How to become a remote business owner
More and more SEO specialists tend to start their businesses after working as in-house employees. This trending business approach focuses on establishing a personal brand.
While in-house SEO generally refers to a team of people who handle the company’s SEO performance in the office, sole entrepreneurs usually rely on their skills to serve the same purpose, working remotely. This article explains how people can develop a unique enterprise using specific steps to optimize their actions and increase profit.
Improve your hard and soft skills
Successful entrepreneurs must work on their hard and soft skills to get an edge over tough competition. By definition, hard skills are a set of competencies that can be acquired through learning and measured using various techniques. Soft skills are associated with communication, listening, and management skills that might drastically improve performance but are not tied to any specific sphere and cannot be easily upraised. Some examples of hard skills are keyword research, coding, content writing, working with SEO tools, and other technical skills that are needed for SEO, while soft skills are tied to your ability to communicate with clients, time management, and problem-solving. While mastering hard skills requires work experience, improving soft skills relies on self-discipline and a mindful approach to work.
Expand your experience and portfolio to reach new clients
The Golden Rule for portfolios is to never create a portfolio just for the sake of it. In other words, your portfolio has to be a sum of your job that you do casually. Do not work for free if that is not what you do not want to do. Keep in mind that the target audience will check your portfolio, and if you list only experience you hate there, the target clients you will get will also want you to do the same for them. Your portfolio must portray what you want to do, not what you were forced to do.
Additionally, keep in mind that your website has to portray the level of experience you have too. If the client wants to get SEO services from you while your website never performs well – such poor website performance will be a part of your portfolio and will distract customers. Hence, if you cannot do well for your own good, no one will believe you can do any better for them. To optimize your website properly, use advanced SEO tools like NinjaReports.com
. It provides keyword research, website audit, and on-page SEO analysis to upraise your website and find its weaknesses.
Finally, SEO specialists can share their experiences using blog articles on their websites, thus expanding their business portfolios to appeal to more clients. Such stories can also help you show your experience and tell more about the companies you worked for. If the client recognizes the company or has similar issues to those you dealt with, they will automatically trust your business more or will want to partner to solve the same problem as others.
Work on Personal Branding
Each written and posted article can draw clients to your business. That is why the quality of the content presented as your brand plays a crucial role in converting users into sales. Each visitor should clearly know who you are and your expertise after just a few seconds of interacting with the website. People are more prone to buy services when they understand whom they are dealing with and if they work with a real person they can trust. Writing about your cases and sharing working experiences can be instrumental in gaining that trust.
However, do not stop writing a blog. Improving your personal brand is more than that. A few tips on how to increase your visibility online include:
- Active social media pages;
- An “About me” page with your name and some information about you;
- Guest posting on third-party websites with an author bio that refers back to you;
- Get a knowledge panel on Google search about you and your company.
Any visibility is beneficial, so you need to be vocal and try to appear on as many websites as possible. Being invisible means having zero clients. In contrast, being well-recognized will open up a window of new opportunities.
Start working fully remote
Creating and correctly promoting a website is the first step to managing a remote business. Outline your salary expectations and clarify the sum that will be comfortable for you to live anywhere you want. As more clients come your way, concentrate on those that provide more income so you can work less by doing the same amount of work. Such a technique will allow you to travel for personal and work purposes. Meeting new people can provide you with better deals and opportunities, giving you more freedom to do what is best for you. A nomadic life will also allow you to meet customers in places you could never have imagined.
Build up a customer base
Growing a customer base that provides positive feedback for your business will lead to new opportunities and the ability to work less and earn more. Happy clients can come back and refer more customers your way. At some point in operating a business, it will become clear which customers you can count on to use your services systematically and how many new clients you might need each month to fill the gap left by those who leave. As soon as the average monthly sales provide you with a comfortable salary, you can concentrate on expanding your scope of reach.
Being vocal in social media and online communities, making new connections, and even changing your residence like a nomad can be a good start to finding people who might become your client or refer your service to someone else. Additionally, direct communication will increase trust in you as a person. That trust will help grow client loyalty and build a returning customer base for long-term success. This, in turn, will help you predict future business growth, income, and long-term commitments.
Scale your success
When you are done with the basics and have enough income to grow, it’s time to think about taking your business to the next level. Consider outsourcing, finding people who will scale up the company so that more work can be done for more clients. For example,
- Start with finding people who can handle SEO work to cover more projects.
- Continue with spotting content writers who can keep all clients’ websites updated.
- Hire some professionals who will make sure that things work smoothly with contracting your clients.
- Repeat for all positions that are needed to keep things going.
Such a strategy will allow the business to develop and pay the salary of newly hired people. As a result, you will create something bigger than you could think of and become competitive on the market for years to come.
Repeat the process when you are ready
To wrap things up, it is possible to find the work-life balance you desire by working remotely. Starting a business and developing it to the point where you can take yourself out of it is an opportunity that is available to all. Learning hard and soft skills while starting the business and succeeding in their application enables you to repeat the process at any time successfully. You can always start a new business and repeat the steps, increasing your salary and not working a minute more than you want. Plus, starting new businesses with an existing customer base and a dedicated team is much better than starting from scratch.
