team to work on the same wavelength.
How can your sales team close and resell SEO consistently without a repeatable SEO process in place?
You have to act now! The demand for skilled SEO agencies is growing. Small local businesses in the United States spend $497 each month on SEO services, and companies around the world spend more than $65B on SEO per annum.
The size of the SEO industry is massive and continues to grow.
We have rounded up the best steps you can take to optimize your sales efforts and drive more clients for your SEO agency.
Adhering to the ‘Pareto principle,’ the measures we outlined in the post are meant-to-help you gain an 80% higher closing rate from 20% sales efforts.
If more clients are what you need, read our extensive guide to growing your online business.
How To Sell SEO: A Comprehensive Guide To Growing SEO Agency Sales
Prep Before Selling SEO
Preparation is the key to avert potential disasters! So, always be ready before you start selling SEO services (or offering SEO services to resellers), or otherwise, you may lose your prospects.
If you get in touch with a prospective clients with your half-baked SEO pitch, you’re significantly reducing your chance of striking a deal.
Study your potential leads and their industry so you can discuss the current problems they face and how your local SEO service or link building tactics can resolve them.
And such thorough groundwork allows you to resonate with clients, their own search engine optimization (SEO) business pain points, their competitors, and much more.
In short, preparation is a central part of the sales process; it helps you get a good start and gets you on your way to securing a client.
Do You Have Your Required Tools?
Selling SEO is a skill, and like most skillful roles, it is made easier with the right tools. Here are a few essential things you’ll require before you embark on your sales journey:
- CRM: It’s an important tool that keeps track of the leads you’re courting so that you don’t miss any opportunities. It will help you scale your ability-to-care and also help you follow through and allocate time appropriately
- Website: Here’s something others won’t tell you: Your local SEO pitch is time-bound. You can’t boast all your offerings over a meeting or a call. So, display your USPs on your website permanently for potential prospects to access.
Know Your Prospects
The first rule of an effective SEO strategy is to never treat your potential clients like other routine deals. Always make an impression that conveys that you genuinely care about the client’s business. How do you do that?
Well, start with researching the prospect. The more you know about your client’s business, the less you’ll be treated like a stranger — it’s as simple as that.
Here are a few things you must do:
- Know your client’s business: Dig deeper into how your client conducts local business: how they attract new potential customers, which niche they’re working in, and what services or products they advertise. This practice will help you position your services much better.
- Keep an eye on their competitors: Make your clients believe that you’re considering every possible way to help them grow their local business. It includes details of how well competitors are performing and how your prospects’ business can gain leverage over them. A full Audit or free SEO audit tool and link profile analysis will give you the information you need for quality backlink building.
- Know about their online and digital presence: It is crucial to know if your client has ever done SEO previously. If they did, find out why they stopped or decided to seek your help. Try to avoid patterns that got them to you in the first place.
Here’s a quick recap: let’s assume you have just started your agency and intend to sell your services to a local business. So, how will you approach the client?
You’ll gather as much data as you can about their business — the value of their services or products, their local targeted audience, and their overarching objectives.
Is The Prospective Client A Right Fit?
Whenever you sell SEO services to SMBs or large local businesses, keep in mind that every prospect has a specific requirement.
It’s imperative to know how your agency will fulfill its requirements so that you can focus on the most appropriate prospects.
Therefore, when qualifying an SEO lead, you have to consider four main factors: Authority, Budget, Timeframe, and Need.
- If you have to pick between budget and time, which should take priority? (Budget)
- Should I send materials and proposals to your work or personal email? (Authority)
- What makes you believe your organization is digital-ready? (Need)
- How fast are you planning to see outcomes for SEO? (Timeframe)
Asking relevant questions will enable you to concentrate on the most promising clients instead of squandering resources and time on projects, which are:
- Outside your SEO services price range
- Outside your SEO services’ capabilities
- Not starting soon
Create Smooth SEO Experience
Now that you know how to prep yourself before selling, let’s jump straightaway to selling SEO services.
How To Reach Out?
Selling SEO Via Phone
Don’t waste your time getting in touch with each prospective clients. The best approach here is only to call empowered individuals who can make decisions.
However, never drop the closing statement over the phone, no matter what. Your goal is to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the client—it’s like selling a test drive to your potential client.
When contacting prospects over the phone, make sure your sales or SEO team has a detailed script to follow. However, they should speak confidently, never sounding like they are reading from a script.
Selling In-Person
Selling SEO services in-person requires a lot of homework. Here’s what you have to do:
- Dress to impress: You may think it’s rudimentary. However, you’ll be astonished to see many SEO services losing projects only because they didn’t look at SEO professionals enough during a meeting. If you want your prospects to trust you with their money, you better look the part.
- Bring exceptional marketing material: Your proposal should include the pitch deck, comprehensive link and site audit, and your complete contact details. Also, prepare white papers and case studies to show the likely impact of SEO services.
Break The Ice
When you’re communicating with prospective clients – whether in-person or over a call – allot some time to a casual conversation as it’s essential to build rapport.
Break the ice with questions they least expect, which will make your potential client ‘pause’ for a moment to respond.
Here are some questions to give you an idea:
- Have you got anything exciting to do this weekend?
- I visited your website, and it looked great. How did you build it? Did you hire a web designer, or did you do it by yourself?
- Your company’s name is unique. I’m curious to know how you came up with it?
Breaking ground isn’t only to build relationships; in fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to create a long-lasting impression on potential clients and make them believe that you sincerely care about their business.
Building Desire
The most vital step while selling SEO services is to build desire: letting your prospective clients know how their business will succeed with your SEO agency.
Send Client An SEO Website Audit
Routinely send clients a complete audit report of the website to demonstrate areas that require improvements. Make sure the information is jargon-free and easy-to-understand by your clients.
Sending your prospective SEO clients a regular in-depth review gives your agency the flair of seasoned, digital marketing professional SEO agenciess.
It will also show your potential SEO clients that you have the necessary tools and technologies to seek and fix problems.
Prepare Proposals That Sell Instantly
To win new SEO clients, all you need to have is an impressive-looking proposal. It would help if you actively thought about what to include in it to make it a winning proposition.
Firstly, it should contain detailed information about your prospective client, thorough details about the agency’s SEO process, and finally, proposed solutions, deliverables, and timelines.
One of the most effective ways to convince your client to hire you is to provide them with a feasible solution to resolve their most pertinent pain points.
Ensure that you never end your sales pitch unless you have displayed what value your agency can offer.
Pro tip: Always have a proposal ready in your pitch kit to demonstrate your offerings.
Reinforce What Your Client Needs
Once you have their attention with your proposal, it’s time to pull the personal heartstrings. It’s called “Personal Selling.”
Since you have informed your client about your vast expertise, now help them envision the positive experience and peace-of-mind they will get while working with your SEO agency.
Closing The Sales Deal
Here comes the most important – and possibly the most challenging – part of selling SEO services: closing.
It’s your all-or-nothing moment. Before you begin preparing the SEO contract to hammer out a deal, ensure the sales team uses the right and relevant phrases to inquire about your client’s business.
Here are some proven and result-oriented methods to close a sales deal:
Sell Benefits
Address every requirement of your prospect with the benefit. For example, a closing pitch can be: “I can help you book your work now…”
Assertive Closing
In this technique, you assume the closing remarks yourself; however, it ends with a question mark that provides minimal choice.
Here’s an example: “I can help you book your work. Would you let me do it and send its invoice to your work or personal email account?
Assumptive Close
This technique also assumes the closing; however, the closing sentence talks about the coming scheduled conversation.
Here’s an example: “I have booked your order and have sent you the invoice. Will it be possible for you to talk about the intake this coming Tuesday?
In all best-selling sales books, you’ll come across one important tip over and over again: When you close the sales deal, stop talking!
This is particularly true when you’re selling recurring revenue to new leads and prospects.
Manage Post Sale Experience
Successfully closing the client doesn’t necessarily mean the end of sales. Experienced digital marketers – who sell SEO services – are well-versed in the importance of a trouble-free post-sales experience. If your agency has an in-house SEO team, you can fulfill the order(s) directly. Or, you can outsource SEO through an experienced SEO reseller agency.
At this stage, you have to consider two key things: retain your clients and sell your client some additional value.
Additional Value – How To Upsell And Cross-Sell
The issue with many salespeople is that they bombard the client’s inbox with additional and unnecessary products and services that the prospects may not be ready to buy.
There’s no need to be an annoying salesman; be savvy while cross-selling or upselling any of your other products or services.
SEO strategies take time and so does the SEO sales process.
As it’s essential to add value to the relationship after closing the deal, only try to make offerings that will enhance their business and provide additional value to their business or SEO.
Are you wondering how to go about it? Well, you can send an opener, for example, “The last thing…” or “just in case…” However, you have to consider the following:
Only offer cross-selling or upselling when it seems reasonable. The added value you provide to the client should deal with your client’s momentary needs.
Remember, their most pressing problems are your most immediate opportunities!
Keep the client updated on additional products, services, or upgrades. Give the client the necessary information and demonstrate how these products can benefit their brand.
Client Retention
Once you’ve closed a deal, you have established the kind of relationship with your client that won’t end even after your contract period is over.
It’s your responsibility to continuously build desire in the client so that they have a reason not to leave your agency.
Always be proactive! Whether good news or bad, let it be known. If their Search engine rankings dropped significantly, tell it to your client. Highlight positive outcomes by comparing past reports with current stats.
This way, your client will see the priceless value you provide to their brand. It also tells them that you hold their best interests at heart.
Pro tip: Clients always seek a stable experience with SEO agencies, so keep in mind ABC: Always Book the next call.
Key Takeaways
Defining the process of your sales is just the beginning. The method we laid out in this guide will:
- Remove all dependencies
- Assist you in aligning your SEO company objectives
- Arm your SEO and sales teams to sell SEO services to both small and large enterprises efficiently
Let’s conduct a quick recap on how to sell SEO successfully to local and foreign businesses:
- Always be ready and prepared, and you’ll have better chances at closing clients
- Reach your SEO clients through phone or in-person meetings
- Build desire and rapport by starting a regular conversation
- Close the SEO sales deal with confidence
- Never stop adding additional value & utilize services like an SEO reseller to expand your SEO service offerings.
If you’re all set to change your modus operandi and want to win over the prospects (particularly as a white label SEO service provider), this “how to sell SEO” guide is for you!
Over the years he's written for publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, ReadWrite and other highly respected online publications. Connect with Tim on Linkedin & Twitter.
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