Are you wondering how to earn money from SEO? You should know there are various ways to turn your SEO skills into income. However, as we say, there are multiple ways to earn money from SEO; selecting one is important. While you pick your SEO services, you should be aware of the pros and cons, monetization tricks, and examples. As we talked earlier, selling SEO services is a common way to make money; it’s not the only option available online.
In this article, we will let you know various methods to how to make money with SEO, highlighting the key advantages and disadvantages of each strategy. So whether you want to be an SEO freelancer or are eager to build your own agency, this guide will surely help you.
How to Earn Money From SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has become an important part of digital marketing, which offers various ways to earn money. Here are some methods to earn money from SEO and monetize your SEO skills and generate income.
1. Sell SEO Consulting and Freelance Services
SEO consulting and freelance services require SEO businesses that provide businesses to grow , improve visibility, and rank on search engines. As an SEO consultant or freelancer, you can offer SEO expertise to businesses looking to improve their online visibility and rankings on search engines. Your work may include keyword research, content strategy, building links, competitor analysis, and more.
However, if you want to earn money from SEO as a freelancer or consultant, you can easily start a solo agency and hire other executive SEO who are particularly specialised in domains like SaaS, e-commerce, local business, and more. These can definitely help you to increase your demands and rates in the SEO business
Pros
- The payments are usually made on a per-project basis or retainer basis.
- The profit margins are generally high in freelancing. You can easily alter and propose your own rates after proper market research.
- You can easily choose the projects and clients you want to work with according to your availability.
- You can easily raise your rates as you gain experience or grow your team with experts.
Cons
- Clients may usually tend to leave as SEO results take time to show.
- Handling more clients and meeting all their expectations and deadlines can be stressful.
Example
The major example is Brodie Clark, who is a solo SEO consultant who has built a name for himself in the industry. He uses social media to attract his clients and build his reputation, focusing on both technical and content SEO.
2. Productised SEO
Productised SEO is packaging SEO services into specific products or packages, such as SEO audits. In this SEO service, you can earn money by offering these products to the client at a fixed price without any long term commitments.
This mode of work is best for a person who prefers not to engage in any ongoing project and wants to work in a more structured way with limited time. Once you complete this productised SEO, your client contracts will end, and no ongoing work will be required.
Pros
- In this, you just need to provide your data to the client without any execution of the further project.
- Clients usually pay upfront for a fixed price service.
- The only cost involved in these SEO services is the tool and operations expenses, which make this highly profitable with 100% profit margins.
- You can offer several SEO earn money packages at once without additional resources.
Cons
- As your projects tend to end once the deal is done. You constantly need to find new clients and sales.
- Bigger companies prefer ongoing SEO services with execution. You may lack the ability to find big companies or projects.
- The client is responsible for implementing your recommendations.
Example
Marie Haynes, who is known as a leader in the SEO industry, offers productized SEO services like analysing declines in organic performance and creating future strategy maps. She charges $6,500 (with a call) or $5,000 (without a call) for these services.
3. Create an Affiliate Website
An affiliate website is built to provide a specific domain where you can promote your third party products and services. With this you can earn money from SEO by promoting third party products and services. The best part about creating your own website is you can generate your income by earning commission when a user clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase.
SEO also plays an important part, as you need to rank your content with relevant keywords, which will provide you traffic to your affiliate links. If you are someone who is looking to earn money from SEO, then this is a good model to have passive income. However, it may take time to build your loyal audience and give you a good ranking for your website.
Pros
- Once your content is live and ranked, you can earn money passively as traffic flows to your affiliate links.
- You can create multiple affiliate websites across different niches.
- You only focus on content creation and driving traffic. There’s no need to handle customer support or fulfillment.
Cons:
- By creating an affiliate website, it may take months to build a website that generates good traffic and leads to give you substantial income.
- Google tends to change and modify their algorithms, which may impact your ranking and earnings.
- There are many affiliate niches in the market. Because of that, there is huge competition, and it may be difficult to rank high.
Example
Wirecutter is a well-known affiliate website that ranks for “best” keywords and earns commission when users purchase products via their links. Many independent SEOs also create smaller affiliate websites in niches like tech, pets, or home improvement.
4. Offer Sponsored Content
If you are the owner of your own website or blog with a good amount of followers, then you can monetize it by offering sponsored content. Many brands pay you to publish articles or blog posts that promote their products or services. This method allows you to generate income without the need to sell products directly.
However, sponsored content works best when your website has good traffic and audience engagement, making it an attractive advertising opportunity.
Pros:
- Once the sponsored content is published, there is no further client interaction.
- As your website grows in traffic and authority, you can increase your rates for sponsored posts.
- You can choose the brands and topics you want to work with.
- Publishing sponsored posts written by others requires minimal effort.
Cons:
- You have to keep securing new sponsorships, as they do not provide continuous income.
- Too much sponsored content may turn off your audience if not balanced with useful content.
- Many audiences are shifting to social media like Instagram and X for information, making it harder to maintain blog traffic.
Example
The Mom Collective allows brands to publish sponsored posts on their parenting-focused website. Similarly, food blogger Get On My Plate also publishes sponsored content alongside other income streams.
5. Rank and Rent Pages
Rank and rent is a strategy where you create a website that ranks for a specific keyword, for example, such as “best dentist in Austin, TX,” and then rent it out to local businesses that want to generate leads for that keyword. For example, a dentist could rent your website to gain visibility for a high traffic search term.
This model works well for local businesses that want to generate leads but don’t want to go through the hassle of building and ranking a website themselves.
Pros
- Once your site ranks well, you can generate consistent rental income from the business renting the site.
- After setting up the website and renting it out, you only need to handle rental payments.
- Once it is ranked, you can start renting your site and making money almost immediately.
Cons:
- If the site loses its ranking, you lose rental income.
- Time and effort must be invested upfront to build and rank the website.
- It can take a few months to get a website ranking for a competitive keyword.
Example:
A local dentist in Austin might rent your site if you rank it for keywords like “best dentist in Austin.” The dentist would pay you to get consistent leads from your high-ranking site.
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How To Earn Money From SEO FAQs
What is SEO and how can it help me earn money?
SEO helps in optmising the website and helps in ranking higher in search engine results. Through this you can easily earn money by improving your website visibility so websites can rank higher in search engine results. SEO professionals can earn money by offering services like SEO consulting, building affiliate websites, or creating SEO optimised content.
How can I make money with SEO without offering services?
You can now easily earn money by creating affiliate websites, ranking them for profitable keywords, and earning commissions when visitors click on affiliate links. You can also rent out SEO optimised websites to businesses needing leads.
How to earn money by SEO as a freelancer?
As a freelancer, you can also offer SEO services such as keyword research, content creation, technical SEO audits, and on page optimisation. Clients pay for your expertise to improve their website rankings.
