These Pillars Helped Me Build a $1M Agency in 1 Year.

Use these to build the foundation of your agency.

KNOWLEDGE

​

• SEO has gotten too difficult to wing it - you can’t just do KW research and build links anymore, you have to know what you’re doing.

You need to become an expert in your field

• SEO is MUCH easier to SELL if people trust you. Trust and expert sales comes from product knowledge

[re] Start with the basics...

👉 Buy a domain, setup the hosting, Cpanel, DNS and WordPress - understand how websites function from a basic technical perspective

​

👉 Read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines - they’re always overlooked and lay out the best practices for you

​

​

👉 So much of SEO is lost in the latest “hacks” - Google has gotten smart. Learn the basics of how websites work and how search engine’s interact with them and you will be OK

👍🏻READ MY GUIDE HERE.

Use the internet to learn...

👉 I’m sitting here because I took initiative to seek the information I needed. When you’re actively building a site, you can piece together the information that you’re missing

​

​

👉 There’s SO MANY amazing blogs, YouTube Channels and guides that will help you out, but the key is to be actively working on a campaign

👉 PAY for courses - there’s A LOT of good ones out there (see next slide)

Resources I recommend...

SEO News / Algo Updates�

• Search Engine Watch
• Search Engine Land
• Marie Haynes

​

​

General SEO�

• WEBRIS
• Backlinko
• Ahrefs
• Moz

​

Technical SEO�

• From The Future
• SEER Interactive
• Distilled
• SEO By The Sea

👍🏻 OR, LET ME TEACH YOU MYSELF: https://webris.org/training/seo-seminar/

Get experience by any means necessary...

👉 Build your own websites, side projects, affiliate sites, ecommerce sites, etc - get your hands dirty building an online business from start to finish (even if you can’t monetize it)

👉 Go and work for a big agency (if you can). It’s important to see how the best agencies in the world function

​

​

👉 Offer free work to friends and family (audits, strategy, recommendations, etc)

​

​

Go deep with your expertise, not wide...

👉 SEO is such a deep topic, there’s multi million dollar markets within the SEO niche (link building, content marketing, etc)

👉 Instead of spreading yourself (and resources) thin by offering other services (PPC, FB, etc), go DEEP with your service offering

👉 Outpitch competitors by offering high value, low effort items that fold well into what you’re pitching.

PROCESS

You need to become an expert in your field

A framework is NOT a process...

A framework is a high level template. A framework is NOT enough (i.e. if you’re outsourcing SEO…)

SEO

Technical Audit

Keyword Research

On Page Optimization

Content Creation

Link Acquisition

What’s the difference…?

A process is a detailed roadmap on how to execute that framework. Anyone can learn SEO, if you want to make MONEY, you have to know how to EXECUTE it.

Technical Audit

Get access to client’s GSC, GA and GTM

Crawl website with Screaming Frog

Review Robots.txt

Send to client

Review Status Codes

Review 301 Redirects

Turn processes into checklists…

Everything we do as an agency is accounted for with a step by step checklist (or sub process). For example, reviewing 301 redirects as a part of a technical audit...

Review 301 Redirects

Open Screaming Frog crawl

Filter Column L for Status Codes

Crosscheck 301 redirects

Check for Redirect “hops”

Etc...

SEO IS SIMPLE.

SCALING IT IS HARD.

​

Let’s walk through our processes...

It starts before they’re a lead...

It starts before they’re a lead...

It starts before they’re a lead...

It starts before they’re a lead...

If the call goes well, they get a proposal...

If they accept, they get onboarded...

Each client then gets a project calendar...

Everything we do has SOP guidance...

LET’S GET A LITTLE MORE SPECIFIC...

We batch work and stagger delivery...

We built custom tools to support us...

PEOPLE

​

• There’s way too much to do by yourself, you need help.

Find people who will push the agency to the next level without you

​

• Hiring and managing staff is an ongoing process and it’s integral to success.

​

• When you’re first starting, you’re selling yourself and your knowledge. As you grow, you’re selling your people.

Doing is offshored, thinking is local...

Phase 0 - Consultancy

$0 - $10k / MRR

Phase 1 - Startup Agency

$10k - $25k / MRR

Phase 2 - Scaling Agency

$25k - $100k / MRR

Phase 3 - Small Agency (Momentum)

$100k - $250k / MRR

Phase 4 - Mid Agency

$250k - $500k / MRR

Phase 5 - Large Agency

$500k - $1.5m / MRR

There’s no right or wrong way...

👉 The point is, people are a critical aspect of growth and scaling - you CAN NOT do it without them

​

​

👉 If you have a proper process and internal training in place, it goes a long way to get the right blocks in place to build on

​

​

👉 You want to focus on hiring people who can think for themselves and solve problems. If you have to handle everything, you can’t move forward

​

​

LEADS

• Once your service is streamlined, you’re ready to scale. You can turn your attention to generating leads.

You need a steady stream of inbound leads

• To baseline and predict growth, you need a steady stream of leads from predictable sources.

Build case studies and social proof...

Spend time to garner a reputation...

Create content that resonates...

👉 Content has been a big part of my strategy, but it’s NOT for everyone

​

​

👉 A perfect example of content marketing that drives REVENUE is “lawyer SEO”

​

​

Speak at niche conferences...

👉 Try and stay away from industry conferences, look for ones where there will be NO ONE ELSE selling your services (think conferences for doctors, attorneys, professionals, etc)

​

👉 I automate this by using some offshore help to prospect for conferences then send a canned pitch to each

​

Start a Meetup...

👉 Our agency runs Meetups in both Miami and Philadelphia

​

👉 The one in Philly drives consistent leads because we found a niche in which our agency could provide tremendous value, where no one else was (and could)

​

Join a networking group...

👉 If you’re comfortable meeting people, groups like Chamber of Commerce and BNI are a great source of leads

​

👉 I’m an introvert, they’ve never worked for me personally but I know PLENTY of people for whom it does

​

Paid traffic from social media...

👉 Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn...They all work, the key is the setup

​

👉 You need a funnel - otherwise you’re wasting your time and money

​

👍🏻 MY FUNNEL GUIDE: https://webris.org/facebook-ad-tips/

👉 Ebooks, webinars, discounts - they WORK, really well when executed properly

​

Ask for referrals...

👉 Leverage your existing HAPPY customers as a means to generate new business

👉 You can run an NPS survey to find out who is happy (via email) and then ask those people for referrals

👉 You can offer a discount, but most people are HAPPY to refer good work to their friends

Sell micro services to other agencies...

👉 Get really, really good at one aspect of your service and sell that to other agencies

👉 Our agency is ALWAYS looking for reliable contractor support for specific aspects of our service (i.e. keyword research, UX, link outreach, etc)

👉 This tactic is especially good for beginner’s trying to get initial revenue in the door

👉 As you grow, you can flip to setting up affiliate relationships with other agencies, consultants or sales professionals. Let them do the heavy lifting on sales, you handle the delivery (using your amazing process, ahem)

Video audits + cold outreach...

👉 Find issues FOR them, recommend how THEY can fix it (DON’T SELL)!!!

👉 We built a proprietary audit tool to help us with this but we used to use a VA to run an advanced manual technical audit.

Build tools and distribute...

👉 A more advanced tactic that works really well

👉 We have a number of hacked together tools in Google Sheets and Data Studio that we use as a platform for exposure and lead generation

Nurture your relationships...

👉 At the end of the day, you never know where a lead can come from.

👉 Be nice, be genuine, show your passion, respect others - take pride in your work and good things will come to you

Pricing Strategy.

monthly

$850

monthly

$1,500

monthly

$2,300

We believe in open, honest pricing. That’s why each campaign is only 4 months long - we don’t waste time on fluff, we focus on impact items that deliver more organic traffic for your website.

​

Your monthly retainer fee is built on the number of hours it will take for our consultants to optimize your website during the 4 month period. The number of hours are determined by the number of pages we will be working on.

SMALL CAMPAIGN

• 0 to 300 indexed pages
• 1 - 15 Target Pages
• 1 - 2 locations

MEDIUM CAMPAIGN

• 300 - 1k indexed pages
• 15 - 25 Target Pages
• 3 - 6 locations

LARGE CAMPAIGN

• 1k- 5k indexed pages
• 25 - 40 Target Pages
• 6 - 10 locations

Bigger Website? We do enterprise SEO under our parent agency, From The Future. Schedule a consult here.