Media companies: How to create, promote, and fulfill SEO packages

Media companies are increasingly finding themselves having to operate in an industry that looks very different than it did just a decade ago. The media landscape has changed dramatically, with consumers spending many more hours per day using new media and fewer engaging with traditional media.

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While there is still a place for traditional media, this transformation has had a massive impact on the business model that served media companies well throughout the 20th century: that is, advertisement sales.

With fewer eyes and ears on newspapers, radio stations, and TV, the prices media companies can command for ads just isn’t enough to sustain the same profits as in previous years.

So, what does this mean for your media company? How can you future-proof your business to ensure strong profits in a digitally dominated world?

Offering SEO packages can help you generate more revenue from existing local advertisers, open up large new potential markets, and even sell more of your core services. Let’s get into why putting together SEO packages to sell should be at the top of your to-do list as a media leader.

Why SEO packages?

Why the big deal over SEO packages instead of other digital services?

• Offering SEO services is an excellent complement to your existing services.
• It is difficult for your clients to handle it in house regardless of their size.
• SEO empowers you to deliver measurable ROI for your clients.

In simple terms, the product media companies sell local advertisers is ads. These ads drive awareness and, ultimately, sales. This will always be a valuable and necessary service to local advertisers. They need more people to become aware of their business so they can generate more sales and profits.

However, it is very difficult to provide any kind of attribution for sales generated by traditional media ads. Clients may see a boost in sales following an ad campaign, but you have no way of proving to them exactly how many sales were generated by each ad. This means you can’t establish your value in concrete terms.

SEO is, fundamentally, about getting more eyes on your client’s products and services. The end goal is the same, but the methods of arriving at it are more sophisticated, better suited to contemporary media consumption, and, crucially, clearly attributable to your activities. Selling SEO services makes it possible for you to show with objective numbers what kind of results you’re driving.

Finally, SEO management requires staying on top of a range of ever-changing tasks. Being successful means staying on top of algorithm changes and other variables, which is very difficult for local businesses to handle on their own. By offering these services, you open yourself up to working with the many businesses that need these services but who may not be interested in traditional media ads.

SEO services you can sell

Successful SEO campaigns involve multiple components. The aim of SEO is to help your clients climb the search engine results pages (SERPs) for search queries relevant to their business. This way, when someone searches for a product or service similar to what they offer, they’ll ideally be displayed at the top of Google’s search results. In turn, this will drive more organic traffic to their site, and more conversions.

By offering a range of different SEO activities, you can support your clients in the exact areas where they need the most help. You can also give them the choice to purchase just one or a few types of SEO services from you and to add more as you demonstrate your competency.

Here are some of the components that can go into your SEO packages:

• Link building – Backlinks (links from other reputable websites that navigate to your client’s website) are cues to Google that the website being linked to is relevant, interesting, and of high quality. If other sites on the web find it worthy enough to link to, this counts as a “vote of confidence.” Link building is an effective but time-consuming and long-term SEO strategy that is very important to reaching the top of SERPs.
• Technical SEO – Websites have to be “read” by Google’s bots in order for Google to understand what each page contains and how the site is organized. This process is called crawling. On-site SEO help Google’s bots better crawl a site and give individual pages a better chance of appearing at the top of SERPs.
• Copywriting – Great blog content can be a big SEO driver. Maintaining blogs requires a lot of time, but doing so gives a website more chances to have one of its pages appear at the top of Google’s results.
• Local SEO – Appearing in local search results is essential for local businesses, and local SEO success requires a different approach than traditional SEO. Local SEO services you can resell include listing management, reputation management, and review collection.

Selling more with packages

Since SEO success usually requires working on more than one area, different SEO services are well suited to being sold as packages or bundles. The idea is that by purchasing multiple services, a local advertiser can save on the individual cost of each service. For you, selling bundles means each advertiser’s spend with you is greater.

Bundles are a great way to incentivize your clients to try services they may not have paid for otherwise. For example, you can create bundles that contain both traditional media ads and SEO services. Newer startups may be less interested in traditional media ads on their own but could be incentivized to try them if they’re included in a favorably priced bundle.

SEO services can also be effectively bundled with other related digital services. Website design and hosting, PPC ads, online reputation management, and more can all be bundled to help your company become an indispensable partner to local advertisers.

Bundling by client profile

When creating your bundles, it can be helpful to think of your various customer profiles. For example, you may have clients clustered in several industries. There may be bundles you can create based on the unique requirements of each industry. For example, local restaurants will have a specific set of SEO needs more focused on optimizing for local discoverability, while ecommerce businesses may need to be discoverable more widely.

Bundle by tiers

Another effective way to create your SEO packages is by pricing tier. You can have a basic tier for smaller advertisers with limited budgets that covers the essentials, a mid-level tier for growing businesses, and an enterprise tier for your larger clients.

Creating bundles this way is effective because there is something for everyone, but you don’t have to overwhelm yourself or your clients with too many options. Just a few well-considered packages can meet the needs of most advertisers. As they grow, they can move on to larger tiers.

Selling your SEO packages

With your SEO packages created, it’s time to start promoting them to existing advertisers and prospects. This can be a challenge for media companies, since sales staff may not be comfortable speaking the language of SEO.

The right tools can help smooth the transition to selling more digital services, like SEO packages:

• Using sales intelligence tools can be very helpful in structuring conversations with prospects. They can illuminate their current online performance and areas in which your SEO packages can help.
• Client reporting software can be another effective tool both for selling and for nurturing existing clients, by giving them the ability to log in and view live progress in different areas.

Fulfilling with white-label SEO services

You don’t have to hire a team of SEO pros in-house to start fulfilling your SEO packages. Instead, you can have all of your new services fulfilled by a team of white-label experts. When you’re offering a new service, this just makes sense. Offering SEO white-label services allows your team to focus entirely on selling and nurturing clients, while experts working under your media company brand deliver high-quality SEO services to your clients.

This solution has proven effective for media leaders because it allows them to keep excelling in what they do well (sales and traditional ad delivery). Yet, it also modernizes their business model and makes them competitive against digital agencies and others offering digital services.

Expand your product offering with SEO packages

Failing to meet the challenge presented by our digital media age can mean getting left behind as a traditional media company. The demand for digital media services will only continue to grow. To meet advertisers where they are, it’s important to offer these services.

SEO packages are a natural fit for media companies since they are a complement to advertising efforts. With SEO packages fulfilled by a white-label team, you can start providing services that drive real results for your advertisers, grow your client base, and secure higher profits.