As SEO specialists we sometimes forget that selling SEO to potential clients is nothing more than building links. The difference is that we need to actually talk to someone, a living, breathing body that will ask questions, ponder, and sometimes become a great client. Selling SEO services to business owners and managers is a manageable and systematic process once you know what it is you are really doing. And what you are doing is just building “Human” Links.

We all know that in link building not all links have the same value. Some have a low or marginal value and others have a high or authoritative value. The same holds true in Human Link building. We have terms for this human links too. Let’s call it Influence Authority (IA). And each high authority “link” will have a different number of potential businesses they can reach. (Or how many businesses they can influence with). Let’s call that reach authority, or (RA) you’re following this right?

IA (Influence Authority) = People listen to their recommendations and value them.
RA (Reach Authority) = How many people listen to and value their recommendations.

You clearly want the highest IA and RA for a link. Use whatever scale you like; just don’t make it logarithmic, too hard to figure out. I use a scale of 1 to 5. Where 1 is someone who has very little influence on other businesses, maybe a start up in the construction field, who is from out of state, similar to a PR1/PA20 backlink, while a 5 is the president of a large Chamber of Commerce, and knows everybody in town, a typical PR5/PA70 backlink.

Selling SEO is just link building with humans

There are many articles on SEOmoz on how to build relationships for linking purposes, but have you thought about building relationships for sales purposes? Many successful SEOs do not advertise, don’t use PPC, and don’t run around banging on doors. They build relationships that have huge value, and those relationships send them a steady stream of quality, high closing percentage sales. In essence they “Link” to other humans, who will then Link them to new clients.

I know what you may be thinking; many successful SEO companies are all on page one under SEO for their city, or have a large advertising spend. Well, we don’t advertise anymore, and are on the first page for SEO in our city, and I can tell you, I don’t really like the prospects that call after finding us organically. In general, they are price shopping, and have a lower closing percentage and a longer sales cycle than prospects we receive from referrals. Human linking is a far superior sales system.

Here are the basics.

Start with your On-Site work

The Golden Rule of Sales: Do fantastic work for every client. Make them love you like they have never loved before. Our company has one rule for everyone who works here and that is: make every client thrilled they use us for whatever service we provide. We never, ever, no way, no how, give up on a client’s SEO program until they are seeing great returns, and profess their love for us. We will die before we do not reach that level, we will lose money on a client, we will work on the weekends (doesn’t everyone?), we will mow their lawn and walk their dogs (that’s why I had kids), we will do whatever it takes, including running a PPC program for free until the organic kicks in.

Now, if your IA clients don’t love you, read no further, because long term sales success is all really based on a happy or thrilled customer base. It’s like the old story of the VP of sales yelling at his national sales force that the new dog food they introduced to the market nationwide isn’t selling, and demands an explanation from his 100 sales and marketing people. One lone voice speaks out, saying “well… the dogs don’t like the way it tastes”.

You will not sell much, or for long, If your clients don’t like the way your SEO service tastes.

How to Build Human Links:

Just like in SEO, not all links are created equal. Spending your time and energy on low-quality linking is a big mistake. With people, that means you need to find the individuals who are natural influencers of other business decision makers. They come in many forms, and I will cover a few of those types later.

Start with your client base.

If your client base is made up of startups and very small companies with a limited circle of influence, you would greatly benefit by developing new clients who have a greater reach; you can see how to do that in the next section.

Your customer base, and their connections (or Links)

You need to look at each client and assign them an IA and a RA. This will help guide your new sales system.

Tactic One: Send a monthly email to every client asking them to refer someone to you. But don’t stop there, actually give them an example email they can send (just copy and paste) into their email. Make it easy for them.

Tactic Two: Research each clients Linked In profile, and make a note of who they are connected to that seems like a candidate for SEO services. Start with your high IA and RA group. If you have rated them correctly they will have the largest networks. Call the client (remember they love you) and ask them if they would call that person(s) for you and make an introduction. Then give them an example of what they might say. Or, we just ask them to email the person. If they don’t think it’s a good fit, ask about the next few names on the list.

Tactic Three: Hold a quarterly networking event for your local clients. Get them all in a room with only one purpose, to get to know each other and develop new business relationships. Buy the food and the drinks, and invite them to bring another business decision maker. Don’t have any sales presentations, or any of that. Maybe hand out a VIP award to a client for doing something great for the community. Or do a quick employee of the quarter award. Ask another company to so-sponsor the event with you, so you have a larger group. Make sure you do introductions between the clients, and meet every new person in the room. A web design firm that doesn’t provide SEO (If you can find them) is a great co-sponsor and a great new link for you.

Tactic Four: Make a list of what you can do for clients at no charge, and then do it. Start with your high IA group. Do you have two clients who might be helpful to each other? Get them together for lunch or coffee. Send an email introduction to each. Is there an upcoming event they might find of value, send them the info. Have you seen a client get great results in another advertising program, or promotion, send them the info. Be helpful!

Here is an example of what an email might say:

Jim,

I was reading about the Home Builders Associations upcoming meeting about _______ and thought you might find it interesting. Let me know If you are planning on attending, as I might know a few of the Architects going and would like to introduce you to them.

Best regards,

Obsequious SEO guy

How does helping your clients in non-SEO ways get you more clients? It’s the well-documented tit for tat theory. When you do a favor for someone, there is a very natural feeling or obligation to return the favor. You don’t even need to ask; they will naturally want to help you in some way. Oddly enough, there is also a group who prefers not to feel obligated, and this system won’t help you with them. With that group, you need to first ask them for a favor, and then the tit for tat system will begin, with them now feeling you own them one. Providing them with a favor will then move the system along.

How to Find Human Links outside of your customer base

As I mentioned not all human links are of the same value. Let’s look at what a high IA person is, and how you get them to “Link” to you.

People with Influence Authority are often in consulting and professional services, or have high visibility in the business associations in your area. They are by professional nature “trusted” by the business community. You could call that sales link Trust Factor. If you see them on the local news discussing a topic as an area expert, there is a good chance they would be a have a high IA, RA and a high Trust Factor.

• Business Attorneys
• Social Media Marketing Firms
• Web Design Companies (who do not provide SEO)
• CPAs
• Business Brokers
• Board members of large local business associations
• Board members of large charities

It’s pretty easy to identify IA’s with a little research. Before you approach any potential new link, make sure they have both IA and RA. Without reach, you may be wasting your time.

Your job is to make this person a link. And the way you do that is by getting them to flow through the following four relationship building steps.

1. They don’t know you
2. They do know you (I would call this the no follow link stage)
3. They trust you (They remove the no follow)
4. They refer you.

There are five tactics that can work very well for getting them to link to you.

Tactic 1: Research. Follow them on twitter, look them up on Linked In and look for commonalities between you. Same college, same home state, same hobbies, any shared connections, do they have a blog? Start interacting. (Sound familiar link builders?)

Tactic Two: Email them and ask if they would be open to an interview for a blog you are writing on successful businesses people.

Tactic Three: Find people within your customer base that are already connected to them and ask for an introduction.

Tactic Four: Blog about their business and send them an email telling them you did. (This idea is from a recent SEOmoz blog)

Tactic Five: Attend the large charity functions in your area. Make sure you introduce yourself to them at that function.

All of this is intended to get the new potential link to know you, and during the course of your interactions, get them to trust you. Oddly enough, trust is established first through you showing an honest interest in them, and their business goals, not by throwing all of your information at them. If they are going to become a link for you to new clients, they will naturally want to know more about you and your business. I call this natural link building.

So how do you track and measure all this? Just like you track and measure your SEO link building.

Start with research into your customer base. Create a spreadsheet with every customer and your main contact. Give them an assumed IA and RA, in a separate column. Add a column for the number of Linked In connections they have (the gross number). Now add your intended referral request tactic and once completed you can add a tit for tat column to show the system has started. Track how many referrals you receive from each and those become your new links once the new referrals know you, and will become your best links once they trust you.

Do the same for the individuals you have researched who are not clients.

You should have a goal of building five new links from every customer in your base. A link doesn’t have to be a new client; they just need to be someone with a decent IA and RA who is through the first two steps of the relationship you need to build, they now know you and trust you. Have you ever received a new customer from a referral from a person who is NOT a client? We do frequently, but in every case we have started and continue to participate in the tit for tat process with that person.

Build five new decent IA links out of your customer base each week, and your sales will grow substantially over the next few months and years. Maintain these links (relationships) as an ongoing process. Make it part of your business culture. Just like a link in SEO, if you don’t continue to build and maintain your relationships, they will drift away. You should find that for every five or so new links, you will sell a new client.

How much time you dedicate to this process will depend on how important new sales are to your businesses. If you can spend a third of your time building relationship links, you will grow your client base substantially.

About Mike Bayes

Bayes does sales coaching and training in tech related fields and B2B sales as a Partner in Bayes Squared. With over three decades of top level sales training/coaching. He ran a 650 person outside sales force for one of the top three telecom companies, and was a partner in USA.net, which was the Internet’s largest messaging company before Hotmail, Juno, and Yahoo mail. The founder, Scott Chasin, developed web based email.

In 2003 his sales acceleration company, My One Call, llc, started doing SEO for a group of clients, a big part of their job then and now is to provide the best return on investment sales and lead generation programs they can find. Today their revenue is roughly split between Internet Marketing services, and sales programs.

As a sales consultant that actively sells PPC, SEO, Content, Social Media, Bayes have a unique insight into how to sell SEO services.