Outsourcing my SEO

[Brandzy]

So I'm launching my web/graphic design company soon and I am considering an SEO package to offer my clients. Does anyone here have any experience in white label SEO companies? I can optimise, research and create content myself but it's mainly the link building/outreach side I'll be looking at.

Thanks in advance.

 

[fisicx]

SEO is more and more onsite rather than link building or out reach. Which means it needs to be built into the site from day one - far easier than trying to bolt it on afterwards.

There are white label SEO packages but they are all rubbish. So you would be better off not offering SEO services.

 

[Brandzy]

Thanks for the reply.

All of my websites will be search engine friendly and incorporate their basic keywords in the right places, but I just need a company to do the link building and outreach for me. Any seo package I offer would be more focused and ongoing (content creation, blogging, etc)

 

[fisicx]

Still pointless. Anyone can build a site that is search engine friendly, making the search engines like the site requires a lot more than just putting keywords in the right places.

Content creating and guest blogging has already been earmarked by google as something to be avoided.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

All websites should be search engine friendly, you don't need to offer it as a service and if you're not an SEO guy then you're best off not mentioning it at all... It will come back to bite you in the backside.

In fact, you need to go out of your way to make the distinction that you're a website developer and DO NOT offer SEO.

I'm a developer myself so I know it's tempting to offer more services, to flesh out packages and provide a 'full service' but it will end up costing you. Just stick to what you're good at.

My advice would be to not offer any SEO advice, don't even mention keyword placement. As soon as the client's website is not performing they'll be back for answers, with complaints and be expecting refunds.. then what will you do?

 

[Xtm_Mike]

Related: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/web-design-client-asking-for-money-back.374626/

It's a great reminder that you should not offer to do things that you would realistically struggle with. It's not so much being able to Google your way through it, but being able to put things right when the $h#t hits the fan.

 

[Brandzy]

Thanks for the reply everyone. It's much appreciated.

However is there something I've said which makes you think I don't know what I'm doing from an seo point of view? I've ranked sites and content before and I'm pretty confident I know what google likes. But I also know enough to know that seo without link building is pointless in a competitive market.

Every site I build is search engine friendly, like I've said. However an extra service offering more seo practices is what I'm considering. I CAN do it myself and I will, but it's the link building side I want to outsource not because I don't know how, but because I'm a designer and I don't want to spend a lot of time link building.

So does anyone out there have any experience with this?

Thanks again.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

Thanks for the reply everyone. It's much appreciated.

However is there something I've said which makes you think I don't know what I'm doing from an seo point of view? I've ranked sites and content before and I'm pretty confident I know what google likes. But I also know enough to know that seo without link building is pointless in a competitive market.

Every site I build is search engine friendly, like I've said. However an extra service offering more seo practices is what I'm considering. I CAN do it myself and I will, but it's the link building side I want to outsource not because I don't know how, but because I'm a designer and I don't want to spend a lot of time link building.

So does anyone out there have any experience with this?

Thanks again.

Well, just the fact that you are trying to outsource it and you have just said you don't know how to link build and don't want to spend time on it. If that's the case, why bother? It will cause you more hassle than it's worth.

Every site I build is search engine friendly, it does not mean I offer SEO services, in fact, if clients quiz me on SEO I make it clear I do not offer SEO services or even advice.

The average client doesn't know or care what link building is, they just see the word SEO and think you can get them to the first result on Google, and when you don't? emails, phone calls, complaints and refunds.

Not trying to insult your intelligence or anything like that, but it's fairly common for developer designers to offer SEO services that they simply can't deliver on... If you can, great!

 

[Brandzy]

Well, just the fact that you are trying to outsource it and you have just said you don't know how to link build and don't want to spend time on it. If that's the case, why bother? It will cause you more hassle than it's worth.

Every site I build is search engine friendly, it does not mean I offer SEO services, in fact, if clients quiz me on SEO I make it clear I do not offer SEO services or even advice.

The average client doesn't know or care what link building is, they just see the word SEO and think you can get them to the first result on Google, and when you don't? emails, phone calls, complaints and refunds.

Not trying to insult your intelligence or anything like that, but it's fairly common for developer designers to offer SEO services that they simply can't deliver on... If you can, great!

I didn't say I don't know how to do it. I said I can and I have but it's not something I'd want to spend a lot of time doing.

But I do get what you're saying. I feel that it's a developers responsibility to at least ask about a clients marketing plans and explain that building a site without marketing is pointless. I'd offer PPC or social media marketing but I've never done that before.

Cheers

 

[fisicx]

Maybe just offer a recommendation to a link building business. That way you won't get the flack if (or when) it all comes crashing down.

Or better still, don't do any SEO work. That way no blame is apportioned and you can get on with the stuff that makes money.

 

[Brandzy]

Maybe just offer a recommendation to a link building business. That way you won't get the flack if (or when) it all comes crashing down.

Or better still, don't do any SEO work. That way no blame is apportioned and you can get on with the stuff that makes money.

Are you a developer and have you ever had clients ask you about seo? Do they ever come back and complain that the site you made them isn't getting any visitors?

 

[Xtm_Mike]

I didn't say I don't know how to do it. I said I can and I have but it's not something I'd want to spend a lot of time doing.

But I do get what you're saying. I feel that it's a developers responsibility to at least ask about a clients marketing plans and explain that building a site without marketing is pointless. I'd offer PPC or social media marketing but I've never done that before.

Cheers

Sorry, no you didn't, however, it's not something you really want to do. Whether you outsource it or not, it's you they will come back to, and they will. Some clients literally expect results within days.

You can ask about marketing plans and make sure they understand that simply putting a site online does not equal sales (or whatever the end goal is), but it's not your responsibility to babysit the client.

When I first started out, I offered SEO, I wanted to attract clients by offering full management packages - Problem: I wasn't interested in doing it. I understood core concepts etc but the last thing I wanted to do was waste time link building or optimising content.

In the worst case, I lost a client over it and money they refused to pay me... other times I would be spending hours writing emails explaining why things weren't going well, my credibility being lowered with every email.

If you're happy to take on that responsibility then you can disregard what I am saying... I am much happier with a smaller service offering, the quality of work is much better and clients appreciate what is done for them as they know what they expect if you stand firm with your offering.

 

[Brandzy]

Sorry, no you didn't, however, it's not something you really want to do. Whether you outsource it or not, it's you they will come back to, and they will. Some clients literally expect results within days.

You can ask about marketing plans and make sure they understand that simply putting a site online does not equal sales (or whatever the end goal is), but it's not your responsibility to babysit the client.

When I first started out, I offered SEO, I wanted to attract clients by offering full management packages - Problem: I wasn't interested in doing it. I understood core concepts etc but the last thing I wanted to do was waste time link building or optimising content.

In the worst case, I lost a client over it and money they refused to pay me... other times I would be spending hours writing emails explaining why things weren't going well, my credibility being lowered with every email.

If you're happy to take on that responsibility then you can disregard what I am saying... I am much happier with a smaller service offering, the quality of work is much better and clients appreciate what is done for them as they know what they expect if you stand firm with your offering.

Maybe I'll look into striking up a business relationship with a local SEO company whereby I receive a commission for every customer I send their way. I really just feel like I need to at least give them access to a marketing solution rather than letting them wander clueless.

Cheers!

 

[webgeek]

... I'm pretty confident I know what google likes. But I also know enough to know that seo without link building is pointless in a competitive market.

You can rank page 1 for thousands of terms without going out of your way to build a single link. Post on domain, cross link internally, mention socially, optimise thoroughly. Cha-ching.

If you're talking about offering SEO packages on massive volume short tail terms, good luck. Intensive on-page publishing and optimising required, along with backlinks. But I've not seen many developers who could snare an SEO client that would be trying to rank these terms.

Again, you don't need backlinks to rank well for most of the clients you'd be likely to attract.

 

[webgeek]

Maybe I'll look into striking up a business relationship with a local SEO company whereby I receive a commission for every customer I send their way. I really just feel like I need to at least give them access to a marketing solution rather than letting them wander clueless.

Cheers!

When you refer YOUR clients to an SEO agency that fails to deliver positive results... They won't be your clients any more.

You're better off bringing in a junior and having them do the work with you supervising, given your experience and knowledge of SEO. If you don't have enough experience/knowledge, then don't offer SEO.

 

[trader78]

They are some great companies that white label SEO services (probably should say grey label).

If you explain it well enough to your clients and research their keywords first you will know beforehand if you can get them results. Be open about it, give them weekly ranking reports etc.

As for the other SEO stuff, outreaching, guest blogging are a must if you want to rank high competitive terms.

Content creating and guest blogging has already been earmarked by google as something to be avoided.

I disagree. Content creation is essential for reaching new customers. You must provide useful valuable content that helps then end user.

As for guest blogging... yes spammy guest blogging (link at the bottom of the article) on low quality sites is not worth it but even though Matt said this years ago, the biggest sites on the web have guest posters and those writing the guest posts are looking for backlinks and reach.

Guest blogging, done well, works extremely well for SEO and authority.

 

[Darren C]

I didn't say I don't know how to do it. I said I can and I have but it's not something I'd want to spend a lot of time doing.

Isn't the obvious answer just to hire an assistant?

 

[fisicx]

Are you a developer and have you ever had clients ask you about seo? Do they ever come back and complain that the site you made them isn't getting any visitors?

I make it quite clear that I will advise on strategies but responsibility for marketing (of which SEO is just a part) is theirs. So no, I don't get any complaints.

 

[fisicx]

I disagree. Content creation is essential for reaching new customers. You must provide useful valuable content that helps then end user.

I agree, but many marketing companies now push content creation (AKS outreach) as an SEO tool and it isn't as effective as it once was. Putting the content on your own site however is very effective.

 

[TheBigMarketer]

If you can find a good outreach link builder / content marketer, then you've basically hit the jackpot. I work in SEO and I can safely say, I don't know a single white label link building consultant or agency I can vouch for.

Outreach is a slog. It's tough! I've done it and had success and continue to, but I've literally worked my butt off just for maybe 1-2 links a month.

I think you're better off learning how to do it in the background. Try outreach for your own site and see how you get on.

Or, hope you hit the jackpot and find a good white label outreach company.

 

[Website Design Ltd]

Assuming you are not working with huge, nationally or internationally recognised brands, link building and outreaching is highly unlikely to be the best use of your clients' marketing budget these days.

We are a full-service agency, offering design, development, and marketing, and have experts in each field, however, beyond technical and on-page SEO best practices we wouldn't touch off-page like outreach and link building for the level of clients we work worth, and I am not talking minnows.

These services, for the purposes of SEO are simply not going to provide a good ROI in the short term, medium term or probably even the long term for the vast majority of businesses.

PPC, Email, Social (to an extent) are what you should be focussing your clients' attentions on, and potentially providing recommendations to experts. These can provide instant, trackable returns and give you flexibility in putting budget into the areas that are actually performing.

 

[Paul @ Outsprung]

There are lots of white label providers on Warrior Forum etc but the quality, for the most part, is low.

You could train your own team to do outreach/link building (this is what I have done in the past) it's not too hard once you have documentation and templates in place. But it will take time and resources to setup.

Ryan Stewart (highly recommend you watch/read all his stuff) goes into detail about the outsourcing process if you are interested - youtube com/watch?v=C5-FmgPCZyo

Stick to what you are good at in my opinion. If you dont know anything about SEO then dont get your hands dirty with it. Pass them on to some local marketing agencies that are good at what they do (just google it and whoever is ranking top usually knows what they are doing) and leave it at that.

 

[webgeek]

"PPC, Email, Social (to an extent) are what you should be focussing your clients' attentions on,"

That might be the case for some, B2C, but not others. It's really iffy when you talk B2B.

You want to try and manage a PPC campaign for us, and come up with a positive ROI? The average click price is over £20.00. When people like HubSpot have an acquisition cost of over £20,000 per customer (and a lower lifetime value than that for most), many companies are selling at a loss to gain market share - something I'm not going to be doing anytime soon.

 

[fisicx]

I was talking to a marketing wonk the other day and one of their big clients has stopped all SEO work and all social media marketing. They now only do PPC and offline marketing. Their ROI had massively increased. Their youtube advertising spend was heading into 5 figures per month with similar for SEO. PPC is costing them a lot less for a much better conversion rate. Dropping all SM stuff has made zero difference to their sales.

It's not going to work for everybody - the point I'm trying to make is there is no single path to success, every case is different.

 

[Website Design Ltd]

I am of course talking solely about digital here, and by no means am I suggesting a one size fits all approach.

PPC is certainly not a viable option in all situations, however, if you are a small/medium business in a market so competitive that clicks are costing £20.00+ I would be very surprised if link building & outreach would be worth the money you were paying for it, when competing against big businesses that can afford £20.00 per click.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Offering an SEO-friendly site is a bonus for your clients, especially if you can prove it. I would tend to build this into your cost.

Since there is so much involved with SEO, I wouldn't go down the route of offering it as a service. I would offer strategy guidance and then explain to the client that there is some responsibility on their part, especially on the 'quality content' side of things. You will just tell them how to execute.

You can't just 'hand over' SEO anymore unless you've got a buck-load of money to do it properly.

Just another point. @webgeek is right about being able to rank highly without building links.

Not wishing to blow my own trumpet but I have a site that ranks 1st in Google and I've not done ANY link building. My strategy was to focus:

• Achievable Keywords
• Some Technical SEO
• Quality On-site Content

The result is 3.64% bounce rate for the past 12 months. Clearly, that tells you what you need to be focusing on.



Matt

 

[Paul @ Outsprung]

I was talking to a marketing wonk the other day and one of their big clients has stopped all SEO work and all social media marketing. They now only do PPC and offline marketing. Their ROI had massively increased. Their youtube advertising spend was heading into 5 figures per month with similar for SEO. PPC is costing them a lot less for a much better conversion rate. Dropping all SM stuff has made zero difference to their sales.

It's not going to work for everybody - the point I'm trying to make is there is no single path to success, every case is different.

yes it completely depends on the niche and audience. I think this is a rare example to be honest.

 

[Brandzy]

Offering an SEO-friendly site is a bonus for your clients, especially if you can prove it. I would tend to build this into your cost.

Since there is so much involved with SEO, I wouldn't go down the route of offering it as a service. I would offer strategy guidance and then explain to the client that there is some responsibility on their part, especially on the 'quality content' side of things. You will just tell them how to execute.

You can't just 'hand over' SEO anymore unless you've got a buck-load of money to do it properly.

Just another point. @webgeek is right about being able to rank highly without building links.

Not wishing to blow my own trumpet but I have a site that ranks 1st in Google and I've not done ANY link building. My strategy was to focus:

• Achievable Keywords
• Some Technical SEO
• Quality On-site Content

The result is 3.64% bounce rate for the past 12 months. Clearly, that tells you what you need to be focusing on.



Matt

Thanks Matt

Making a clients website SEO friendly from the off is something that I'll be pushing right from the start. I'm also considering offering 3 months free local SEO, see if I can get more conversions because none of the web dev services I'll be competing with are offering anything close to this.

Depending on the nature of the business, maybe I'll follow that up with a package that could suit their needs. For example if I build a site for a customer who sells printed T-Shirts and they rank well locally after the 3 month period, I'll hit them with something like...

"So we're coming up to the end of the 3 months free SEO period and you're now ranking really well for the keywords x, y and z. There are other ways and methods we can boost your traffic even more over the next six months, both locally and nationally..."

...then I'd pitch a pre-researched ppc campaign, social media campaign and/ or an SEO campaign. I'm hoping that the success they see from the free local campaign will entice them to sign up to one of these offers.

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[karthik m]

Hey,

I know a company who offers what you are looking for. You can contact rootcode.tech . I outsource our SEO projects to them and they are good.

Cheers

 

[Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake]

It's not going to work for everybody - the point I'm trying to make is there is no single path to success, every case is different.

Indeed it is. I've got years of experience doing SEO and social media and a little PPC. Yet this afternoon, I've been sending letters by post (handwritten addresses and everything) to some potential customers. For this particular business of mine, it works an absolute treat, whereas SEO, social media and PPC are a complete waste of time.

For another business I have, we get everything through SEO thanks to top 5 positions for a range of particular companies.

SEOs preach SEO, PPC people preach PPC when the fact is marketing is dead simple. Find out what works and do it.

 

[Brandzy]

Yeah I think I'm gonna leave the outsourcing idea alone. I'm gonna give away what I know to clients and learn more about digital marketing in general before i start charging for the service.

Thanks everyone.

 

[webgeek]

Here I thought Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake was a new healthy cereal, doh.

 

[iChrisj]

I think SEO has become a bit of cowboy business and there is very little to be gained at sensible budget levels. My daughter works for a large agency in London and they cannot really deliver for less than £10k per month. To deliver SEO results you need a lot talented people to create quality copy and content pretty much on a daily basis.

If you have a well designed site with a blog that you actually use at least once or twice a week, spending a few hundred quid a month with a so called SEO company is not going to make a lot of difference in my view.

I wouldn't be offering 3rd party SEO. If you're a good developer, encourage your clients to run a blog on their site and make sure you link the blog to their socials. These guys provide a great auto social publishing service for free, you can link to any blog in a couple minutes:-

Sorry I cannot post links until I have made 30 posts. Google 'dlvr.it'

 

[fisicx]

To deliver SEO results you need a lot talented people to create quality copy and content pretty much on a daily basis.

No you don't.

There may be some keywords where you need to constantly publish new content but most small businesses just need a well optimised site. I've got site i haven't touched for years that still rank well across a range of keywords.

And social media posting =/= SEO. Automated SM posting even less so.

 

[iChrisj]

Hi again fisicx, Exactly, why pay a SEO company? Good site and good content is where its at.

To drive rank beyond that you'll need deep pockets. £10k a month is not that much in the real SEO business and the reason for that is you need a lot talented people to create quality copy and content pretty much on a daily basis. Not to mention wining and dinning an army of bloggers. The a few hundred quid a month boys are just a con in my view.

 

[fisicx]

No you don't. You can rank well for competitive keywords without constantly creating new content.

I'm not suggesting the $99 SEO deals have value, I'm just saying most businesses don't need to to spend £10K/month.

Talk to @Tin. He knows how it's done. https://www.freshbananas.co.uk/

 

[iChrisj]

Hi, yes I totally agree.

 

[Paul Carmen]

They're ok but not great for writing relevant content. I'd employ a separate content writer to supply blogs and articles to your SEO agency.

Who's OK, but not great for writing relevant content?

I think you've been dealing with the wrong people Adrian. Any decent SEO agency, or company offering SEO services, should be awesome at relevant content.

That's the whole point of SEO, whether tweaking copy, page titles, meta descriptions etc. on a website, or producing content from scratch for outreach or to rank a page for a specific service. This should all be based on service, product & customer search term research, then copy written to target these both directly & contextually.