As an SEO consultant or freelancer,your income can be unpredictable. Now, one way to bring some stability andincrease your income is to get more customers. But that also comes with more work, more stress,and taking on clients you probably don’t want to work with. Now, the easiest and most stress-free way to makemore money as an SEO consultant or any consultant for that matter, is to charge more for yourservices and sell more to your existing clients. So in this tutorial, I’m going to share six tipsto help you make more money as an SEO consultant or freelancer withouttaking on more clients. Stay tuned.
[music] Now, the way people usually price theirservices is based on arbitrary theory. For example, they might think: “Hey, I want to make $100,000 this year, so ifI charge $100/hour then I only need to bill 1,000 hours in the year which is an averageof just over 19 hours per week.” On the other hand, some people will take avolume approach and try to undercut their competitor’s prices by 10-40% hoping to bea more attractive option. Neither of these models make sense becausepricing is based on your own goals and desires to make money.
They need to be centered around your client’sneeds and the value your services offer to them. So in its simplest form, the way you makemore money as a consultant without getting more clients is to a) sell more servicesb) sell your services for a higher cost or c) sell someone else’s services. And we’ll be discussing all of thesethings in greater detail. Now, it’s important to note that if your skillsaren’t up to scratch, then trying to become a high paid SEO consultant probablyisn’t the best first move. Focus on honing your skills in a specificarea of SEO. And this will help you become a master ofyour craft faster and it’s also easier to build.
Authority in a tight niche like link buildingas opposed to SEO as a whole. Plus, you’ll want to get tangible resultswhich you can use for detailed case studies. Now let’s get to the tips and these are basedpurely on my own experience as an SEO consultant, meaning there are other models you canuse to increase your income. Alright, the first tip is to charge full pricefor your initial consultation. People often give a free hour of theirtime to attract more consultations. And the underlying goal is to sell them onthe call and make more money as a result. Now, while you may convert some clients, you’relikely wasting your time with most prospects because what’s likely happening in reality is thatyou’re cheapening the value of your services.
Let me explain. Consultants are paid for their time and expertiseand if you give it a value of $0, then you have a lot to prove in that hour to show that you’reworth $100, $500, or even $1,000 per hour. By charging your regular rate that’s justified byyour skills and results, you avoid tire kickers and attract people who a) want to work withyou and b) can actually afford your services. From my experience, these calls are usuallya lot more fruitful and lead to longer-term engagements, which is how you make moremoney and bring consistency to your income. Now, one thing you can do to improve conversionsis to offer clients the option to use the initial consultation fee towards future services.
And I see this happen a lot with lawyers. Yes, it technically makes the initial consultationfree, but that’s only true if they agree to engage you for 30 to 100 times the initial fee. Alright, the next tip is to partnerwith reputable agencies. First, let’s talk about the difference betweena consultant and an agency. A consultant’s job is to provide expert advice,guidance, and strategy for a business. And while agencies can also provide thiskind of advice, their main selling point is in the actual implementation itself. Now, reputable agencies almost always provide somekind of referral fee that ranges between 7-15%.
And in my opinion, it’s better to work withan agency you respect, rather than the one that pays the highest fee. Reason being, agencies will often be taskedto implement the strategy that you’ve created. So by being on the same page, you’remore likely to deliver better results. And the more you work together, the betterthe synergy gets over time. Now, these kinds of partnerships aren’talways one way. Sometimes the agencies will send leads yourway or engage you for more bespoke cases. The next tip is to upsell. Upselling is a sales technique that’s used toget customers to spend more money on more.
‘premium’ services. Now, upselling isn’t about “tricking”clients into paying more. It’s about communicating the level of yourservices and the other offerings you provide. And the reason why it works so well is becausethey’re already sold on your services. So if there’s an option for a higher levelof service, it’s within budget, and it’s going to add additional value, then why not? For example, in my previous life before Ahrefs,I created SEO and other digital marketing strategies for some in-house teams. But the teams weren’t always seasoned marketers.
So a natural upsell was to create standardoperating procedures for their team. And an upsell on that was to offer liveteam training sessions. These kinds of services for consultants arequite lucrative considering something like SOPs can be repurposed quite a bit. Alright, tip #4 is for those that sellon third party marketplaces. And this one is simple: put your list rate15-30% higher than your actual rate. Now, while networks like Upwork are greatto find free leads, they can charge quite a hefty commission and buyersoften send lowball offers. A higher rate gives you a bit more padding.
On top of that, if you’re an established namein your niche and you’ve published impressive case studies, people will often do their duediligence and search for more information about you. This will naturally lead them to your website wherethey’ll see that your rate is much cheaper than on the third party marketplace where theymay choose to contact you instead. Now, it’s important to note that I’m not encouragingyou to move clients off of freelance networks. It’ll be against their terms of service, butin my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with people naturally finding you through yourwebsite and contacting you there. Ok, next up is to outsource parts of yourprocess where you’re not critically needed.
This is probably one of the biggest mistakesI made when I first started consulting. Because clients were hiring me for my expertise,I felt that I had to do everything myself or I’d be cheating them. When in fact, I was doing them a disserviceby not hiring help to do some of the more monotonous work. For example, gathering competitor metrics froma report like Ahrefs’ Competing Domains can be done by anyone. Exporting backlink profiles and doing an initialfilter in Google Sheets can easily be systemized. Filling out some standard slides in your deckwhere not much interpretation is needed can.
Easily be outsourced. Now, while these aren’t exactly time-consumingtasks, they consume your mental capacity which can limit you from always putting yourbest foot forward. And the additional time you free up canbe better used to take on more clients. Alright, the next tip is pretty critical when it comesto pricing and that’s to give total transparency. If I asked you, how much do your services cost? You’d probably know the answer right away. Now, if I asked you, “why do you charge somuch” or “why do you charge so little” then you might feel stumped.
Reason being, a lot of consultants make uparbitrary rates based on their competitors rates or personal goals. And this is where transparency with yourpricing can help both you and your leads. For example, let’s say that you have a clientwho wants a competitor analysis, technical audit of their site, and a one-hour strategycall with you. Now, let’s add on to this scenario and say that youhave a small team with a junior SEO that gets paid $20 per hour and a technicalSEO at $50 an hour. Now, assuming your initial consultation requires3 hours from your junior SEO and 2 hours from your technical SEO, then your overheadcost at this point is $160.
You’ll also have additional overhead like payrolltax, software subscriptions, rent, insurance, and other operating costs. But since we’re talking about a small operation,the costs will likely be marginal so let’s leave these out for the sake of simplicity. Now so far, your rate doesn’t evenaccount for your time. So assuming your hourly rate is $100 per hourand you’re going to spend 2 hours in total to review and edit the deck and get on a callfor an hour with your client, then you should be charging at least $360 for your time together. And this is with zero markup on youremployment costs.
Laying out a pricing model like this helpsto justify why you charge what you charge and what the client is actually getting. And it’s something that I wish I had done betterwhen I was consulting to really lay out where a client’s money goes. Nick Eubanks actually has a really good poston how his agency prices their services, so I’ll link that up in the description. Alright, the final tip is to apply for jobs. Now, this might sound completely counterintuitiveespecially since consultants are usually self-employed. But there are companies that hire in-houseconsultants on a part-time basis.
Meaning, you get 10-20 hours of work perweek at higher than average hourly rates. And this results in a consistent stream ofrevenue, you’ll still technically be self-employed, and you’ll likely be advising managementor an in-house team of SEOs. This is kind of how I got my start at Ahrefsand I couldn’t recommend this route enough. We have a full video on how a few of us got hiredto Ahrefs, so I’ll link that up in the description. Now again, if you’re just starting out, focuson building up your skills, portfolio, and reputation in your niche. These alone are going to help you justifyincreasing your rates and attracting better clients. It’s not necessarily a fast process, but it’s onethat will continue to produce more revenue.
For your consultancy over time. So if you want to upskill your knowledge in SEO,I highly recommend watching some of our tutorials on link building, keyword research,technical SEO, and content marketing. I’ll link those up in the description and if youenjoyed this video, make sure to like, share and subscribe for more actionableSEO tutorials. I’ll see you in the next one.
Source: Ahrefs
Channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWquNQV8Y0_defMKnGKrFOQ
