Since the early 2000s, I can tell you many things have changed in the online marketing space. Not all of them for the better. But some things are the same. And those are for the better.
Answer: The easiest way to make money with SEO is to find customers and re-sell an existing service. Start the service by addressing on-page SEO and fixing the major issues. Then re-sell something good.
Doing what I just said might sound easy, and for the most part, it is; however, doing it right is the difference between someone paying you every month for years to come or always looking for new customers.
Do you want to work on SEO and get paid consistently and without a fight or do you want to find customers and work on customer acquisition? If it is the latter for you please don’t try to sell SEO find a different product.
Follow my guide, and you will build a loyal customer base that gets real results from your SEO services and advice.
How to Start Making Money Selling SEO
To start, you must know a bit about what you are doing and what you will offer. Part of the reason for this site is to make this process easy for you. So as I develop and write this site, you will see more resources and article updates to reflect this.
So let’s get started by keeping things simple. I will explain to you the basics, and then I will write the next post: How to get your first SEO client.
The first and easiest thing to do when working on SEO is to start with on-page SEO. The easiest way to approach this is to remember that Google is only a computer processing engine, and computers really like things spelled out in black and white.
So the easier you can make the Homepage, Product Page, etc., to understand by Google, the better your ranking will be. For instance, on this current site, I’m using WordPress, so I’m going to make sure and do the following at a minimum:
- Make a good permalink
- This should be descriptive of what the page is about. One good thing to think about is whether it can be simple and descriptive enough that people can remember it to type it in later.
- Pick logical categories
- Categories are a lifeline in structure and can communicate to Google and users alike the amount of thought and planning that has gone into a page.
- Good Tags
- Google will not outright use tags, but users do and how users interact with your tags will indicate to Google if they should pay attention to them or not. To pick good tags think of things that people would search for to find the page. What might they search for if they visited the page once and wanted to find it again?
- Images
- Original images with good alt descriptions and all of the additional fields filled out give Google more data to crunch (they want this), and also a great help to your users. This is even more important as people with disabilities find the website. Making it easier for them to browse your page will increase your Google ranking.
- Post/Page Layout
- Google if you have not realized it by now is focused on user experience. They want quality content, with easy-to-navigate, well-thought-out sites. This trickles down to the Posts and Pages. Even making your Post more appealing to readers so they stay on the page is going to improve your ranking.
- Featured Image
- Much like the image section fill out all the info.
- Excerpt
- Write a good excerpt that will be used for Google and Social media. Try to think about what kind of short quip will get people to want to click the link and read the article.
- Spell Check
- Grammar
Now I said that was the minimum.
There are several advanced things that I recommend doing as well. But we will get there in another article: Advanced SEO for WordPress
Additionally, if you are working with a customer, not on WordPress, I will have another guide for you called: How to Optimize SEO for non-WordPress Sites.
But How to Make Money with SEO?
This really depends on where you are on the journey.
- Do you own a domain?
- Have you built a website?
- Has your website ever ranked for anything?
- Has your website ever ranked for a high-traffic term?
- Have you ever ranked someone else’s site for them?
Suppose you answer no to any of those questions, from top to bottom that is where you need to start. To help you on this journey, I’ve created the following sections based on this little guide.
This is designed to be a quick start, and each topic I will cover in more depth.
1. Do You Own a Domain?
We have a partner we are working with on domains, and if you find this site and get a domain before 2022, you will be able to get a domain for $8.99.
However, the point is not that you get a domain from our partner. The point is you get a domain and start a website. This website is built on our partner’s hosting using the cheapest hosting. But you can read the next section for details.
So pick a name and get a domain.
EasyToGetMy.com is our partner: https://www.easytogetmy.com/
2. Have You Built a Website?
So if you already have a domain or just got one. Now you need a website. Part of the deal we have with our partner Easy To Get My DOT Com is using their hosting on a testing basis.
I will be able to report back in the future on the status of the experiment, but if you are reading this now, we are on the cheapest offered hosting.
cPanel Hosting: https://www.easytogetmy.com/products/cpanel
This cPanel hosting during setup will ask you if you would like to set up WordPress. So far, the experience has been good, and the hosting has a free upgrade to M.2 storage right now.
I will report back in the future as this develops, but fast hosting is a must. So if this hosting can not keep up, I will be upgrading.
3. Has Your Website Ever Ranked for Anything?
Now that you have a website. If you are not ranking, then there are several things you will need to do. Starting with reading the guide for ranking.
This guide includes searching for things to write about and other important steps you will need to take. Currently, the guide is a work in progress, and if you want a copy, you must sign up via email.
Form coming soon!
4. Has Your Website Ever Ranked for a High Traffic Term?
If you have a domain, website, and you have ranked before. It would be best if you now learned how to rank for high-traffic terms.
This is actually pretty easy, but the hard part comes in how well you think and how much time you put into the process.
This is part of the rank guide that is a work in progress, and to get it, you must sight up for it via email.
Form coming soon!
5. Have You Ever Ranked Someone Else’s Site for Them?
Once you have done all of the other steps on this list it is time for you to help someone else. The smart way to do this is to work for free for the first several clients.
The reason working for free is so powerful has a lot to do with what I call expectation of price to performance. Essentially when you work for free people will not expect much from you and once you produce results it makes getting a sale easier, but also doesn’t matter if they don’t buy from you.
It doesn’t matter if they buy from you because you have something even more powerful. You now have proof that you can do this for other people, and that means it is time to talk to the market about what you can do.
Think About This Before Making Money With SEO
That is how you make money with SEO. You learn a skill, provide something of value, get proof (both social and actual), and then you approach the market.
Everything in SEO is about making things easier for Google and your customers. Some people game the system for a short time, but the real winners create quality content consistently.
That being said, copying someone’s content will only set you back. Blackhat will only set you back. Gray-hat might get you somewhere but expect an eventual issue.
The amount of time and effort you spend on blackhat and gray-hat SEO will eventually be for not, and you must come back and repeat your effort to keep the rank game going.
However, if you spend that time instead of working on the things that improve the website pages and posts, you will have a much easier time in the future.