The perfect lead for an SEO freelancer

The perfect SEO freelancing lead is when someone has contacted you. This may be through your website, via email, telephone or through one of your social media profiles. Your freelancing sales focus must be to get businesses to contact you before you contact them.

When I were freelancing, I got myself into a very fortunate position where I could pick and choose who I wanted to work with as the leads just kept coming. Yes, I do turn business away if it is not the right fit for me. This is the position you need to get your SEO freelancing business in.

The No.1 rule of selling SEO – not just for freelancers

The number one rule of selling SEO services is to make sure your own website is ranking high for search phrases that your target demographic is likely to use. As an SEO Mindset Coach & Professional Speaker, this very website is ranking at the top for both ‘SEO Mindset Coach’ and ‘SEO Speaker’. I then push awareness forward and get people to search these phrases.

As an SEO freelancer, if you are offering local SEO based services, then you need to make sure your own website is ranking high locally in both the maps and organic search. If you are offering national based SEO services, you need to make sure that you are ranking on a national scale for your target search phrases. I’m not talking about generic phrases like ‘freelance SEO consultant’, but more specific to you. Something like ‘Ecommerce Technical SEO freelancer’. Being specific may not generate high search numbers, but people who search it NEED your service.

Organic Leads

I’m reading and hearing a lot of so-called digital marketing industry experts going around saying that a good SEO freelancer does not need their own site to rank high. Sorry, but that is pure BS!
 

Prospects need to feel confident that you as an SEO freelancer CAN and WILL secure results.

Over the years, I have established that there are four top money keywords that businesses use to find an SEO freelancer when they have already established that they need SEO and are looking for an individual to make it happen.

If you can secure top rankings for even one of these phrases, leads will start to flow in. Also, make sure you are ranking for the related local terms as well then you can easily setup face-to-face meetings.

As a freelance SEO, your main target money keywords should be relating to one or all four of the below:

1. Freelance SEO Consultant
2. SEO Expert
3. SEO Consultant
4. SEO Consultant [TOWN]

I was ranking in the top three myself when I were a freelancer for quite a few of these SEO freelance related phrases, so I fully understand the quality of leads they generate.

Frankly, if you are not able to rank high organically for at least one targeted variations of those freelance related phrases, maybe you should think twice about going freelance altogether. They do say… Proof is in the pudding.

Email Marketing

When I mention email marketing to people, they tend to relate this to purchasing an email database of potential clients and sending them a cold email hoping that someone will reply.

I have news for you. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prevents you from doing this and if found out, you could be facing a massive fine. I would suggest that you seriously read up about the GDPR before sending another email to anyone to ensure you conform to laws.

A good example of the kind of spam emails that are being clamped down on go something like:

Hi,

I hope you are well. I was just looking at your website and despite it having a good design, I noticed it is not ranking anywhere……. blah, blah, blah….

Like you, I must receive hundreds of these emails each month. If by any slim chance you are one of the people who are still sending these trash emails, besides going against the GDPR laws, let me explain what the recipient is thinking:

Hi, [HI WHO?]

I hope you are well. [NO, YOU DON’T] I was just looking at your website [REALLY!] and despite it having a good design, I noticed it is not ranking anywhere [WHO CARES, I’M RANKING AT THE TOP ALREADY] ……. blah, blah, blah…. [DELETE EMAIL NOW. I CAN’T READ ANYMORE].

The days of the ‘blast it out and see what we can catch’ attitude is long gone as a lead generation tactic. This email is just one example of the sort of trash that unfortunately still happens.

Don’t be that SEO freelancer!

The correct way of performing email marketing is to build your own list. Ever heard the saying ‘the money is in your list’? This is basically a process of writing informational based content that provides massive value to the reader and entices them to subscribe (double opt-in) to your newsletter because they know you are going to send them further tips that will help them.

In the second SEO freelancer stories at the beginning of this guide, Nick LeRoy generated $165,036.20 in his first 8 months of running his SEO freelancing business on the back of already having an email list (#SEOForLunch newsletter).

Even if you are still in your full-time employed role, now is the perfect time to start building up your own email list/newsletter. However, please do make sure that your target audience for your newsletter are going to match your ideal freelancing client.