Starting a search engine optimisation business from scratch can be an extremely overwhelming and daunting task, especially if it is your first time. Establishing contacts and connections can also be extremely time consuming if you have no prior marketing and sales knowledge.
Below is a useful guide to help you get your first clients and to get your SEO / SEM business off the ground. Before I begin, please keep in mind that word-of-mouth is king, get the word out, talk and mention your business to whomever, whenever and wherever. Remember, the more exposure you offer your business, the more chances you will have landing that first deal.
Search engine optimisation marketing and offline selling tips:
1. Target your market and know your customers, i.e. do some background research. It helps to initially concentrate on one industry, e.g. travel websites, and know the terms, your clients, their line of work and their competition.
2. Localise yourself, concentrate on a local area. Try not to tackle too much at first, focus and concentrate on local businesses and gain their trust. Remember you are a local and share similarities.
3. Meet with them, form a partnership and more personal relationships.
4. Assess your advertising options (depending on your budget), consider using the following advertising tools:
a. Local newspapers place a catchy add.5. Join your local chamber of commerce, meet business people and discuss your SEO business. Offer them a FREE brief website analysis / proposal on their website and show them how you can increase their online traffic and sales.
b. T-shirts - they create great advertising on the street or wherever you go. Also, choose an eye catching slogan.
c. Business cards choose an appealing and aesthetically pleasing design, trust me professionalism and great design go a long way.
d. Billboard and brochure advertising for those that have the financial means.
e. Taxi advertising: Taxis can be seen all over town by motorists, many of who may happen to be company executives looking to increase their online sales.
f. Radio is also not a bad way of reaching out to people, however this can be costly.
Follow these steps and you can be sure that youll be on your way, just stick to your guns and persevere. Deals and contracts may not rush in overnight, however you can be sure sales and new clients will come about in a short period of time. Best of luck!
About the Author: Ilan Touri works for SEO Sydney, a team of search engine optimisation specialists. He has worked on many projects and offers search engine marketing services to companies in Australia. For further information, please contact .
Links pointing to your website, are the foundation which allows targeted keywords or terms to rank highly in the search engines.
To make an inbound link to your website even more valuable, you need to employ a SEO technique creating anchor text.
Anchor text is the text the web visitor sees on the web page, which is hyperlinked to your domain name or URL.
Anchor text is adding a keyword or series of terms that you wish to rank highly on . Simply supply your domain name or URL and add the targeted words.
Example html code below A href=http://www.yoursitename>Top Site
The anchor text is Top Site this is the text that will show up on the web page and when a user clicks on the hyperlink it will take them to your website.
There are two values to this technique, number one; you can receive targeted web visitors looking for the term Top Site.
Secondly, when the search engines scour the web for data they will see the term top site points to your website.
If there are many links with the anchor text Top Site, pointing to your site, there is a good chance you will rank very highly on the anchor text term, in this case Top Site.
Focus on anchor text with your link partners. Anchor text is an important way of showing the search engines, as well as your visitors, exactly what theyre getting when they land on the page. Anchor text is a powerful way to raise your ranking for targeted search terms.