I've been building websites since 1996, and most of my clients have come from referrals. I do get a bit of traffic from Google as I rank top 5 for SEO Kansas City. But, how do YOU currently find new leads for potential clients? Feel free to follow me on twitter: @teedubya
I agree above Craigs is useless .. try raw seo content articles and title descriptions ... then call me
you need to rank for high searched keywords what people are searching for then you will get more enquires for your website.
bottom line is this you will not rank for top seo person anywhere .. im serious ... search engine optimization calls for a variation of Web applications, I think before you become a search engine optimizer, you need to target a certain unique warm market. For example I am a search engine optimizer in the travel industry targeting optimization for various travel companies. Now if you're smart you would target a warm market. Most search engine optimizer's only get recognize after a day bring a website to the top of google.com yahoo.com and MSN.com... so the rest depends upon where and how you build your website target targeting unique traffic for your niche market...
Referrals work great. New service providers may find it difficult to convince their clients because they won;t have very impressive rankings for most competitive keywords. It's better to build up the trust with some successful projects. While you work on clients' projects, it's always good to work seriously on longtail keywords and competitive keywords at the same time. Like Aaron said, targeting some warm markets is another great idea.
The above two posters were in compliance that Craigslist is USEFUL, not useless. I agree that CL is wonderful. Another method would be to simply look up local companies, check out their websites, and explain to them how SEO can help them
Two words: Networking, Referrals Go places where business people hang out and make it a point to meet people. I go to nice restaurants, nice wine bars, etc. several nights per week. I make it a point to spend time at the bar. It's a great place to be forced to meet people. If it's a nice upscaled restaurant, I will almost always get 2-3 business cards from local people who own their own companies on any given night. If you know the bartenders, they will introduce you to practically everyone they know that walks in and sits down. Or maybe I just have some great bartenders (perhaps it's the nice tips I leave them). Once you've gotten a few gigs, if you do great work those companies will refer you to their friends... or at LEAST make great references.
Canonical's Avatar Canonical Nice thats a great way to meet them.... but the main poster is not responding here any more... not even one has he said thank you>>>>
would craigslist work for those in the UK? There are equivalents over here but a) it's full of spam and timewasters and b) there must be 10x the number of users of CL than the UK equivalents? Would those in the US seriously consider taking on SEO and Copywriting from someone in the UK?