How to start an SEO Company

How to start an SEO Company? The number one rule of branding is that you have to be genuine. If you try to build a brand around something dishonest or shady, then it’s going to attract dishonest or shady customers. It’s ok to put your own personality into your brand, after all our logo is a coffee cup!

Many SEO companies start as a big dream. One or two founders get together and begin dreaming about their ideal company. I love reading the sections of websites. “how we got started”. Some of my favorites include Distiller’s and SEOmoz’s. When I first started taking clients, I was working in as in-house Zebravo SEO Company didn’t even exist. After about 6 months of working Long hours as an in-house during the day and an out-sourced SEO consultant at night, I decided to take the leap into entrepreneurship.

The first thing you should do when you start thinking about your new company, is branding. A brand is the most important aspect of a marketing plan. As marketers, you’d think we would all understand the value of a brand, yet sadly, that is not the case. A brand will make you a destination. Simultaneously, if you don’t have a strong brand then at best, you will be a coincidence. Here’s the difference, how many times have you gone out of your way to buy a cup of coffee at your favorite coffee shop? That café has become a brand. It’s earned your trust and loyalty. And now, you’ll go out of your way to purchase from that business. This is what you need to do for your new SEO company in London. There is truly no substitute for an authoritative brand. And as you can imagine, one isn’t built overnight. There is a lot of planning and effort that goes into creating a brand. Here are some of the most important parts of How to start an SEO Company?

How to Develop Your Brand?

Determine your target market: Think about how old your target market is, whether your market is primarily male, or female, where do they live and what problems do, they have that you can solve? Laura Lippy is a great read on how to determine the target market for your SEO company.

During this phase of your planning you need to decide what kind of content you’ll be creating. For example, if you plan to target doctors and lawyers, you will need to present yourself as a professional, straight to the point company. Right now, lawyers are predominantly male. In fact, 68% of lawyers are men. Many people will look at this and automatically think they need to focus their marketing at men. Well, that is only partially true. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics approximately 80% of secretaries are female. Which means that a lawyer (who is statistically a male) will tell his assistant (which is statistically a female) to find him a good SEO company in town. This means that you need to target females that are between the ages of 25 and 55 and still impress the boss when she brings him your information.

This is the research, research, research phase. During the brand building phase, you need to read every case study and market research paper you can get your hands on. Here is a few articles to get you started.

Don’t think of your target market as a limit, rather think of it as the personality, and focus of your company. There will always be room for improvement and growth down the road.

Additionally, you can have more than one “persona” in your target market. Dropbox is targeting people who can benefit from free cloud storage. Dropbox users include high school students, business owners, moms, and educators. If your target market is broad, then determine three or four personas to establish more targeted groups. No matter what, you still need a focus (even if it’s “computer users who need a free cloud service”).

Emotional Feeling:

Now that you’ve established who your target market is, decide what kind of voice you want to have. How do you want people to feel when they encounter your brand? Famous examples of branding is Cokes “drink happiness,” and Apple’s branding of “elitism” and “modern.”

Think about what kind of “feeling” you want your company to have. Do you want it to be hip and modern, to be cartoony, to be intense and passionate, or to be professional and elegant? The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of emotion should be connected with your brand.

One of the best ways to think about emotional branding is to think about the problems you’re going to solve. Do you want to make businesses feel hopeful, confident, excited, privileged, or taken care of? There isn’t just one right answer, you have to decide what kind of emotional experience you’ll build.

Pro Tip:

Your branding needs to be built around fulfilling the needs & desires of your target market. Tweet
The only warning that I need to offer is to make sure you don’t make your target market’s problem worse. When I worked with a popular computer repair company. They helped people who were already frustrated at their computer. Their branding had to be happy and reassuring. It would have been counterproductive to create a brand that was “intense.” People were already dealing with frustration, so they really needed a relaxing experience to counteract the frustration of dealing with a broken computer.

Want a bigger brand? Make bigger promises.

Every good brand has built something predictable, and trustworthy for themselves. Book is the high-quality iPhone case that looks like a tiny book. Red lobster is a seafood restaurant. Even though they have chicken, steak and pasta on their menu. This brand is built around seafood. You need a focus for your brand. Create something that people will remember and use to define your brand. Here are a few examples of Inbound Marketing Brands; Zebravo is the SEO company that does Excel really well. Blind Five-year-old is the SEO company that knows Google+; Point Blank SEO is an excellent link builder; How’s Your Pony owns “Customer Sentiment”; and Zebravo is the Best SEO company in London that is great at building content.