SEO firm - How to get Clients ?

[iCyborg]

Being a Non US based small personal SEO firm, its getting hard for us to get clients. We do have our own website and I am working on branding of it but I am wondering how to attract more good clients ? May be US based guys can help us in guiding how other smaller SEO firms in USA are getting clients ?

using PPC is futile, each click is costing around $10/click for major terms as we only want US clients (we are geo targeting PPC), also I don't think PPC is the way to go here.

Links to resources or Any old threads of WebmasterWorld would be highly appreciated.

[pro_seo]

Some ways to get clients:

1. Optimize your own website for industry related terms + your locality. Such as "SEO in Seattle"

2. Try online SEO marketplaces, such as GAF, Elance etc

3. Approach local web dev and designing houses that don't offer SEO services and make a deal to offer your services to their clients looking for SEO solutions and in return you pay them a certain % as referral bonus for recommending you as an SEO provider.

4. Offer great results to your existing clients and get testimonials from them to display on your website.

5. Participate in some large online SEO communities and contribute generously to help people seeking advice...you will get some good contacts from these places.

But nothing works best as WOM promotion, if you provide extraordinary results to your clients in terms of ranks, traffic and sales, they will talk about you to their associates, friends and colleagues and this will lead you to more SEO contracts.

Good luck!

[iCyborg]

Thanks, atleast someone replied :)

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Simply put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients. Ask yourself what might be the most effective way to attract their attention to your offer:

Would it be best to cold call your prospects?
Would it be best to write your prospects a letter to tell them of your services?
Would it be best to present a seminar entitled, "Attracting more business using the Internet"?

You also have to define your target market. Big business or small business? Local or international? Once you've defined your target market, that will drive your marketing (which should be really, really cheap).

Brendon Sinclair is a prolific author on selling services. If you Google "New Clients Now!" you'll find one of his his great articles.

One more idea: There's some lead-generation firms like vendorseek where you "pay per client lead" which might be worth testing.