How to Start an Agency: A Comprehensive Guide Series

Part 1: Start an Online Marketing Agency in 7 Steps

TLDR: Learn how to design websites on WordPress with Elementor, how to implement SEO, and how to manage other digital marketing services. Learning on YouTube = free but time consuming. Buying a course = costly but quicker and more efficient to master.

Before you can sell digital marketing services, you need to gain some expertise. There are a variety of skills and services that fall under “digital marketing,” but when you first start an agency, you at least need to know the basics of two: Website Design and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). These are services that you can sell by themselves, but components of these fundamental skills play into virtually all other online marketing services.

Website Design

Website design is all about, well…designing and building websites. Yeah, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Luckily, web design is a lot easier than it used to be. With page building tools like Elementor for WordPress, most of your design will be point-and-click/drag-and-drop. Gone are the days of coding thousands of lines in html or java.

Learning at least the basics of website design is crucial for anyone starting a digital marketing agency. Not only does it help you build stunning sites for your clients, but it also teaches you important concepts that help with marketing on other platforms such as Google Ads and social media.

SEO

SEO is probably the most important set of skills you can learn when starting an agency. Not only is it a valuable and lucrative service, but its core concepts apply to every other aspect of digital marketing.

SEO essentially means designing digital assets (websites, social media posts etc.) in a way that causes search algorithms like Google to rank them highly in their organic (i.e., not the paid ads) results. For example, a well-optimized website for an HVAC business located in Atlanta, GA will show up as one of the first 5 links when someone types in “hvac atlanta” on Google.

Content is the most important aspect of SEO. Well-written, optimized content is the foundation of what search engines look at when they evaluate a website and assign it a ranking.

Search engines like Google value content that is helpful to users and relevant to what they are searching for. This all starts with keywords.

Keywords are words or phrases associated with a piece of content. You want to write content with keywords that match what people type in to the search bar when they want to find something online. When writing your website’s content, determine the phrases people most often search for (search volume) related to your topic. Then, figure out how competitive those phrases are (difficulty).

Tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs can give information about keyword volume and difficulty. More on this later.

Once you’ve identified your keywords, write content that explains your service/topic, and incorporate the keywords into the copy. Write your content to sound natural (like a person said it) and to give users helpful information.

Next up is on-site and technical SEO. This involves enhancing your content to help users and search engines navigate your website efficiently.

On-site SEO techniques include:

• Titles and subtitles, and H-tags to help search engines identify them
• Keyword bolding
• Inter-site linking – hyperlinks that go to other pages on your site
• Meta titles and descriptions – the information that pops up on search engine results
• Image optimization
• Page speed and mobile optimization

The list goes on. We’ll get into the details of these concepts in a future post.

Off-site SEO is about other websites linking to the one you’re building, also known as backlinks. Google’s algorithm tracks all the other websites that include a hyperlink that redirects to your website.

Different backlinks have different value for SEO, and there are many ways to go about getting other sites to link to you. The most powerful backlinks come from websites that have strong online presences themselves, and you’ll want a diverse mix of links from blogs, news sources, social media, company pages, and as always, the list goes on.

Other Services

Once you understand website design and SEO, you may want to learn about other marketing services such as Google Ads, social media ads, Google Business Pages (Google Maps), and email marketing. These tools will let you offer different avenues to get user traffic for your clients.

How do I learn all this stuff???

Implementing all these marketing concepts requires a considerable level of skill and technical knowledge, so you’ll have to invest some time to learn how to use them. If you’re learning how to start a digital marketing agency with no experience, start by taking an online course. Pricewise, this will run you anywhere from zero dollars for YouTube tutorials, to around $60 a month for a Coursera class, and a bit more for thorough, hands-on training with an expert.

The free YouTube path will probably take you a bit longer to master and require some trial and error, whereas purchasing a class will cost you some money, but will be much more focused and take away the added mental burden of self-teaching. It all depends on your budget and time constraints.

Knowing the basics of all these services will give you the foundation to run a full-service digital marketing agency. 

TLDR: Pick your favorite digital marketing services and start selling them.

This one is all up to you. After gaining at least a basic understanding of the full stack of digital marketing options, think about which ones you like doing best, what you’re best at, and what you think you’ll be best at selling.

When considering how to start an agency, specializing in one or two services can help you set yourself apart from the competition, but it’s perfectly fine to offer them all and market your business as a full-service agency. My agency, Lead Hounds, offers everything, but we specialize in SEO because it has great long-term results for clients, is high-ticket, and typically results in recurring revenue for an extended period.

It really is your choice though. Love building beautiful websites? Go all-in on design. Want to offer fast, guaranteed traffic? Sell the heck out of Google Ads management. Hate websites? Give people the best (non-spammy) email campaigns they can buy. You could even get more specialized and offer only off-site SEO or just write website content.

You can also change your mind later. Start out by making a decision and going all-in on it.

TLDR: Sell to one industry if you are already an expert. If not, explore options and eventually settle into a niche.

Marketers love saying the riches are in the niches. This is because specializing in marketing for one industry or service will help you set yourself apart as an expert in your field and gain a more invested following.

But with all the different businesses out there, how do you choose one to go after?

SME Approach

If you are a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in a specific area or industry, the simplest approach is to go after clients in that same industry. It is much easier to sell when you speak the language of your clientele, know their pain points, and know what makes them the most money.



If you used work for a kitchen remodeling contractor, consider selling digital marketing to…kitchen remodelers! You’ll have an immediate leg up on your competition, and you won’t have to spend the time learning what goes through the mind of someone who builds kitchens.

Shotgun Approach

What I’m calling the “Shotgun Approach” basically means not doing Step 3. At least not right away.

If you are starting an agency and you’re not a SME in any area that you think could benefit from digital marketing, it’s perfectly okay to just go after all of them at first. That’s what I did. Reach out to roofers one week, plumbers the next. Try landscapers after that.

Once you have a couple clients, start thinking about which ones you like working with the most. Which ones are making you the most money? Which are getting the best results? Is there a niche with relatively low competition?



Start to consider transitioning from the Shotgun Approach to the SME Approach. Specializing in one industry niche can help you streamline your sales pipeline and services, ultimately delivering better results to your clients.

TLDR: Profit = Revenues - Costs. Time is a cost. How much time and money (costs) will it take to get each new client (revenue)?

After deciding on your services and clients to go after, it might be a good time to take a step back and make a plan before you start dialing.

Ask yourself: which are the first steps you should consider when constructing an online business strategy? Now that you’re an expert marketer you need to figure out three things: How to get clients, how much to charge, and how much it will cost you.

Costs

A logical place to start planning is usually laying out your costs. How much are you going have to spend up front to get started? To run your business? To get each new client?

You’ll need at least some cash to get off the ground, but all these expenses can stay pretty low at the beginning. If you are working with a tight budget, keep your agency lean until you land your first client, then use some or all of the recurring profits from that client to pay for tools that will help you run your operations more efficiently.

It may be tempting to only ever spend the bare minimum, but keep in mind that you can often “buy” time for a bit more money. If you are going into building an agency with some decent capital, consider ways to accelerate your growth. For instance, one of the cheapest ways to sell your services is to manually scrape prospects from the internet and diligently cold call and cold email them. Alternatively, if you have a few bucks to spend, you could run a Google Ads campaign to bring clients directly to you while you work on other tasks.

Finally, figure out how much time and/or money it costs you to serve a single client. This will guide you on the next part of Step 4.

Pricing and Revenues

Once you know how much it costs to provide your marketing services, you can set your prices. Try to get a sense of how much your competition charges and how much you want to make for the time spent on a client.

Next, set an initial goal for how much money you want to make, and determine how many clients it will take to reach that goal.

The Right Plan for You

Everyone’s online business plan will be unique. Your lifestyle, financial situation, and goals will all determine how quickly you can ramp up. And remember, while it’s helpful to start with specific goals, be ready to adjust as you go. It’s part of being an entrepreneur!

You will need a few software tools to help you run your agency efficiently. A future post will give you an exhaustive list of the recommended options for every category of tool and how much they all cost.

Website and SEO Tools

We mentioned SEMRush and Ahrefs earlier. Subscribing to one of these is essential for keyword research, assessing your clients’ progress, and evaluating their competition.

You’ll also need a website hosting platform for your website and your clients’. Kinsta is an excellent choice.

Next you need to build the websites, so choose your favorite page builder. WordPress is the go-to, and you’ll eventually want a premium subscription for Elementor if you’re creating websites with any complexity.

The tools mentioned in this subsection represent the bare minimum to run a successful marketing agency.

Tracking and Analytics

Clients appreciate it when you keep them in the loop, so make sure set them up with Google Search Console and Google Analytics for their websites. Luckily, these are free! 

Business and Logistics

There are many tools that will help streamline your digital marketing agency. Here are a few:

• Email: Gmail or Outlook. Pick your favorite. Make sure to use a domain email address! E.g., name@marketingcompany.com NOT name@gmail.com
• Payments: Stripe gives dozens of options for payment processing, including the ability to easily set clients up with autopay
• Task management: ClickUp’s free plan comes with tons of options for functionality and customization for task tracking and sales pipelines.
• Document management: Box.com is a great option!
• Calendar appointments: Calendly!
• Graphic design and stock images: Canva. Just get the Pro subscription. It’s worth it.
• Email automation: MailerLite is a solid option.
• CRM: HighLevel bundles a bunch of client management tools into one and can source leads.
• Content writing: ChatGPT! CAUTION! DO NOT JUST BLINDLY COPY FROM CHATGPT FOR CONTENT. ChatGPT is best used for editing and optimizing content, not writing it wholesale. Search engines flag and penalize content written by generative AI. That said, it can still be very useful for idea generation and small writing tasks like YouTube video descriptions.

There are options to help you deal with virtually any task, but these are a great place to start, and won’t cost you much. I was able to cover the costs of all of these with the profits from one client.

TLDR: Set up WordPress and Elementor and hosting for your site. Install a template and personalize it with your agency information.

Before you try to get your first client, you need a website to help them learn about your services and show them that you are a legitimate business. Who would trust a digital marketer that doesn’t have their own website?

Choose Builder and Hosting

Before you build your website, you need a domain to host it on. GoDaddy is the most popular marketplace for domains. As for hosting platforms, we already mentioned Kinsta.

We mentioned WordPress and Elementor a couple of times already, so you should start to understand that this is the go-to page builder combo that something like 80% of websites are built on. WordPress also caters well to SEO.

You could go with Shopify for e-commerce sites though. Lots of huge brands built their sites on Shopify.

Templates: Get It Done and Go

Your version 1.0 of your agency website doesn’t need to blow anyone’s mind. Make it clean and professional. Convey the information you need to and make it visually pleasing.

WordPress has hundreds of website templates to get you started. Choose one that you like and get it done so that you can start to serve clients. Circle back later if you want to spruce it up or rebrand.

TLDR: Tell the world how you can help them make money! For a small price!

If you’ve made it this far, you have all the tools and information you need to know how to start an SEO business! Now you must convince business owners to work with you. Sales can be a daunting endeavor at first, but it’s a crucial component of every business.

At the end of the day, sales is about showing people an offer that gives them more value than they are paying for. If you’re good at what you do, that should be easy right? Well…unfortunately in today’s digital world, spammers are flooding everyone’s phones and inboxes, so it can be difficult to get your prospects’ attention.

However, with the right techniques and some creativity, you can still get it done. 

Sales Strategies

As with website design and marketing services, educating yourself on sales strategies is crucial if you want to start a successful agency. Here are some of the best strategies to learn and practice:

• Cold calling
• Cold emailing
• Social media outreach (Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn)
• Walk-ins at local businesses
• Tell everyone! You never know which friends or family members have a referral waiting for you

You can learn specific scripts and templates for all of these from YouTube or paid courses, but with all of them, try to be creative and make your offer a little different from everyone else’s. What’s special about your agency? What makes you an expert in your niche?

Also, come up with a free giveaway to provide value right out of the gate. A complimentary SEO audit is an excellent option. Show your clients that no one can find their website, and offer to show them how they can change that.

Automating Sales

The manual outreach methods described above are a great way to get started, but they take a lot of work, and once you have a handful of clients, it can be a lot to take care of them while maintaining consistent outreach for new clients.

Consider using some of your profits to automate your sales pipeline. Here are a few ways you can skip outreach and go straight to the close:

• Pay-per-click ad campaigns (Google and Facebook)
• SEO for your own website
• Blogging
• Hire a salesperson

Automating your sales pipeline is how you go from small-time freelancer to marketing maven!

Thank you for taking the time to read this far! If you’re here, you are probably serious about starting an agency.

You now know what it will take and what you need to learn to succeed in digital marketing. Remember though, this post is just an intro. We will continue to release deep dives on each of the seven steps. Sign up with your email below if you would like to receive notifications about future posts.

If you want to jump start your agency, Lead Hounds offers private coaching for aspiring digital marketers. Click here to learn more.

Check out the rest of the series:

Part 2

Part 3