
Now that you have a good amount of experience, you might be wondering how to start an SEO business. But what does it take to run your own agency?
Even if you know the ins and outs of search intent and keyword difficulty (to name a couple), the industry is very competitive. If you want to build a solid business and set yourself up for success, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve been exactly where you are.
In this article, I’ll walk you through launching and growing a thriving SEO agency.
Assessing the SEO Business Landscape
The SEO landscape is more competitive than ever in 2024. With more than 180,000 SEO agencies worldwide, you’ll have a lot of competition. You’ll need to work hard to stand out.
However, SEO is still a lucrative field. The global SEO services market is expected to reach $83.7 billion in 2025, up from $37.84 billion in 2020.
So what are the keys to building a profitable SEO business in this market?
Start by understanding evolving industry trends, like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It’s playing a larger role in search, with chatbots and other AI tools now handling client requests. Voice search is also common — 50% of U.S. consumers said they used voice search every day in 2022.
Featured snippets now appear for many searches, so you’ll need to learn the right strategies to compete and rank for these and other SERP features.
With personalization and localization growing, clients expect hyper-targeted SEO campaigns. Your agency can use data sources like clickstream and site search analytics to meet this demand. Though the landscape is changing, fundamentals like internal linking strategies, building relevant backlinks, and technical SEO remain critical.
Have you thought about what to charge? You’ll be able to ask for higher rates if you specialize in an industry or location. I’ll explain more below about picking a niche and narrowing down your audience.
It can be challenging, but breaking through to start an SEO business that thrives is entirely possible with the right SEO proposal, strategy, and execution.
Have You Honed Your SEO Skills?
One interesting thing you don’t always realize when you start learning SEO is that one day you will have acquired the knowledge and skills of an SEO expert who can teach it to others. As the head of your SEO business, your staff will look to you for guidance.
So, before you open your agency, get comfortable with being a leader who can make sharp decisions. You want your peers to value your opinions as an SEO professional. When they do, your colleagues will look to you for advice about their work and potential SEO courses that will expand their understanding of search today.
The 5 Foundational Steps to Starting an SEO Agency
Now that you understand the SEO landscape and what it will take to be competitive, let’s explore five steps that’ll help you start an SEO business.
Step #1: Define Your Niche and Find Your Audience
Identifying your niche is one of the most critical strategic decisions you’ll make when launching an SEO agency. Specializing in a specific market, customer type, or service offering can provide a significant competitive advantage.
Niching comes with many benefits.
- You can provide more tailored solutions because you understand clients’ unique needs within your niche. This leads to better results and higher client satisfaction.
- After you position yourself as an expert in your niche, you can increase your rates. Recognized authorities naturally charge a premium price for their services.
- Marketing and sales are easier when you have a clear target audience.
- Employees benefit from specialization because they gain valuable industry or topic expertise. Your employee retention will increase because your staff can work in an area they’re passionate about.
Of course, you don’t want to niche down too far in case demand is limited. Here are tips on finding the right focus when you start an SEO business.
- Analyze your skills and interests: What SEO services or areas come most naturally to you? Go all-in on your strengths to provide the best results.
- Research in-demand services: Look for specific SEO needs that are growing but not overrun with competition. Fill obvious gaps in the market.
- Test niches before fully committing. Highlight a few focused areas of expertise before isolating a single niche. This gives you the flexibility to pivot.
- Choose growing niches. Emerging and rapidly expanding niches have hungry buyers and few experts. Selecting a growing niche with low-competition keywords will help you establish authority.
Next, take some time to create a customer avatar, which is a fictional representation of your ideal customer.
Create a Customer Avatar
Creating detailed avatars helps you understand your target audience and make marketing decisions specifically tailored to their needs and preferences.
Customer avatars turn abstract audience data into an actionable, memorable visualization of your perfect customer.
Conduct thorough market research to identify demographic information like age, gender, income level, location, and occupation. Look at existing customer data to find common patterns. Also consider psychographic factors like attitudes, values, interests, and pain points.
Bring your research together to craft a persona with a name, photo, and backstory. Specify their challenges, goals, and typical buying journey. The more comprehensive you make your customer avatar, the easier it will be to craft messaging and experiences that resonate.
Step #2: Craft Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Your USP differentiates your business from others and makes you the best choice for potential clients. It solves their problem in a way competitors can’t match.
A compelling USP answers the client’s question, “Why should I hire you over other options?”
Try these tips for developing an SEO agency USP that converts.
- Identify your ideal client’s main frustrations and unmet needs. Build your USP around solving these pain points.
- Leverage your niche. For example, if you specialize in healthcare SEO, emphasize your expertise in that vertical.
- Spotlight your unique process, technology, or approach if you have one. The best agency pitch decks show clients how they can produce better results.
- If you can deliver faster or more customized solutions, talk about your agency’s speed and flexibility in your SEO copywriting.
- Highlight excellent support and guidance if your focus is exceptional client service.
- Use client results and testimonials to demonstrate real-world value.
It might seem challenging to start an SEO agency, given the competition, but a thoughtful USP will make you stand out. Define and prominently promote your differentiation, and it will attract clients and win business.
Want to learn more about how to identify a winning USP? Check out the full TTT Academy 7-Figure Agency course, which includes an in-depth module on positioning your agency and developing your USP.
Step #3: Offer Profitable SEO Services
The services you offer directly impact your agency’s profitability. When you start an SEO business, choose high-value services that leverage your strengths and align with your target client’s needs.
When selecting your service mix, look for options that:
- Provide significant value: Services that deliver tangible ROI, like targeted lead generation, are most profitable. Choose results-driven offerings.
- Have recurring revenue potential: Renewable retainer packages provide predictable income.
- Leverage your niche expertise: Lead with your niche services. Offering services tailored to your specialization will help you earn premium rates.
- Align with ideal client goals: Ensure your services address your target customer’s core pain points and needs.
Also, consider expanding profitability by:
- Offering tiered pricing: Create a service menu that includes entry-level, standard, and premium-level options at different price points.
- Selling bundled packages: Group complementary services into bundles to maximize value.
- Upselling existing clients: Many clients will need advanced services, so don’t be afraid to provide ongoing education and upsell during sales and customer service interactions.
Step #4: Build Your Team and Infrastructure
Once you’ve defined your agency’s niche, USP, and service offerings, the next step is to assemble a talented SEO team and develop the infrastructure to support growth.
When hiring, prioritize skills aligned with your services. SEO experts like content writers, link builders, and analysts are essential early hires. Additionally, you should seek out soft skills like communication, strategic thinking, and relationship management.
Build your roster as your budget allows. Many successful agencies start with the owner as the sole employee. Consider bringing on contractors or freelancers first to complement your skills before making salaried hires.
As you’re building your team, set up your core agency infrastructure, including:
- Fast and reliable web hosting to support quick page loading and high-quality user experiences on your site.
- Robust analytics tracking using Google Analytics, Search Console, or a Google-alternative like Matomo.
- Marketing technology like CRM, email marketing, and advertising platforms.
- Project management software to organize tasks and collaborate with team members.
- Accounting software, legal support, and insurance to cover your business fundamentals.
These might seem basic, but getting your fundamental infrastructure set up correctly from the start will help you streamline operations so you can expand when you’re ready.
Step #5: Plan Strategies for Client Acquisition and Retention
Building a client roster is critical to sustaining your SEO agency. Before you launch, you’ll need solid client acquisition and retention strategies.
For acquisition, begin by developing a sales and marketing plan tailored to your buyer personas. Your tactics might include content marketing, hosting educational webinars, running paid ads, exhibiting at industry events, and leveraging referrals. Focus on attracting clients that align with your niche and offerings.
Content marketing has been an essential source of targeted leads for my SEO business. Here’s a look at my content’s reach on Medium:
When you pitch, lead with the value you provide through deep expertise and proven results. Address common pain points like declining traffic and lackluster conversions, and outline how your services can resolve these struggles.
To retain your SEO clients, strive to delight rather than just satisfy. Set proper expectations upfront through in-depth audits and reports. Here’s a link to an SEO reporting template you can use to get started.
Overcommunicate throughout your campaigns. Share insights, optimize based on feedback, and prove the ROI you deliver by providing regular reporting.
Ongoing education is also vital. Inform clients about new opportunities and developments, and nurture relationships by becoming a trusted partner, not just a vendor.
With the right mix of marketing, sales, service, and education, you can start an SEO business and build a roster of engaged clients that stick with you.
How to Grow Your SEO Agency
Once your agency gets traction, you’ll need to scale up operations. Tread carefully in this stage, because there will be some growing pains.
Here are some suggestions to help you ramp up.
Revisit Your Systems
Make sure your processes are still efficient. Look for SEO tools to automate repetitive tasks like reporting, and streamline your systems wherever possible. Agile project management can be helpful for SEO businesses because SEO is an ever-evolving field. You want to make time to review what has been working for your agency and what could be improved.
For example, two of your team members might have been working on the same ongoing responsibilities for the last year. Going forward, it might be more efficient for only one of them to dedicate time to the task. This frees up some of the other team member’s time to focus on work that’s a good match for their area of expertise.
If you avoid running your business on autopilot, you can optimize daily activities for maximum productivity.
Continue Hiring
As your agency grows, you’ll be looking for more SEO professionals and project managers to add to your team. When you create a job posting, add specific details that you’re looking for in a candidate and why your SEO agency is a great place to work.
You’ll likely hire new staff members gradually in areas like account management and junior SEO. Highlight mentorship opportunities and training to get new team members productive quickly.
Bring in More Clients
When you’re ready to take on more clients, ramp up your lead generation and sales efforts. One thing you can do right away is ask existing clients who are happy with your work for referrals to other businesses that might benefit from your services as well.
Then you’ll want to think about the internal changes that you’ll need to make. What does your team need to confidently handle more accounts? Consider revisions such as tightening up your onboarding and account management processes so that new projects don’t overwhelm your staff. In order to scale, your team needs to have the right support.
Monitor Client Satisfaction
Your SEO business is only as strong as your satisfied client base. What more can you do to make sure that you meet and exceed expectations? Instead of over-promising results, educate your clients about doing business with you and how all of your strategies are crafted to meet their goals.
As your agency expands, regularly keep in touch with all of your clients. Send surveys and ask for feedback about what it’s like working with you. You want to gain insights about what you’ve done well and areas where you can improve.
Plan as You Scale
Overextending your team can lead to declining retention, so make sure you have realistic expectations for your business. Don’t take on work you can’t manage.
Financial planning is also critical as you expand. Project your cash flow needs for hiring, tools, and marketing spend, and line up capital sources in advance before you execute growth plans.
Expanding your SEO agency takes strategy and preparation. Scale wisely by shoring up operations, hiring selectively, and providing outstanding customer service. With the right foundation, growth can help multiply your impact and profitability.
Start an SEO Business That Gets Results
If you want to look over my shoulder and get a comprehensive plan that’ll help you start an SEO business that gets results, check out my TTT Academy course 7-Figure Agency.
This training program will give you a complete blueprint for building a $1 million+ revenue SEO agency. You’ll learn how to transition from individual consulting to managing a high-growth business.
Ready to get started? Click here to start building your own 7-figure agency.