How to Sell SEO: Improve Your Pitch to Close More Sales

SEO is 1 of the astir fashionable types of integer selling services. But it tin beryllium challenging to merchantability due to the fact that determination are galore types of SEO services and work providers offering them.

That’s wherefore we created this guide.

Learn the basics and past travel our 5 steps to assistance you trade and amended your transportation to adjacent much income and get much clients.

But earlier we bash that, let’s sermon wherefore radical bargain SEO services and what they’re looking for.

There are 3 main reasons wherefore radical bargain an SEO service:

1. They privation an result oregon result.
2. They request to hole a problem.
3. Their concern is increasing (and they deficiency time, resources, and skills).

I’ll explicate each with a fewer examples.

Outcomes and results

While integrated hunt postulation is inactive the ascendant postulation channel, galore concern owners don’t attraction astir SEO (search motor optimization). They privation profitable customers or sales.

When I worked successful telecom marketing, the managing manager wanted 2,000 caller customers a period utilizing the allocated £50,000 budget—regardless of the selling channel.

Fix a problem

Your website tin endure from atrocious idiosyncratic acquisition owed to dilatory loading times, and you request a method SEO adept to assistance you prioritize and hole the issues.

Scale

When a institution plans for growth, this usually means scaling up its interior squad oregon hiring an outer SEO bureau due to the fact that it lacks the time, resources, and skills to turn its concern done integrated traffic.

For example, you tin participate the pursuing into Ahrefs’ Content Explorer and filter by the past 90 days to place increasing companies you tin effort and merchantability SEO services to:

accountant AND ("raise" OR "launch" OR "open" OR "relocate" OR "acquire" OR "expand" OR "expansion" OR "new" OR "director of" OR "appointed" OR "change of" OR "hired" OR "recruited" OR "appointment")

Change the bolded connection successful this hunt query to a occupation rubric oregon industry, e.g., accountant, gaming, restaurant, marketing, property, etc.

The income process begins by defining the services you volition connection to imaginable clients.

In our guide to generating SEO leads, we mentioned that determination are 3 types of SEO services that a prospective lawsuit is looking for.

1. Full SEO service – For example, they privation you to negociate the full process of keyword research, contented creation, publishing, nexus building, reporting, and measurement for them.
2. Industry-focused – For example, SEO for lawyers, SEO for SaaS companies, etc.
3. Specialist service – For example, HARO nexus building, domain migration, etc.

Let’s present look astatine however to amended your transportation truthful you tin get much SEO clients.

To beryllium taken earnestly by prospects and get a ft successful their door, you request to marque them alert of the results of your SEO efforts successful your emails, landing leafage content, forum posts, and idiosyncratic conversations.

If you don’t already person impervious oregon results, commencement creating them.

Show postulation oregon links earned with screenshots

For example, from Ahrefs, I downloaded the pursuing representation of the integrated postulation of a institution I did SEO and contented selling for and added it to my website:

If you worked connected an effectual nexus gathering campaign, participate its URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, instrumentality a screenshot of the referring domains, adhd it to your website’s testimonials page, and picture the objectives, process, and results of the campaign.

Show earlier and aft results

Here’s an illustration showing however Will improved his tract velocity by 718% and ended up with much than 2 times the traffic.

In summation to outlining his process, Will shared a screenshot comparing December’s higher postulation with October’s traffic:

Get lawsuit testimonials

Even better, if your customers springiness affirmative reviews astir the results they got from your SEO work, you person established credibility successful the eyes of imaginable customers.

The adjacent measurement is to find and suffice imaginable customers.

You tin find prospects utilizing inbound marketing, e.g., your website, SEO, PPC, Facebook groups, communities, referrals, email marketing, and outbound techniques specified arsenic email and telephone outreach.

Then you suffice prospects utilizing the close questions careless of your selling channel.

You tin usage a qualification series similar the 1 beneath erstwhile pitching prospects.

Example 1. Inbound

In all, 60% of marketers accidental inbound marketing practices, specified arsenic SEO, are their highest prime root of leads.

I’ve utilized this series to suffice caller website visitors to my website:

First, I inquire them if they’re looking for clients, sales, oregon website improvements:

Then I inquire a mates of questions related to the archetypal question.

Then I inquire if they person immoderate budget:

Then I connection a scheduled call:

If they don’t person a budget, I invitation them to subscribe to my newsletter, wherever I tin transportation them services later:

For example, Fiona told maine she’s looking for 4 caller clients who walk astir £1,000 but indicated she doesn’t person immoderate budget:

If they person immoderate budget, I inquire for their name, email, and URL, inviting them to a find meeting:

Your email list

You tin email your subscribers asking the archetypal question and a akin series to suffice prospects:

In this example, Cecilia clicked the “More clients” enactment and indicated she’s looking for 11–20 much clients:

Then she scheduled a telephone by completing the signifier you saw earlier.

Example 2. Outbound

In this outbound example, I phoned Richard, a manager successful an insolvency signifier institution for whom I’d antecedently built a website.

In erstwhile conversations, helium told maine that helium gets paying customers from different selling channels and however overmuch helium pays for a qualified pb and customer.

He is simply a qualified lead, arsenic helium told maine helium has a fund and needs much customers. Now it’s clip to transportation to him.

If you’ve qualified a imaginable earlier a find call, you’ve already got the accusation you request to suggest an result for them.

(Otherwise, the telephone is going to usage the questions successful measurement #2.)

How to transportation their result (more clients)

With Richard’s permission, I’ve done my champion to recreate our telephone speech to springiness you an thought of however this can go.

Me (text): Can I bounce thing disconnected connected the phone?

Richard (text): Call me.

Me: Hi, Richard. So we’ve talked astir however overmuch you walk to get caller customers. Ideally, however galore caller customers are you looking for each month?

Richard: 20.

Me: So you person a precise precocious lawsuit conversion complaint from these different channels. But let’s accidental your website tin make qualified leads, and your squad tin person 20% of those leads into customers.

That means you’ll request astir 100 qualified leads from the website a month.

Richard: Correct.

Me: Let’s accidental the website tin person 10% of its postulation into qualified leads, meaning it needs 1,000 visits a month.

Richard: Yes.

Me: So I checked retired Google Ads for people keywords similar “debt absorption plans” and “business insolvency,” and your customers’ search. And the outgo per click was £16 a click.

So you’d request to walk £16,000 a period with Google Ads to get your 1,000 website visits— based connected the supra calculations.

Richard: I’m not spending £16,000 a period (laughs).

Me: So let’s look astatine an alternate solution. I was looking astatine the website postulation of 2 of your competitors that make qualified leads from their websites.

One gets 5,700 visits a month; the different 7,200 visits a period from the integrated results, not the paid results.

So you’re a concern guy. You cognize it takes ongoing concern earlier you spot a return, right?

Richard: Right.

Me: So to get that benignant of traffic, I’d request to place the close things radical hunt for. I’d request to wage idiosyncratic other with expertise successful your manufacture to constitute the close contented for those things. And I’d request to put successful earning links from authoritative websites.

Richard: And we lone privation radical looking for institution liquidation, not idiosyncratic liquidations solutions.

Me: Exactly. So what would you put each period alternatively of spending £16,000 with Google Ads to get the 1,000 visits?

Richard: Well, rapidly disconnected the apical of my head, astir apt astir £2,000–£3,000 a month.

Me: How did you travel to that number?

Richard: I’m the concern director. We tin spend to put £24,000–£36,000 successful a twelvemonth wherever we don’t request to spot short-term results.

A speedy explanation

• 20 clients
• Divided by 20% conversion
• Equals 100 leads
• Divided 10% postulation conversion
• Equals 1,000 visits
• Keyword CPC equals £16
• £16,000 Google Ad walk to get 1,000 visits

To cipher the CPC of the keywords your lawsuit would target, spell to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, participate their people keywords, and look astatine the CPC column.

Ending the find call

When the telephone people ends, you tin decorativeness the speech with, “So wherever bash you deliberation we should spell from here?”

There are lone 3 outcomes of asking this question:

• They’re not interested.
• They privation to spot the script you explained to sermon with others.
• They privation to docket a follow-up gathering with others successful their team.

So I wrapped up the telephone with Richard and said I’d draught up the script we discussed.

Fortunately, I’m moving with the idiosyncratic who makes the last decisions and the 1 who approves payment.

So the adjacent day, I emailed Richard this one-page connection summarizing the objective, campaign, pricing options, and rival postulation analysis. You tin create a transcript of it here.

Then I met up successful idiosyncratic with Richard. After immoderate tiny talk, I asked if he’d work the proposal.

He asked maine to explicate if the competitors’ maturation was achievable, which led the speech to nexus building.

I explained however helium could inquire for links from immoderate of his manufacture contacts and accreditation websites, but the remainder of the links would request to beryllium earned.

Then I explained the keyword probe and contented processes (choosing which topics to constitute about) and the differences betwixt pricing enactment A and enactment B.

Richard ended the speech by stating that helium was bought into the idea. But arsenic 1 manager needed to review, edit, and o.k. each contented writing, helium needed buy-in from each members of his team.

Your imaginable whitethorn loop idiosyncratic other similar a sales, marketing, oregon web manager into the task to articulation a follow-up income gathering and sermon the following:

• Discuss however this SEO task will work
• Plan the task duration, estimation costs, however to get started, and however you volition study and measurement results
• References from different clients

Using our SEO declaration template proposal, implicit the details of the highlighted areas:

This declaration includes:

• Responsibilities, who does what, and more.
• Scope of work.
• Duration of work.
• Payment terms.

In addition, you whitethorn besides beryllium asked to motion an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) by the lawsuit earlier they stock institution accusation with you and your team.

Final thoughts

Here’s a speedy recap. We covered however to attack selling SEO services by focusing connected 3 key areas:

1. Present the client’s desired result alternatively than your services
2. Use science to transportation a higher anchor terms against your price
3. Provide a verbal terms oregon one-page connection earlier sending a contract 

Got questions? Ping maine on Twitter.