Fatrank Podcast

James Dooley:
How to grow an SEO agency. I would say I wouldn't even consider traditional marketing unless I'm doing. You're going to be competing against other agencies. Now those agencies have probably been around for what can send a little bit of alarm out. And get in a room with more successful people than yourself to try and just learn new things. If you're looking to grow a search engine optimisation agency one of the first things that I would want to do is.

Karl Hudson:
Hi it's Karl from SearchHero and I'm joined with my business partner James Dooley. And today we're going to have a little chat about what it takes or how to grow an SEO agency. So obviously Dooley owns Promo SEO, one of his other businesses, so it's obviously very relevant experience when it comes to growing an SEO agency. So Dooley, let's get into it. You know, what sort of strategies do you think work when it comes to growing an SEO agency?

James Dooley:
So I'd start off with if you're looking to grow a search engine optimisation agency, one of the first things that I would want to do is be ranking SEO and all the terms related to SEO for my own website. Mainly to generate leads but also as social proof. If you're saying you're an SEO agency and your own website isn't ranking very well then it kind of sends a little bit of alarm bells out. So what I'd want to do initially is start ranking for every term I want to rank for, for how to improve search engine optimisation, for local SEO, for affiliate sites, or for doing SEO for ecommerce websites and stuff like that. So that would be the first thing I would do.
But a massive caveat that if you are looking to grow your own SEO agency then you will know that SEO is a long term investment. You're not going to start getting inquiries today or tomorrow by doing SEO. So you need to be making certain that alongside doing SEO you might need to be doing some sort of other marketing strategies to try to generate leads today.
So what's your thoughts initially then on using your own search engine optimisation knowledge to build your own site, Karl, for growing an SEO agency?

Karl Hudson:
I think it can work but the problem you're going to run into, which is what you obviously mentioned there, was the time. So you're going to be competing against other agencies. Now those agencies have probably been around for a while, especially if you're starting from scratch. They've probably got staff straight away. There's going to be an hour deficit against you as in, you know, you might just be a one man band, maybe it's two years, and there isn't the time of day to spend on trying to get those ranking when also trying to generate income for your company and etc.
So I would probably say like yes SEO obviously is fundamental. I would say it is something that you should be doing as an SEO agency. But I would personally probably look more towards doing either a paid ad strategy in the beginning, Google AdWords or Bing, or doing some networking and starting at like little local networking hubs with local businesses.

James Dooley:
Yeah I mean on that, like PPC, Google AdWords, it is a great strategy but you need to know your keywords. You need to know what's going to get your conversion and you also need to know what you're going to get on return on investment from what you're spending. It's very important.
Some people go and start loading up a PPC campaign and then just go in like, okay, SEO Manchester or SEO London, and they might be spending two, three, four hundred just for a lead. And the conversion rate is not very good. And then they quickly then start to burn all the budget very quickly and realise that it's not worked.
You need to look at the long tails and look specifically like what are you good at. Is it Magento SEO that you're good at and that's the only one that you want to go into? Is it specifically SEO for dentists or for law firms? And niche down in that way. So I'd start, I'd make certain I understand what my target audience is and what I'm good at with regards to converting if I'm running PPC.
But then also then you can keep that kind of branding of what you have on your social media ads as well. So having the same ads like we are specialists at SEO for dental practices or we are specialist SEO agency for nurses, doctors, whatever it could be, carpet cleaners, roofing companies, electricians, plumbers. I'd focus on being like this is what I'm an expert at.
So do you think traditional advertising has a place here?

Karl Hudson:
No if I'm being honest with you. I think the only reason why I don't like traditional like billboard, radio, TV or magazines is it's so difficult to track your KPIs. I think traditional marketing is more of a branding long term kind of play and only if you're a large establishment and company.
I would say I wouldn't even consider traditional marketing unless I'm doing 50,000 a month in revenue or more as a minimum. And then I might start touching upon it in local areas to say like, okay, I'm a local SEO in Manchester, and you might start doing some billboards or radio ads in Manchester. But it's costly and the KPIs are hard to track.
What about networking? You mentioned networking events then. So what's your thoughts on building it out, like building, looking to grow an SEO agency via networking events? And is there any events that you would go, would you go to business events or SEO events or what would you try to target on networking?

Karl Hudson:
So obviously I personally would probably try business events over SEO ones because obviously you're going to be going into an area which is filled with SEOs. So especially if you were a little bit newer to it or at least a new agency you might feel a little bit overwhelmed when there's potentially the big agencies there.
Whereas if you're going to like a local little business meetup, you know, you might find them on Meetup.com, places like this. You're just little business little hubs that you can go in and you might be the only SEO in the room. There might be web designers, there could be graphic designers etc. So these are all like shouldering niches that you might be able to offer value to them and at the same time they can offer value to you.
So it's very much, yeah, that's the way I would look to do it. And then obviously you've got masterminds off the back of that. So if you don't mastermind you're probably missing out on just a ton of knowledge. You should do at least one mastermind a year and try and get in a room with more successful people than yourself to try and learn new things.

James Dooley:
Yeah I think the last one that you could start to do if you're looking to grow an SEO agency is lead generation. So teaming up with a lead generation company. Obviously I'm the founder at Fatrank and majority of what we do is lead generation.
We actually have a guaranteed return on investment lead generation service but obviously we're very selective with who we work with. And you need to qualify in making certain that you've got a sales team so if I generate you a lead you're responding to them very quick, you've got good branding already, good testimonials, you've already done quite a lot of case studies, so your conversion is high. So you've got a good chance of converting the lead that I might be able to generate for your SEO agency.
If you want to try to apply for that you can do. There is actually room for SEO agencies. Mainly because I own, prime example, SearchHero that I’ve invested into that you as the founder of, we don't carry out traditional SEO agency client work. We just do the link building side of things. So if someone does want full management or they want glossy reports every month and stuff like that, we might be able to pass those leads.
And some of these clients are big clients as well. They're not small 500, 1,000 a month clients. There could be 5, 10,000 a month clients. Or they could specifically want the handholding for keyword research and stuff like that.
So if anyone is watching this and you are an SEO agency looking to grow, there are partnerships available there. Fatrank does do lead generation for search engine optimisation mainly in the US and the UK. So if you're interested then make sure you fill in the form at Fatrank.com.
But what's your thoughts of like using any other lead generation companies Karl? Like Clutch or Top Three Rated. Would you use an S? Like the only issue with a lot of lead generation companies that we found over the years is they'll resell that same lead to maybe five other companies. They're not exclusive leads which can be a bit of a pain.

Karl Hudson:
If they already rank and they're ranking high they might, you know, Bark I know are very popular within paid ads. If they already have that traffic then actually it's usually quite cheap to at least get the leads in. At least you get them one bite at the apple or bite the cherry, whatever the phrase is. At least you get one go.
It's, you know, potentially pitching because that might be something you haven't done before. You might need to go into a pitch, sales presentation, what you're going to achieve. So that at least gets you in quite cheaply to practice those things.

James Dooley:
Yeah so from a hacking time point of view I know they might share the leads with three or four or five other companies but at least you're gaining that experience very quickly which will only help down the line.
Yeah that's true as well. I mean if you've got a good offer for the client you can win the work. It's about trying to get that hook and that offer initially to get them on board. And once you've got them on board it's about trying to keep the relationship going. The lifetime value is being built up from there.
So if you are an SEO agency and you've watched this video and you like any of the tips and tricks or if you think we've missed something, leave a comment in the comment section. Whether you're doing anything different to what we've spoken about and you're seeing good growth for your SEO company.