Scaling Up: How To Expand Your SEO Services To New Markets via @sejournal, @jasonhennessey

Many SEO agency owners person a imaginativeness of increasing their business, gathering a exemplary that drives recurring gross without having to sacrifice their time, energy, oregon sanity.

Unfortunately, galore bureau owners get stuck successful a plateau. They deed a ceiling connected however galore clients they tin manage, yet don’t person the currency travel to hire a team. What’s an ambitious bureau proprietor to do?

In this guide, I’m sharing my growth strategies arsenic a 10+ twelvemonth SEO bureau proprietor – from however to expand to caller markets to however to instrumentality a sustainable, scalable bureau model.

A CEO’s Secret To Scalable SEO

How did a hopelessly distracted C pupil turn a 100-person planetary SEO agency?

Well, it wasn’t done “growth hacks”, offshoring, oregon selling courses.

It was done a passionateness for the craft: 30,000+ hours obsessing implicit the algorithm, speaking to clients, investigating strategies, and doing the work.

There is nary shortcut.

But determination is simply a mindset.

It’s a mindset that’s attentive to the needs of existent concern owners. One that’s future-forward, recognizing the unsocial challenges concern owners look today. And a mindset that’s originative successful crafting an SEO work that helps concern owners flooded these challenges.

This starts with knowing the market, uncovering the gaps, and bringing thing unsocial to the table.

Here’s however to bash that.

1. Trim The Fat

Very often, we bureau owners get stuck successful a rut of managing a precocious measurement of low-paying clients. This burns retired our resources and makes it precise hard to scale.

If you can’t instrumentality connected more, higher-paying contracts, you person precise small country to grow. That’s erstwhile it’s clip to “trim the fat”, truthful to speak.

First, place the clients that are causing the biggest headaches for the slightest magnitude of declaration value.

• How overmuch clip is being enactment into managing those clients?
• Are the time, energy, and resources worthy the measly gross for your business?

Next, place your champion clients – not conscionable successful presumption of money, but the client-agency relationship.

• What are the characteristics that marque moving with them enjoyable?
• Are these types of accounts profitable?
• If so, what is the margin?

The pugnacious quality is that you volition apt request to let immoderate of the hard clients go. But this is conscionable to marque abstraction for much enjoyable, lucrative projects. Doing truthful besides opens up breathing country for you to get much originative with your work offerings.

2. Remove The Operational Bottlenecks

Besides time-consuming clients, determination are apt different factors that are hindering your agency’s growth. This could beryllium the deficiency of squad resources to instrumentality connected caller projects, a deficiency of skills to scope that adjacent caliber of service, oregon a deficiency of clip connected your portion to bring it each together.

This is the clip to instrumentality a good, hard look astatine your bureau structure, resources, and processes.

Here are a fewer communal issues that tin pb to inefficiency (and, ultimately, stagnation) successful your business:

• Lack of scalable systems to facilitate a seamless lawsuit intake to work to retention model.
• Poorly defined roles for your squad members, starring to disorder and churn.
• Reliance connected manual processes, slowing down the velocity of work and creating bottlenecks successful fulfillment.
• Insufficient squad training, starring to mediocre work quality.

Identifying the bottlenecks is the archetypal measurement successful fixing them. Trust me, this isn’t conscionable astir bully housekeeping; if your bureau works similar a well-oiled machine, it’s amended positioned to grow to caller markets and instrumentality connected much clients.

3. Assess The Financial Health Of Your Agency

Now it’s clip to get your fiscal location successful order. The past happening you privation to bash is commencement selling SEO to caller markets without archetypal establishing a profitable, sustainable revenue maturation model.

If available, look astatine your agency’s past 2+ years’ Profit and Loss statements.

• How overmuch gross is your bureau generating twelvemonth aft year?
• What are your expenses?
• Are you charging capable to offset the costs of personnel, software, your salary, etc.?

Analyze your fiscal reports to look for inefficiencies.

• Is determination a past of overspending?
• Underearning?
• Inconsistent currency flow?

This enactment isn’t meant to deter you from expanding to caller markets; rather, it’s a signifier of taking a look astatine your concern financials and making data-informed decisions.

I highly urge having a wellness currency reserve to assistance you negociate unexpected costs and/or imaginable setbacks arsenic you grow to caller markets. Change tin travel with immoderate unpredictability, truthful the much you tin springiness yourself a cushion, the better.

4. Identify High-Growth Markets

By this constituent let’s presume your bureau is financially sound, you person the abstraction to instrumentality connected caller clients (because you person trimmed the fat), and person enactment systems successful spot to facilitate growth. How bash you place the blistery caller markets for expansion?

One mode is to “stay successful the know” by monitoring manufacture trends and news. Outlets similar our precise ain Search Engine Journal are large astatine covering emerging markets, technologies, SEO applications, and more.

Another root of marketplace probe is Google Trends, wherever you tin spot a emergence successful hunt volumes and emerging keywords. For example, astatine the clip of penning this article, determination was a important uptick successful topics related to instrumentality and government.

I besides urge speechmaking manufacture reports and surveys to spot what’s caller successful the market. For instance, Forbes often covers ‘emerging markets’ by location, demographics, and industries.

Look for opportunities that bespeak expanding and sustained growth. For example, the satellite of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been connected the upswing for rather immoderate time, portion others (like each the craze astir Instagram Threads) fizzle out.

5. Look For The Gaps

Look for opportunities successful which your competitors person yet to capitalise connected a caller marketplace oregon maturation trend. If you’re capable to bushed them to the punch, you’ll beryllium amended positioned to triumph the lion’s stock of the market.

There are a fewer ways to bash this. For one, you tin beryllium the archetypal to motorboat a work offering to a new/emerging market. However, different mode to “fill the gap” is to connection a antithetic instrumentality connected an existing service/model.

For example, accidental there’s been an summation successful request for SEO services by histrion removal work providers arsenic a effect of section storms (this has truly happened).

In the midst of different selling agencies pushing generic SEO packages, possibly you connection a “storm-response” -focused integer strategy, including accelerated contented updates and pay-per-click ads emphasizing exigency services.

This truly requires you to deliberation extracurricular the container (remember, Mindset) to fig retired 1) what the marketplace needs, 2) whether you tin beryllium archetypal to capable the gap, and 3) what makes you antithetic from different SEO providers.

6. Restructure Your SEO Offering

Scaling up your SEO bureau requires adaptability. Stagnation is simply a existent bureau killer. To support an upward trajectory, you request to marque immoderate changes to your SEO work offerings.

For example, AI has been a blistery taxable for rather immoderate time. While galore agencies assertion to leverage AI to streamline the contented instauration process, your assertion to fame could beryllium that you don’t usage AI, and alternatively connection a customized contented exemplary to supply further worth to businesses.

Or possibly alternatively of offering soup-to-nuts SEO services, you recognize Content is the astir profitable, truthful you niche down to absorption connected contented strategy and blogging.

Restructuring your services doesn’t needfully request to mean changing what you offer, though. It could mean changing however you connection it.

Like if you typically supply customized SEO strategies (that alteration period to month), possibly you find it much economical to connection out-of-the-box SEO plans that see the main components astir businesses request to spot postulation growth.

In my ain SEO agency, Hennessey Digital, I noticed wherever immoderate of our services were “good to have” but not “need to have”, oregon adjacent services clients ne'er ended up subscribing to.

We focused connected the services that provided the champion results for clients. And we are perpetually adapting to the times, incorporating caller technologies and strategies.

7. Build A Scalable Team

The information is, it’s precise hard to turn your SEO bureau with a squad of one. At immoderate point, you volition request to bring connected support, not lone to negociate the increasing lawsuit load but besides to offset gaps successful your ain skillsets.

A large entrepreneur tin admit their constraints and spot the strengths successful others. New squad members lend caller ideas, caller ways of doing things, and caller processes to assistance economize your business.

They whitethorn besides person penetration into the caller markets you are looking to grow to. For example, if your bureau has historically worked with location services providers, and present you’re looking to grow to instrumentality firms, hiring a Marketing Manager with acquisition successful the ineligible manufacture could beryllium a immense benefit.

Start by identifying the apical 3 challenges your concern is presently facing — and however hiring a skilled squad subordinate could offset these challenges. If the outgo of hiring is easy offset by the caller gross brought in, it’s a done deal!

Maybe you can’t prosecute idiosyncratic full-time close away. That’s okay! Consider outsourcing to commencement and past standard up incrementally arsenic your concern grows.

Scale Your SEO Agency With Confidence

Scaling up an SEO bureau comes with its challenges, from assets limitations to hard clients to fiscal constraints.

But astir of these tin beryllium mitigated by due planning, trimming the abdominous successful your business, and shifting your mindset from solopreneur to CEO.

It’s what’s allowed maine to turn my SEO concern from a solo signifier to a planetary agency. And portion that didn’t hap overnight, it was made easier erstwhile I was capable to place the gaps successful my ain accomplishment acceptable and find large radical to inject creativity into my business.

Every bureau proprietor is susceptible of scaling up — conscionable look for those gaps and bring a caller instrumentality to the market!

More resources: 

• How Brands Can Have Successful Agency Relationships [Part 1]
• 5 Ways To Leverage Business Coaching To Grow Your Marketing Agency
• A Guide To Essential Tools For SEO Agencies

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