Search Engine Optimization (SEO) offers an excellent opportunity to make money online. When done well, SEO can be a good source of passive or recurring income.
However, like any other business, starting an SEO business can be overwhelming, especially if you lack the right skills. Luckily, you have come to this post. Here we look at how you can develop a recurring income stream as an SEO expert.
Let’s get started!
Why SEO is a great way to make income
People looking to make money online have many options. Some popular ways to make money online include creating and growing an engaging website, building an e-commerce store, selling online courses, selling affiliate products and services, selling eBooks, etc.
However, starting any of these businesses is only the beginning—you need to attract traffic and generate leads to make money. This is where SEO comes in.
That said, you can make good revenue if you set up SEO as a service. The best thing about an SEO business is that it can be a great source of recurring revenue. After all, businesses require SEO services consistently to maintain their rankings on search engines and make sales.
Back to our question: Is SEO a great way to make income online? Yes, you can earn good revenue by setting SEO as a service. Types of SEO that can help make passive or recurring income include:
Affiliate SEO – Affiliate SEO involves optimizing an affiliate website for SEO to increase traffic, generate leads, and make sales
Client SEO – Client SEO involves providing SEO services to businesses and getting paid for them
LeadGen SEO – LeadGen SEO involves improving a website’s ranking for individual web pages in search results (SERPs) to increase leads and revenue
Rank and Rent SEO – The rank-and-rent model involves building a website, improving its rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs), and later renting it out
Steps to setting up SEO as a service
Here’s a practical guide to help set up your SEO service successfully:
Educate yourself on standard SEO practices
The first step to building a good SEO service is to learn SEO. People who skip this step end up with a half-baked venture and many unhappy clients. As such, you must take your time to learn SEO in detail before you set up your SEO business.
Some of the things to remember when learning SEO include:
The goal of SEO
Keyword research
On-page and off-page optimization (know the difference)
Identify user experience (UX) signals
Creating SEO-friendly content
Generating trusted, quality backlinks
The best part is that there are many online resources to help understand SEO best practices. Also, you don’t have to master everything to start offering SEO services. Once you understand the basics, you can start offering the services on your way to becoming an expert.
Create a website showcasing your service options
Learning SEO guides is only the beginning; you need hands-on experience. And what better way to gain SEO experience than try it on your own website? Ideally, creating your website allows you to apply what you’ve learned instead of using your clients’ websites as a testing ground.
Your business website need not be complicated—a simple but attractive website will do the trick. Also, create and post SEO content on your website to address common customer pain points.
Adding testimonials to your website is also an excellent way to showcase your expertise. However, it is unlikely you’ll have them if your business is new, so don’t let that stand in your way. Use tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics to analyze the results of your new site.
Outsource or in-house?
When creating your SEO service, you have two options: Building a team of in-house experts or working with established SEO experts outside your organization. Building an in-house team means establishing your expertise and training other staff members on matters of SEO. On the other hand, you can outsource the work to SEO experts.
Project management
SEO isn’t a one-off project. That means you need to continuously optimize your work to maintain rankings. To achieve this, you need to learn project management skills to manage tasks and your team.
Project management involves two crucial categories: Planning and fulfillment.
Planning
Planning forms the foundation of your SEO service. It involves research, evaluation, and strategy. In other words, planning helps get a clear direction of how to build your SEO campaigns.
Some of the critical things to include in your planning include competitive analysis, keyword research, content evaluation, and website audit.
Fulfillment
Fulfillment involves plan execution. More specifically, fulfillment involves implementing a well-thought strategy to get the most out of your SEO efforts. This can be delivering what you promised to clients or getting more revenue from your SEO business.
Some important tools to help in SEO project management include:
Slack
Basecamp
Teamwork
Asana
Zapier
Find the right SEO tools
Now find a set of SEO tools to help in the process. Luckily, there are free tools to help streamline your workflow and get more time to do other important tasks.
These tools include:
Google Search Console – helps understand how crawlers are navigating your site and which keywords could help drive more organic traffic
Google Analytics – helps analyze site performance and traffic sources
Google my Business – feeds Google with crucial information like physical location, operating hours, and phone number
Other tools you may want to include in your arsenal include:
How the Hub can help you manage your projects
The Hub by GoDaddy Pro collects an array of pro-level tools in one intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard. It’s an integrated site-, client- and project-management platform that allows you to streamline otherwise time-consuming tasks.
For example, The Hub lets you run bulk updates for numerous websites at once. Users report saving an average of three hours each month for every client website they manage with The Hub. The platform also allows easier client collaboration via shared shopping features and account delegation.
Create your pricing model
There’s nothing as embarrassing as when prospects ask how much your SEO costs but can’t provide a good answer. While there’s not a single answer to this question, knowing the value of SEO will help give your prospects a more convincing answer.
To avoid confusion regarding pricing, we recommend you think about your pricing structure in the development stages. That said, here are three common pricing structures for SEO companies:
Fixed: You may want to use this pricing structure in projects that involve various SEO work—keyword research, SEO consulting services, on-page optimization, web design services, etc.
Hourly: This pricing structure is ideal for simple tasks such as website audits and keyword research
Retainer: Once you’re established, you can put your clients on a retainer basis, depending on their budgets
SEO pricing goes beyond the SEO service cost; it presents your capability and the value your SEO services provide to clients. Research your competitors and prospects before quoting a price for your SEO services.
Market your SEO services
No one will trust your SEO services if you don’t have a robust digital presence. That’s why you need to improve your website SEO to show clients that you are good at what you say.
However, SEO is not the only way to market your SEO services. That said, here are ways to boost your online presence:
Inbound practices
Inbound marketing is a great way to improve your online presence and attract SEO clients. Inbound practices involve different strategies that can help attract leads, including SEO, content marketing, social media, etc.
Automated social media
Businesses spend significant hours on social media per week. As such, you can ramp up your inbound efforts using social media. However, when using social media for your inbound services, you need to:
Create your message according to user intent and the platform
Join related social media groups such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Reddit groups to get ideas of what your audience is talking about
Be human
Reviews
If you have great reviews, include them on your website for your prospects to see. Create great relationships with professionals and ask them to review your SEO company. Positive reviews will show that you’re reliable and adhere to great work ethics.
Relevant listings
Setting up your SEO service on Google My Business, Yelp, and other relevant listings can help improve your online presence. However, make sure that your business information is consistent across these sites, including your business name, address, and phone number.
Document everything
Testing systems is one thing; make sure you document all your findings. Consider gathering positive reviews and creating case studies that will help showcase your SEO services. Always make a list of your clients’ goals anytime you sign up a new client and document their progress. Some of the crucial things to conclude in your case study include:
The problem – what problem did the client want to be solved?
The solution – what solution did you propose?
The results – did the solution you offered provide the desired results?
Testimonials – what’s the client’s experience working with you?
Scale your SEO business
Building a profitable SEO business won’t happen overnight. It requires a lot of time, effort, dedication, and testing various processes. As such, you may want to wait until when your business is generating significant income before scaling your business.
Of course, you can hire freelancers in your early stages, especially when things start gaining momentum. However, don’t hire full-time employees until when the business has enough revenue to sustain them.
That said, we recommend standardizing your offering or productizing your services if you want to scale your business. This way, it’ll become easier to deliver services to clients and hire more staff.
Wrapping up
Like any other business, starting an SEO business can be overwhelming and confusing. However, if you are willing to learn and do the hard work, you can create a successful SEO business that will give recurring income.
While there are many ways to build a successful SEO business, the above steps will help set up a successful SEO service.
The facts are clear: Startups are finding funding increasingly difficult to secure, and even unicorns appear cornered, with many lacking both capital and a clear exit.
But equity rounds aren’t the only way for a company to raise money — alternative and other non-dilutive financing options are often overlooked. Taking on debt might be the right solution when you’re focused on growth and can see clear ROI from the capital you deploy.
Not all capital providers are equal, so seeking financing isn’t just about securing capital. It’s a matter of finding the right source of funding that matches both your business and your roadmap.
Here are four things you should consider:
Does this match my needs?
It’s easy to take for granted, but securing financing begins with a business plan. Don’t seek funding until you have a clear plan for how you’ll use it. For example, do you need capital to fund growth or for your day-to-day operations? The answer should influence not only the amount of capital you seek, but the type of funding partner you look for as well.
Start with a concrete plan and make sure it aligns with the structure of your financing:
Match repayment terms to your expected use of the debt.
Balance working capital needs with growth capital needs.
It’s understandable to hope for a one-and-done financing process that sets the next round far down the line, but that may be costlier than you realize in the long run.
Your term of repayment must be long enough so you can deploy the capital and see the returns. If it’s not, you may end up making loan payments with the principal.
Say, for example, you secure funding to enter a new market. You plan to expand your sales team to support the move and develop the cash flow necessary to pay back the loan. The problem here is, the new hire will take months to ramp up.
If there’s not enough delta between when you start ramping up and when you begin repayments, you’ll be paying back the loan before your new salesperson can bring in revenue to allow you to see ROI on the amount you borrowed.
Another issue to keep in mind: If you’re financing operations instead of growth, working capital requirements may reduce the amount you can deploy.
Let’s say you finance your ad spending and plan to deploy $200,000 over the next four months. But payments on the MCA loan you secured to fund that spending will eat into your revenue, and the loan will be further limited by a minimum cash covenant of $100,000. The result? You secured $200,000 in financing but can only deploy half of it.
With $100,000 of your financing kept in a cash account, only half the loan will be used to drive operations, which means you’re not likely to meet your growth target. What’s worse, as you’re only able to deploy half of the loan, your cost of capital is effectively double what you’d planned for.
Is this the right amount for me at this time?
The second consideration is balancing how much capital you need to act on your near-term goals against what you can reasonably expect to secure. If the funding amount you can get is not enough to move the needle, it might not be worth the effort required.
Elon Musk said Sunday he “somewhat agonized” over the font designs for his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
The billionaire businessman added he “loves fonts” and has tweaked the logos over the years.
He revealed the SpaceX logo also holds a hidden meaning, representing a rocket’s arc to orbit.
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In a series of Sunday tweets, Elon Musk said he “somewhat agonized” over his choice of fonts for his businesses and revealed a hidden meaning behind the SpaceX logo.
Responding to a tweet about serif and sans-serif fonts, the billionaire businessman took a break from posting cryptic memes and discussing politics to say he loves fonts and put significant consideration into how his companies are presented to consumers.
“I somewhat agonized over the Tesla & SpaceX font design (love fonts tbh),” Musk tweeted. “There are some similarities, particularly use of negative space. We’ve made many little tweaks over the years.”
The Tesla logo — a T-shaped design with a custom, sans-serif font spelling out the brand name — is meant to resemble a cross-section of an electric motor. The SpaceX logo, written in a similar font with an extended X, references the reusable rockets made by the company.
“The swoop of the X is meant to represent the rocket’s arc to orbit,” Musk tweeted.
Other business logos have also held hidden messages: Baskin Robbins, a chain that sells 31 flavors of ice cream, has a secret ’31’ hidden in the letters of its logo. Likewise, Amazon’s arrow logo is meant to represent a smile, while the circular ‘B’ logo for Beats by Dre represents a person wearing the popular headphones.
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The internet has revolutionized the business world and changed how we conduct business. Any business that aims to increase its visibility and boost profit needs to pay much attention to top ranking factors, including local SEO — which introduces the topic of the local search algorithm.
Local SEO is one of the top practices that help boost a business’s visibility and generates more sales.
However, achieving better local SEO rankings is not a walk in the park, especially due to increased competition. To appear higher on local results, businesses and marketers need to understand how the local search algorithm works.
Knowing this helps guide the steps for improving rankings in the local pack.
The competition gets stiffer as more businesses open and optimize for local searching. Besides, Google is updating its algorithm consistently, meaning only businesses that can keep up with these updates can appear at the top of local search results.
Luckily, you have come to this post as this article looks at everything you need to know about Google’s local search algorithm and what you can do to get that top spot in the local pack.
Understanding the local search algorithm
Google aims to provide the best results that match a specific local search query. It constantly updates the local search algorithm to determine which business to rank on top of local search results.
Ideally, Google wants to provide local content that is relevant and valuable to users. As with search engine optimization, keyword stuffing cannot give you that top spot in local search results.
SEO specialists and marketers should consider Google’s local search algorithm updates and make the necessary changes to rank higher. Failure to consider these updates means losing your local search presence, resulting in fewer leads and conversions.
Local algorithms check the Google My Business (GMB) listings to determine where to rank a business in local search rankings.
Ideally, Google’s local algorithm ranks businesses with information that matches a searcher’s query. And the higher a business ranks in local search results, the more chances a potential customer will click on it.
This post looks at the three major pillars that determine local search results to better understand the local search algorithm: proximity, prominence and relevance.
Of course, other factors make up Google’s local search algorithm, but since we cannot identify all of them, we’ll focus on the most crucial ones in this post.
By understanding these pillars, marketers can better position themselves for local search success.
1. Proximity
Proximity is one of the major ranking factors when it comes to local search. That means the distance between a business and a searcher is a ranking factor in local search.
When a searcher searches for something, Google considers how far the searcher is from the location of the term they use in the search. When a searcher doesn’t specify the location, Google calculates the distance based on the information they have regarding their location.
Ideally, Google aims to provide the most relevant results to a search query. For instance, why would Google provide a list of coffee shops in Los Angeles if the searcher is searching from Colombia?
That would be irrelevant local search results that won’t benefit the searcher.
Unfortunately, while proximity is a major local search pillar, it’s one of the factors that businesses have little control over. After all, you cannot change where your business is located, right?
You can only ensure your business location is as clear as possible, so that it appears for related nearby queries. Here are steps you can take to achieve this:
Claim and verify the Google My Business listing
Ensure local listings are accurate and optimized for local products or services
Get the Google Maps API Key and optimize for your location and routes
Set up your profile correctly (for Service Area Businesses) to avoid violating Google’s guidelines
Users can perform several types of local searches, including:
Geo-modified searches
Users will perform geo-modified searches when they are planning to visit somewhere. For instance, a searcher in Los Angeles planning to visit Toronto, Canada, may search for a “coffee shop in Oakville.” The results will differ from if they searched for “coffee” while physically in Oakville.
To be specific, geo-modified searches are mainly based on relevance and prominence as opposed to proximity when a user searches for something when outside the city included in the search.
Non-geo searches
Searchers perform this type of search when looking for something around them. For instance, a user in Los Angeles performing a local search for “coffee.”
Ideally, the user only needs to search for something and is shown results based on proximity. They will get the results that are closest to them.
“Near me” searches
“Near me” searches have been so popular in recent years. Although their popularity has significantly declined, users still perform this type of search when looking for something locally.
For instance, some users could add “near me” when searching for a coffee shop, hoping to get the most relevant results near them. As we’ve stated, this trend has lost popularity because when you perform a local search, you are searching for something near you.
It is not necessary to add “near me” to what you’re searching.
2. Prominence
Prominence refers to how important Google thinks your business is, which gets factored into the local search algorithm.
In other words, it refers to how well a business stands from the rest in various aspects, including directories, links, reviews, mentions, among other things.
If search engines view your business as trustworthy and credible, they will likely show it on top of related search query results.
The local search algorithm views businesses/brands with a stronger online prominence as credible and trustworthy. Some of the factors that determine prominence include:
Citations
A local citation is the mention of a business’s information online. The mention can include the partial or complete name, address, and phone number (NAP) of a local business.
Citations are an excellent way for people to learn about local businesses and impact local search results.
A business with high-quality citations can rank better in local search results, although businesses must continually manage citations to ensure data accuracy.
Inbound links
Backlinks play a crucial role in local business prominence. Gaining relevant backlinks from high-quality sites is an excellent way to build a business’ online reputation.
If you’re trying to outrank your competitors without much success, your backlink profile could be the reason.
In that case, you should check your competitor’s backlinks and compare them with yours. When doing this, pay attention to the number and quality of their backlinks.
As a rule of thumb, aim to have high-quality local backlinks pointing to your site to improve your page’s authority.
Reviews
Next, you need to pay much attention to reviews to improve local prominence. Many customers look at a business’s online reviews before deciding whether to engage more with the business or not. Besides, many positive online reviews can increase a business’ ranking factors.
Consider this scenario. A potential customer is looking for a pub around Oakville. When they perform a search, they are presented with two results: one with over 100 reviews and another with less than 10 reviews.
Which business do you think the searcher would trust? The one with 100 reviews, obviously.
As with search engines, customers need to trust a business before they decide to do business with it. Similarly, search engines can view online reviews and analyze them to determine a business’s online prominence.
That said, here are strategies you can use to boost your online review signals:
Have a strategy
You won’t have a strong online prominence if your products or services are not of a high standard. So, the first step to having many great reviews is to develop great products and services.
After that, develop a strategy to encourage your happy customers to leave honest but valuable reviews of their experience doing business with you to help boost your online reputation.
Monitor and manage the reviews
Having many reviews is one thing; you need to develop a plan to engage with your customers for better results. Responding to reviews shows people that you care and are genuine about your products and services.
People will avoid businesses that don’t respond to customer reviews (whether positive or negative).
Search engines, too, can tell whether you engage with customer reviews or not and will use the information to determine where to rank on local search results.
When responding to online reviews, pay special attention to negative reviews and how you respond to them. While no business likes getting negative reviews, how you respond to them can positively impact your business — respond positively to turn the negative reviews around.
3. Relevance
As earlier stated, Google wants to provide the most relevant results to a local search query. This key ranking factor will determine a business’s position in local search results — how well does a local business match a search query?
Even if your business ticks the above pillars (prominence and proximity), if the content on your page isn’t well structured and doesn’t cover the topics that a searcher is looking for, you won’t appear on top of local search results.
Here are factors that businesses should consider to create a relevant listing:
Local page signals
Local listing categories and attributes
Social posts and responses to online reviews
Local listing signals and categories
A business GMB listing and category can impact its relevance score for local searches. As such, complete your business profile carefully and continually add quality content to the web page to ensure it is relevant for proximity searches.
More specifically, ensure that all information on all listing pages, including Yelp, Bing, and Google, is complete and accurate. Aside from these factors, here are two crucial features you should pay attention to:
Category selection
Selecting the right categories for your local business listing is among the crucial factors for ranking locally. With over 4000 GMB categories, you want to choose categories that best describe your business — ensure they are relevant and specific.
Here are guidelines to follow when selecting a category:
Describe your business as opposed to your services
Be specific to minimize competition
Reduce the number of GMB categories to describe your business better
Business description
Without a proper description, users won’t know what your business is about. This section is about adding an introduction to your business so that customers and search engines can know more about your business.
However, don’t use this section for marketing your business. Just give users and search engines descriptive info that can help determine whether your business matches their needs.
Local page signals
Another way a business can improve its standing in the local search algorithm is by optimizing web pages for specific keywords. For multi-location businesses, it’s essential to have separate, localized pages for each location, with relevant information and contact details for customers to reach you.
Performing competitor research is advisable to determine what terms or keywords to use for a specific query. Here are top on-page signals to consider when trying to gain relevance for a given topic:
Keyword research — Before creating local content, you need to find keywords that matter to your business. Perform keyword research to determine highly relevant keywords with high intent. When finding relevant terms to use in your content, base your research on the customer perspective; think about what they search for and the type of content they are looking for.
Create local content — After finding the right keywords, it’s time to create your content. Google values the quality of content more than the length of the content, so keep this in mind when creating content. Another crucial thing to pay attention to is localizing the content. For example, you can create content on local news and events or use your city’s name within your content.
The goal is to create a connection between what’s happening in your local area and your business. Also, use pictures with your specific geolocation to increase your content relevance.
Creating quality and relevant content is only the start. You need to optimize your content for on-page signals so local search algorithms can discover and rank them better. Here’s how you can optimize your local content for on-page signals:
Meta descriptions — Include keywords in your meta descriptions to encourage searchers to click through and increase visibility
Title tags — Title tags are some of the factors that search engines use to determine where to rank content. Incorporating keywords naturally in your title tags can help boost local rankings
Image tags — Another way to improve local rankings is by including relevant keywords in your image tags. Including geotags also comes with an added advantage
Headings — Users and Google value pages with clear structures. Consider creating headings within your content to capture readers’ attention and encourage them to read on. However, ensure your heading tags describe the content that comes after them well. Also, include keywords in your heading tags to help search engines understand them and their importance.
Off-page local signals
Gaining high-quality backlinks is a great way to boost credibility and trust. Backlinks refer to external links from another website to your site. Aim to have more high-quality backlinks to boost your website authority.
Ideally, having many quality backlinks shows search engines that your website or page is credible and trustworthy, which boosts the chances of ranking it higher in search engine results.
Guest posting is one of the best examples of link-building strategies you can use. Finding great guest posting opportunities provides an excellent opportunity to share your content to a new but relevant audience, which helps boost your website authority.
Another strategy you can use is to create longer and better content than what is already available on the web. When your content is high quality and relevant, it will be easier to get high-quality backlinks.
Review and social signals
Online reviews can also help boost relevance for your local business. Aim to get as many positive reviews from your happy customers as possible.
Remember, when customers perform a local search, they get not only the relevant businesses but also reviews related to the search. The more positive reviews a business has, the higher chances a potential customer will do business with them.
Closing thoughts on the local search algorithm
Ranking on top of local search results can seem daunting, but it shouldn’t when you know the vital things to focus on. As you have seen above, the local algorithm is based on three pillars: relevance, proximity, and prominence.
Of course, other factors determine local search rankings depending on your industry and competition.
