As an SEO consultant or freelancer, your income can be unpredictable.
Now, one way to bring some stability and increase 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 make more money as an SEO consultant or any consultant
for that matter, is to charge more for your services and sell more to your existing clients.
So in this tutorial, I'm going to share six tips to help you make more money as an SEO
consultant or freelancer without taking on more clients.
Stay tuned.
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Now, the way people usually price their services is based on arbitrary theory.
For example, they might think:
"Hey, I want to make $100,000 this year, so if I charge $100/hour then I only need to bill
1,000 hours in the year which is an average of just over 19 hours per week."
On the other hand, some people will take a volume approach and try to undercut their
competitor's prices by 10-40% hoping to be a more attractive option.
Neither of these models make sense because pricing is based on your own goals and desires
to make money.
They need to be centered around your client's needs and the value your services offer to them.
So in its simplest form, the way you make more money as a consultant without getting
more clients is to a) sell more services b) sell your services for a higher cost or
c) sell someone else's services.
And we'll be discussing all of these things in greater detail.
Now, it's important to note that if your skills aren't up to scratch, then trying to become
a high paid SEO consultant probably isn't the best first move.
Focus on honing your skills in a specific area of SEO.
And this will help you become a master of your craft faster and it's also easier to build
authority in a tight niche like link building as opposed to SEO as a whole.
Plus, you'll want to get tangible results which you can use for detailed case studies.
Now let's get to the tips and these are based purely on my own experience as an SEO consultant,
meaning there are other models you can use to increase your income.
Alright, the first tip is to charge full price for your initial consultation.
People often give a free hour of their time to attract more consultations.
And the underlying goal is to sell them on the call and make more money as a result.
Now, while you may convert some clients, you're likely wasting your time with most prospects
because what's likely happening in reality is that you're cheapening the value of your services.
Let me explain.
Consultants are paid for their time and expertise and if you give it a value of $0, then you have
a lot to prove in that hour to show that you're worth $100, $500, or even $1,000 per hour.
By charging your regular rate that's justified by your skills and results, you avoid tire kickers
and attract people who a) want to work with you and b) can actually afford your services.
From my experience, these calls are usually a lot more fruitful and lead to longer-term
engagements, which is how you make more money and bring consistency to your income.
Now, one thing you can do to improve conversions is 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 consultation free, 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 partner with reputable agencies.
First, let's talk about the difference between a 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 this kind of advice, their main selling point is
in the actual implementation itself.
Now, reputable agencies almost always provide some kind of referral fee that ranges between 7-15%.
And in my opinion, it's better to work with an agency you respect, rather than the one
that pays the highest fee.
Reason being, agencies will often be tasked to implement the strategy that you've created.
So by being on the same page, you're more likely to deliver better results.
And the more you work together, the better the synergy gets over time.
Now, these kinds of partnerships aren't always one way.
Sometimes the agencies will send leads your way or engage you for more bespoke cases.
The next tip is to upsell.
Upselling is a sales technique that's used to get 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 your services and the other offerings you provide.
And the reason why it works so well is because they're already sold on your services.
So if there's an option for a higher level of 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 standard operating procedures for their team.
And an upsell on that was to offer live team training sessions.
These kinds of services for consultants are quite lucrative considering something like
SOPs can be repurposed quite a bit.
Alright, tip #4 is for those that sell on third party marketplaces.
And this one is simple: put your list rate 15-30% higher than your actual rate.
Now, while networks like Upwork are great to find free leads, they can charge quite
a hefty commission and buyers often send lowball offers.
A higher rate gives you a bit more padding.
On top of that, if you're an established name in your niche and you've published impressive
case studies, people will often do their due diligence and search for more information
about you.
This will naturally lead them to your website where they'll see that your rate is much cheaper than on
the third party marketplace where they may choose to contact you instead.
Now, it's important to note that I'm not encouraging you to move clients off of freelance networks.
It'll be against their terms of service, but in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with
people naturally finding you through your website and contacting you there.
Ok, next up is to outsource parts of your process where you're not critically needed.
This is probably one of the biggest mistakes I 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 disservice by not hiring help to do some of the more
monotonous work.
For example, gathering competitor metrics from a report like Ahrefs' Competing Domains can be
done by anyone.
Exporting backlink profiles and doing an initial filter in Google Sheets can easily be systemized.
Filling out some standard slides in your deck where not much interpretation is needed can
easily be outsourced.
Now, while these aren't exactly time-consuming tasks, they consume your mental capacity which
can limit you from always putting your best foot forward.
And the additional time you free up can be better used to take on more clients.
Alright, the next tip is pretty critical when it comes to 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 so much" or "why do you charge so little" then
you might feel stumped.
Reason being, a lot of consultants make up arbitrary rates based on their competitors
rates or personal goals.
And this is where transparency with your pricing can help both you and your leads.
For example, let's say that you have a client who wants a competitor analysis, technical
audit of their site, and a one-hour strategy call with you.
Now, let's add on to this scenario and say that you have a small team with a junior SEO that gets paid
$20 per hour and a technical SEO at $50 an hour.
Now, assuming your initial consultation requires 3 hours from your junior SEO and 2 hours from
your technical SEO, then your overhead cost at this point is $160.
You'll also have additional overhead like payroll tax, 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 even account for your time.
So assuming your hourly rate is $100 per hour and you're going to spend 2 hours in total
to review and edit the deck and get on a call for an hour with your client, then you should
be charging at least $360 for your time together.
And this is with zero markup on your employment costs.
Laying out a pricing model like this helps to justify why you charge what you charge
and what the client is actually getting.
And it's something that I wish I had done better when I was consulting to really lay out where
a client's money goes.
Nick Eubanks actually has a really good post on 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 counterintuitive especially since consultants are usually self-employed.
But there are companies that hire in-house consultants on a part-time basis.
Meaning, you get 10-20 hours of work per week at higher than average hourly rates.
And this results in a consistent stream of revenue, you'll still technically be self-employed,
and you'll likely be advising management or an in-house team of SEOs.
This is kind of how I got my start at Ahrefs and I couldn't recommend this route enough.
We have a full video on how a few of us got hired to Ahrefs, so I'll link that up in the description.
Now again, if you're just starting out, focus on building up your skills, portfolio, and
reputation in your niche.
These alone are going to help you justify increasing your rates and attracting better clients.
It's not necessarily a fast process, but it's one that 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 you enjoyed this video, make sure to like, share
and subscribe for more actionable SEO tutorials.
I'll see you in the next one.