What I wish I knew when first starting in SEO

[JustWantToWFH]

Hey all,

I'm currently wasting money getting my MBA for some stupid reason and while procrastinating on assignments over the past 2 years became obsessed with SEO and Web Design/Dev. I'm now in a "Business Plan" class and have decided to use a small IM consulting/agency business as my project.

With that said, I wasn't able to locate any posts from the experts on here about things they know now that would've been nice to know when starting up. For example...

What's the best business model?
- Technical SEO audits
- SEO Strategy
- Building Sites and Selling Leads
- Other?

What common but essential processes can be automated to save time?
- Google Analytics reports
- Screaming Frog audits
- Other?

 

[CCarter]

@JustWantToWFH You should probably take a look at the Digital Strategy Crash Course. Everything you asked has been answered within it.

What's the best business model?

The answer depends entirely on what you are good at and willing to do. I can be amazing at coding and my business model is creating software. You can be completely shitty at coding and hate ever moment of it and can't pull it off.

 

[JustWantToWFH]

I'm only beginning to learn the fundamentals of CSS and HTML - enough to be dangerous. My strengths right now are focused in these areas:
-Technical SEO Audits and Recommendations
-Inbound Marketing Strategy
-Building and Hosting 'basic' websites for services/information

With that said, I saw this post by @tim2963 and am REALLY interested in learning more about how he tracks and confirms sales figures because I think this matches my current skillset really well: My Company Business Model

 

[RomesFall]

If I was to do that type of business all over again I would put more time into ranking sites for leads and selling those leads, then with the consulting I would qualify potential clients a lot more. They're not all bad, but trust me you don't want to take on the wrong person's work because your actual decent clients will suffer.

I think you need to consider the customer services area of this kind of business, whether you're suited to it or even willing to put up with it as opposed to the technical which can all be gained over time. Your personality however, won't change and if you go into it ignoring that then you could end up very very miserable if your personality doesn't suit it.

 

[stackcash]

I think you need to first divide your potential business models into two categories:

• Working alone and outsourcing to scale, or
• Owning / Working for an agency that requires you work with or manage other employees

I'm in the first camp, and quite honestly.... the more sites I work on, the more I realize how much profit potential there is just by working on my own and creating my own fate. With the right skill set, you can be making mid-to-high six-figures each month from the comfort of your pajama's in your home office.

I'm sure not there yet...but it is possible. You just need to be realistic enough with yourself to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. You need to be able to create a game plan, create processes to implement that plan, outsource those processes to competent people you can trust, track everything like a hawk, and know when to halt a project if it's not hitting the goals you set out for it.

I'm sure working in a traditional office with/for an agency can earn you mega bucks too. I just have zero patience to tiptoe around people's varying personalities in order to get what I need.

Also, explaining SEO to raw clients and trying to help them understand things is a torture that I don't wish on my worst enemy.

 

[JustWantToWFH]

I think you need to first divide your potential business models into two categories:

• Working alone and outsourcing to scale

Are you referring to building your own sites and selling leads like @RomesFall or doing more Inbound marketing consultation for individual businesses on a project basis?

 

[stackcash]

Building my own sites and monetizing it through lead sales, affiliate offers, ad networks, or the like. My preference is to limit the number of people between me and my potential money as much as possible.

 

[Ryuzaki]

-Inbound Marketing Strategy

If you can do this and provide results, you're worth your weight in gold. The typical approaches are time consuming and expensive. Stuff like "have someone research data points, create an amazing infographic, and do a ton of email outreach" takes forever but drives serious results for SEO.

Same goes for PPC advertising and the like. If you can do it effectively without losing money for the client, it scales to the moon.

But the question always becomes... if you can do it that well, why aren't you doing it for yourself and cleaning up, like @stackcash is saying. The answer is usually a psychological one based on fear and comfort. Of course in your situation we're talking about a theoretical thing for a class assignment.

-Building and Hosting 'basic' websites for services/information

This can add up fast, with recurring revenue. Rent a VPS for $60 a month, put 100 sites on it at $10 a month and you're already clearing $9940 in profit. Charge $20 an hour for development and any kind of changes. Any time you move your hand or pick up the phone, it's at minimum an hour (this keeps people from pestering you over stupid things).

There's a ton of models out there.

 

[JustWantToWFH]

I LOVE the pay for performance model on digital marketing for small businesses, however I have some questions around the logistics of running a pay for performance model that @tim2963 discusses.

1) Does this mean you can only use phone calls as the 'conversion' and not email contact form submissions?
2) How do the dynamic phone numbers impact SEO from a NAP consistency standpoint?
3) What measures can be put in place to make sure the small business owner is truthful about which of your leads turned into customers?
4) Can similar tracking metrics be put in place via Google analytics or tag manager that would help track PPC or display leads?