How to make a living from SEO? A guide to becoming a profitable consultant

How to make a living from SEO? I bring you a mega-guide to becoming a profitable consultant who can diversify their income and do what they like, turning their profession into a business. I hope you enjoy it.

1. How to make a living from SEO? An introduction

Each person is a world, and trying to encompass all paths into one is absurd and will not lead us to any “model” to follow.

But it is also true that learning from people who have already walked a path helps us understand different possibilities and recognize patterns where you had not seen them until this moment.

As Jordan Peterson says:

We face an infinite number of possibilities; by choosing a path, we reduce that range to a single reality.

I come from the world of research and ended up in SEO by pure chance.

I had always liked technology and, looking to retrain professionally, I started learning about web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, some PHP), and ended up managing an online store without knowing many things.

Having to learn from scratch, making mistakes, and on that path I came across SEO and its possibilities as traffic growth and people interested in the products we sold.

Some friends already (Sonia Varela, who had been in the digital world for years) had told me about this discipline, but it did not start to hook me until the moment I started to see my first results in Google (the store), and it is like a potato chip; once you eat one, it is hard not to continue and eat the next one.

It is true that my way of being led me in a natural way to investigate that curiosity.

To read everything that happened to me in front (books, articles), to try different strategies, to watch many videos, to buy many training courses.

My “first client” was that online store where I started working. A creative pastry shop in Prestashop in an era where not even the websites had to be responsive because browsing on mobile devices was not abundant.

After a couple of years working in that area, naturally some people around me asked me to help them with SEO and, although I lacked real experience (beyond this store), I began to see the possibilities in terms of business.

For a while I looked for work in agencies that would allow me to have more experience to be able to reach other clients, but fate did not allow me that possibility.

I had more and more clients and I realized that it was worth registering as a freelancer; when they offered me jobs, the salaries were lower than what I was earning at that time.

In addition, the labor market (which at least interested me) were marketing agencies or SEO agencies that did not define professional roles very well and were looking for people who knew about:

• Social media
• Marketing
• Google Ads
• Social media advertising
• SEO
• Any other discipline that the market demanded at that time

Therefore, they were looking for profiles that were too generic and knew a little about everything; I did not like that approach.

While I understand that we must know a minimum of the global marketing strategy in all channels, I liked (and still do) SEO and did not want to move far from this field. On the contrary, I wanted to specialize a lot.

Being able to dedicate many hours to learning what I really wanted and saw that the labor market (with the rigidity of the market in Spain) did not allow me to do so.

So I chose to follow my own path as a freelancer. This has advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages were:

• Higher income
• Control of my time
• Being able to choose my clients and projects
• Being able to diversify my income and not depend on a single source

But also a few disadvantages:

• I had to be responsible for my entire business
• Manage aspects that were not part of SEO, such as commercial management
• Be very organized to be able to meet clients and deadlines
• You burn out easily from having to carry the weight of responsibility for your income. Sometimes a job as an employee is easier that allows you to not worry about all these aspects

10 years later, I do not regret it.

I am very fortunate and I am aware of it. I have managed to create a lifestyle that fits my principles, my way of being.

I have achieved a wonderful economic position and I am still taking steps to be more scalable and improve in all aspects (productivity, income, etc.). I think it is a process that has no end. It is a continuous process in time.

Today, I am seeing changes in the discipline like I have never seen before.

The introduction of LLMs has changed the rules of the game, the paradigms. But SEO is still as alive as ever (despite the fact that they have been killing it since I started reading about the discipline more than 10 years ago).

Therefore, what will you learn in this guide?

You will learn to really make a living from SEO.

How to generate income? How much can you earn? How can you diversify your income? How can you work on your personal brand? What doors should you knock on? Which ones should you avoid? How can you make a living from SEO in a world of IA overview in Google?

I will tell you everything. So sit down, enjoy this path and buckle up because curves are coming, but it is worth it. I promise.

2. What does it really mean to “make a living from SEO”?

This phrase “make a living from SEO” is complicated. What does it really mean?

The first and most essential thing is to make something clear from the beginning:

It is not the same to know how to do SEO, to be an SEO consultant or to make a living from SEO

A basic question is to have SEO knowledge. That is obvious, you cannot work for others or yourself in the world of SEO if you do not have the basic knowledge of the discipline.

The key question here is: How much should I know to start making a living from SEO?

As always, the answer is obvious: It depends!

There is a word here essential to understand this; it is called practice.

If you have read a lot, you know all the theory, you have seen all the videos in the world, you have read the Google documentation, you have finished several very expensive SEO courses, masters, etc., but you do not have practical knowledge; I am sorry friend, it is a bummer, and I do not want to ruin your plans, but you do not know SEO yet.

It is like losing your virginity. I can explain many things to a person who does not know what sex is, but until they get wet (and how well the expression comes to me here), 😉 they cannot understand many concepts.

I see many students (because I give many classes and I have had interns) who have everything to be wonderful SEO consultants, but they lack practice. Real experience and this is complex to cover.

They are people who obviously look for a job to have experience, but let’s be honest, companies look after their interests, and they usually look for people who already have some experience so that they can get profitability from the work of these professionals.

If they have to train from scratch, it usually has advantages for companies to “mold” that professional from the base, but not all have this organizational culture (it is a long-term vision). Many seek results in the short and medium term; therefore, they prefer people with experience.

That is terrible for junior people who need that first experience to start their professional career, but there are not usually many offers where they take them into account. The same happens in other disciplines such as web development.

The other way where they can start is with the internship model. A model that in my experience and with the companies I have seen, is flawed. I go back to the same thing, because of the work model in Spain that is expensive and more rigid than a steel column.

Uncommitted companies with low human quality that take students in internships for unprofessional roles that are not linked to their training.

There is plenty of this and students tell me incredible stories that should be reported, but let’s be honest, they will not achieve anything and changing the model is not easy.

There are countries with more agile and efficient models in that sense. Even in countries wrongly called: “developing”.

How to Have more Experience in SEO?

Be that as it may, that we deviate, knowing how to do SEO is essential to make a living from it.

And if you are learning, and you have little practice, your priority should be to learn at a practical level. How can you achieve it?

• The fastest way would be to get a job that gives you the experience
• Having your own projects (your websites). This is great, but it has two limitations: (1) it will take longer because you do not have someone with experience to help you (although you can look for it in the form of a mentor) and (2) you do not see things from an objective perspective
• Start working with real projects. Get “clients” from your environment. Family members, companies that know that they need that service and you can offer it to them, always with honesty about your limits. This way of learning is great but you have to work on confidence in yourself. I will explain this point in a next chapter.

I also know many people who start working, and without wanting to be derogatory, it is about crappy agencies with crappy clients where the limit of knowledge is in the project itself with which you work, or the methodology that they “force” you to execute.

It is a game of chance. You can get wonderful companies where you learn a lot, or the opposite can happen to you. But he does not, you already have it.

You must try to gain that experience at all costs, because theoretical SEO is useless.

You need to implement and understand how to do good SEO writing, how to improve internal links, how to play with the headings, how to crawl a website, think in strategic terms; everything is achieved when you already have a website and you start to play and understand its possibilities.

Once you manage to have more real experience you can move to the next stage:

Professional Profiles that Make a Living from SEO

I love this discipline because it is thought of as one, when in reality there are many people and roles.

When you already have knowledge, selling your services as SEO (for others or yourself) is the fastest and most direct way to generate income.

We will talk in the next chapter about different forms of monetization. But without a doubt, monetizing your knowledge is the fastest and easiest way to start making money.

In addition to SEO services, which as I say, is the most immediate way, you can:

• Offer SEO writing services. AI is awesome and has greatly increased this, but the strategic direction of that content is always needed, even when it is created with AI
• Give training and courses (I recommend having experience before taking this step)
• Specialize in some of the services (very specialized in SEO), such as keyword studies, audits, linkbuilding
• Offer specific services that are in high demand, more linked to the part of web development or layout such as: WPO optimization, landing page layout

3. How to make money with SEO? The 3 main ways

As I explained in the previous chapter, there are many forms and roles within the world of SEO but they can be grouped into 3 large blocks:

SEO Services: Consulting, audits, maintenance, linkbuilding

It is the block that I know best after more than 10 years working in this way. The most immediate way and where you do not break your head: start working with an agency as an employee for others.

It has advantages such as:

• You do not worry about commercial aspects or tasks of organizing a business model
• You focus on learning and earning money thanks to your expertise for another person
• You have a salary, vacations, possibly a team of people. A work environment that can be very positive
• Depending on the agency, you can continue to grow professionally

But of course, it has certain disadvantages:

• You have an economic ceiling (your salary)
• You depend a lot on falling into a good agency that provides you with personal and professional development. If you are unlucky, it can be a work frustration
• You have to stick to the methodologies and ways of working of the agency. It is not your company.

Being a freelance SEO service provider is wonderful, but you have to be clear that you become a company of yourself.

You cannot just do SEO, you have to assume the responsibility of other roles: organization, commercial management, administration and learn to delegate all these areas.

It also has interesting advantages such as: higher income.

It is obvious that those of us who are self-employed generate a much higher salary than those who work for others; if not, we would be working for others.

When you start, you have to start configuring your business model and define what services you are going to offer. If you are starting, I recommend that you start with a few; you are improving the way to be more profitable by managing your time and productivity better.

Remember, the bad thing about exchanging time for money is that it is not very scalable, but it is also true that experience is a degree, and the more jobs you do, the more you learn to do things in much less time, or to leverage other people to generate better income.

What SEO services can you offer to make money?

SEO Consultations

A very interesting model. You only contribute your experience, evaluation and strategic vision to the company. Therefore, you remove all the execution part that is usually the one that will take you the most time.

It is a very scalable model, where you can raise prices as you increase your experience.

Your value is not directly linked to results. You bring your value to the company with your knowledge.

It involves one or more sessions with the company, its marketing or web development team and you leave them some “tasks” to execute and try to improve their results.

It has a problem: Not all companies value this modality. Many prefer to delegate all SEO to an external company; therefore, SEO services exist.

Monthly SEO Services or by Campaigns

It is one of the most common models and that allows you recurrence.

You establish monthly prices per campaign where you execute constant improvement actions. I usually conceive the plans based on the dedication time: more expensive at the beginning, when you have to correct errors, improve many contents or problems on the web.

Then, you lower prices until you achieve maintenance monthly fees. This is wonderful because it allows you to distribute customers over time, avoiding periods of excess work or low seasons.

The plans have to adjust to the needs of the company. It is normal that a simple maintenance is not the same as a company that requires, for example, content writing.

I usually have it differentiated; my plans do not include article writing. So I handle it as different budgets.

It is much easier to sell a monthly service or per campaign since it does not imply a very strong investment at once for the company that hires it. They will evaluate your work month by month, which gives them an initial confidence boost, when they still know almost nothing about you as a professional.

The negative part is that your value as a professional is usually linked to the search engine results, and that is not always fair or convenient.

For that reason, I am working on an SEO consultant course that helps you better communicate your value as a professional, disassociating it from Google results. Subscribe and I will notify you of news about it.

SEO Audits

One of the favorite SEO products is the audit. It is scalable, since you generate your own methodology that you can repeat in each company, adjusting to their own reality and market.

It’s great because, over time, you become more and more profitable. What leads you to do an audit at the beginning; with years of experience, you are reducing that execution time.

They usually have a high cost, with amounts that can range from €500.00 to €2,000 per audit. It is obvious that the value will depend on what you contribute, but in general terms, audits are usually hired by companies that can then execute all the recommendations.

Your value is disassociated from Google results. You provide a consultant’s vision with recommendations to improve the company’s results, depending on its website and the competition.

Over time you can scale it even more, subcontracting and contributing your personal vision. Therefore, it is one of the most profitable SEO services.

Linkbuilding Services

The linkbuilding that seemed to be dead, was not really dead, it was out partying.

The linkbuilding that was done 10 years ago has nothing to do with the one that is executed today. But with the rise of AI, the linkbuilding is having its golden age of resurgence as a very powerful communication and public relations strategy.

Becoming an authority is essential to differentiate yourself and have greater visibility.

It is usually charged per monthly campaigns, and if there is a purchase and sale of links in between, they are extra expenses. Similar to a paid advertising campaign.

You can have profit margins from all these services, and you become a strategist who helps the company generate greater authority thanks to off page SEO.

Not all companies are willing to invest in linkbuilding, but whoever does it is clear that it has a higher cost. Therefore, the average linkbuilding ticket is higher than other SEO services.

Info Products and Training

This block is a very diverse one where you can generate multiple sources of income thanks to courses (one-off), communities (memberships), mentoring for other SEO consultants, report templates or methodologies.

Imagination to power in this form of monetization.

In the technological and marketing world we have very much assumed the role that training is a constant. You never stop learning. I think that good professionals perfectly understand that training is an investment that makes you better and more profitable. Period.

I have sold face-to-face courses, online. I currently teach at various institutions: University of Vigo, UNED, Xunta de Galicia.

I have been hired for training from private companies, public bodies, associations, clubs, everything.

My training income is a very good way to supplement other income.

To get partners and collaboration possibilities, there are thousands of SEO communities in the market, both Hispanic and from the Anglo-Saxon world. They have been a natural evolution of the old forums, to cite some examples:

• The SEO Community
• The famous Chuiso’s Platinum Team. One of the oldest SEO communities
• SEO Warriors, the famous membership of Dean Romero. Courses and tools of very good quality. I can vouch for it that I have been there for years, although I am not very active in the community part
• In Reddit, it is not paid, but there is a very active community
• The chorri.club a community of webmasters and SEO founded by David Cuesta
• The community of sabandijers that although it is oriented to online businesses, always had a clear SEO orientation
• The great Boluda from the beginning had SEO courses on his platform and his support team gave you a hand. It was one of the main attractions of that membership

I have paid one-off courses to many SEO professionals who sell specific courses of everything: linkbuilding, strategies, programming oriented to SEO, etc.

There are many options and the diversity that exists shows us that the interest in learning is always present. You just have to create your community and detect training possibilities that you can offer.

I myself am developing a course at the moment, where I teach you how to combine these three models so as not to depend only on clients. But I will tell you more about this later.

SEO of Own Projects

This modality is one of the most followed by the search for the eternal grail: «passive income» automatically.

Those of us who have been in this for a long time know that nothing automatic works overnight and that you have to pick a lot of stone, dedicate many efforts and find monetization models of niches; affiliate websites or advertising in AdSense is not as simple as it seems.

I do not know any SEO consultant who has not tried in one way or another to set up some website of this style. Having the knowledge to set up websites with relative ease, it is normal that you try to do it.

Those I know who live from this dedicate as much time to it as any other consultant who only dedicates to services or training.

They are very interesting business models for everything you learn with it, but let’s not fail to understand that they are that: internet business models, to which you have to dedicate time so that they can start to generate income and you have no guarantee that they will work as you expect.

In addition, you are always tied to SEO as a traffic and monetization channel, which is not always good to depend on a single channel, due to the changes that can affect your results.

I tell you that I have worked with many travel blogs for example, that monetize with the affiliation of insurance and lodging and with a single update (example: HCU) went to waste overnight.

Now, not everything is SEO niches.

There are also business models that I find super interesting, such as SaaS.

The own SEO plugins (Yoast, RankMath) are an example of this. When you pay for a plugin you are not really paying for the code (which in the case of WordPress is GPL), but really for the support of it.

The SEO tools are another example of super profitable business models, such as:

• SEMRush
• Sistrix
• Ahrefs
• Moz
• A Spanish case such as: SEO Crawl that was born from the hand of David Kaufmann, an SEO that detects a need and develops a tool to manage the data of Search Console

It is using the power of data and competition analysis to improve your results in the search engine.

4. How to start from scratch (even if you have no previous experience)

As I told you at the beginning of this article, you have to have a real experience and although it is difficult to start, you can start with your own websites or helping some association.

One of my first «clients» was precisely a non-profit association (BoaVida.org) with which I coincided in some principles and I started to help them with their website, Google Business profile, etc.

In addition to this association, I began to have close clients.

Friendships that had a company and website. They were aware that I was starting and that I lacked experience, so they did not pay me much.

It is normal that at the beginning, while you cannot start giving results, your expectations are lower, but as you gain some experience, and I tell you, it is achieved quickly, you can start to value yourself more economically.

But it is true that you have to have a high self-esteem. You cannot start to value yourself well in front of others if you do not trust yourself in your work and capabilities.

It is like a salesman who doubts himself. It is impossible to transmit security and confidence if you doubt yourself. You have to work that part.

With my first clients I began to run into reality and you realize that it is not all like in theory, courses, videos, books.

You see that some things you do start to have better results, others do not. And that is key. You start to bang your head with a website, with the plugins, with possible failures, with errors.

I do not even tell you with analytics, how to improve the reports, etc. It is a long journey, but very beautiful and you must be aware that the improvement process is continuous. It never stops.

I, for example, have had an incredible evolution in my methodology, and there is not a quarter where I do not introduce a small improvement, something that I have learned and see utility. Much more in the current times with AI that can increase your knowledge to unsuspected levels.

But you have to be a «co-pilot» (as my good friend and developer Carlos Longarela teaches us), where AI needs a direction. Your critical and analytical criteria directs the technology to achieve its purpose.

I remember that when I had the first version of my website it was a great challenge. I had no development knowledge at that time. I had only studied some HTML and CSS but I wanted to improve my writing in the online world, and for that, having a blog seemed the most logical.

I still remember a nonsense that occurred to me 10 years ago, when I said: let’s invent a keyword («orgasms in digital marketing») and position it.

As was logical, positioning it was very silly because it did not exist, but it helped me to put into practice things that I read or saw at that moment.

So associations, websites of friendships, my own website, experiments, podcast, videos on YouTube, which I see today with even shame of that stage (which I do not erase because they are part of my history and that makes me proud), all these resources were my breeding ground to learn SEO.

Thing that came well to me, because I have been changing brands; my first website was called Ku-SEO, and I ended up pivoting to my personal brand that seemed to me had much more sense. But that journey cannot be done by anyone for you.

Those experiences and website constituted my first portfolios, reviews of real clients that opened doors to me both to jobs and to projects.

And in the current world, where each person has their voice, these actions mark your differential factor. And that has a lot of value.

Without having a clear strategy, nor really knowing what the personal brand was (at that time it was not talked about), I began to build a professional (and personal) brand that allows me today to generate some income, pay my mortgage, have savings and have the lifestyle I want.

And that is immeasurable.

Today, I look back and I am very grateful for that journey. It was not easy and in the first years I lost money, but without that investment, I would not be where I am today.

5. How to get your first SEO clients?

As I told you in the previous chapter, my first clients were people from my environment, and word of mouth begins to work wonders.

I also explored the typical websites of freelance service sales, but I never had an important flow from these platforms. They have more aggressive prices and methodologies that did not generate much confidence.

Even today, I still maintain some active profile, for example in Malt.

LinkedIn did mark a bestial difference in terms of professional contacts. It was and is a social network very oriented to the labor world, so although I am not very friendly to social networks, I do believe that if you want to get your first clients (beyond your environment), that social network you must work it with more affection.

Many of the communities that I mentioned earlier can help you get associations and collaborations.

Working for SEO or marketing agencies can be a wonderful school. And although it is true, it depends a lot on the agency; you can end up very burned or burned; I even today I continue working with some agencies that I have affection for the years of joint collaborations.

Some relationships work, others do not. Like life itself, but if you do not knock on the door, it is impossible to know how it will be.

At the beginning I was white label of agencies; to this day not. I collaborate but always using my brand jointly with the agency.

For me, and I have always said it, a 180 degree change was to know the WordPress community. It opened my eyes to an incredible world where I made great friendships and very fruitful collaborations of years of affection.

Since I started to be part of it I got clients by personal recommendations within the community, and a network is generated; I also get many projects to many people who are part of this network of people related to open source and the beautiful collaborative environment that exists.

It has its rules of the game; it is not the typical aggressive and commercial community that goes to events to distribute cards as if they were damn cards. Moreover, if someone like that comes, I think that the natural tendency is that they end up moving away because that spirit does not fit, in that environment.

It’s one of the reasons why I like the WP community so much. Those of us who have been there for years don’t go with an aggressive commercial approach; we go to collaborate together, to establish synergies, to create friendships, to have a good time, and the rest arises spontaneously, without asking anything in return.

There are many other events and talks that are very networking-oriented and that people naturally create these synergies.

You have to get out of your shell and expose yourself a little to all these activities. Some will be better than others, but in all cases you will gain some learning. You just have to be open to it.

Yes, you must be clear about your service offering. Be clear about the products (they are services, but we can categorize them like that) that you sell, your specialization. Some typical ones from the SEO world, which I already mentioned in subchapter 3:

• Monthly or one-off SEO services
• Linkbuilding campaigns
• Keyword research
• SEO Audits
• Consulting, etc.

And although prices have a very high range of variability, I guarantee that you will follow the natural evolution of having prices that are too low at the beginning, and as you gain experience, you will increase them to put yourself in the average or above the sector.

I raised my prices constantly because you realize the value you bring to your customers.

How to set prices implies an entire article, which I will surely write later. But don’t stress about it.

Believe me, you will improve that aspect over time.

6. How to scale: from freelance to profitable consultant

Once you have a constant flow of clients and you realize that you are profitable, your energy changes.

You raise prices, you are more selective with the companies you collaborate with. You form a «callus» in the sense that experience gives you an important know-how that allows you to scale more and better.

We already know that selling services has a limit: time.

Exchanging time for money is usually not very profitable because your time is limited. It is finite.

But that does not mean that you cannot scale and bill more. While it is true that you can reach an income ceiling because the day has the hours it has, you can develop strategies that allow you to improve your time management.

Time Management

Knowing that time is finite, one thing you learn quickly is to be more profitable. How? Improving and being more productive.

What used to take you 4 hours, you learn to do in 15 minutes; and I know it seems crazy, but believe me, I’m very geeky about it.

If you don’t measure something, you can’t know it. For me, it was key to implement a time tracking system; I started with the famous Toggl and I have been working with TimenEye for several years.

It doesn’t matter which tool you use; the important thing is that you realize every day, every week, every month or every year the tasks, how much time they consume and how you can improve it.

For example, I freaked out at the time it took me to budget something. I don’t remember the exact figure, but I think at the beginning it took me more than an hour and a half to budget a project. If I received 10 requests per month, do the math, that’s 15 damn hours per month. Crazy. It didn’t make sense.

So I established some monthly price ranges that allowed me to make a budget in less than 10 minutes. Today I even think I could do it in 5 minutes, and doing a quick preliminary analysis of the website that comes to me.

That time management also allowed me to understand that half of my hours per month are not directly billable; therefore, I had to reflect that time within my rates to be profitable.

With those analyses I was able to identify which projects were more profitable and why. Or what management areas (accounting, billing, training) I had to improve.

Currently, I don’t review the reports so much, but I have internalized that measurement so much that it doesn’t cost me anything and allows me to quickly answer any questions about my time management to make better decisions.

Systems and Documentation

Due to my background as a researcher (I remind you that I am an archaeologist), this point does not cost me anything. But believe me, it took me years to understand it and apply an efficient method.

We tend to overestimate our memory. And if you don’t create systems and documentation, it will be very difficult for you to improve the management of your time and your SEO projects.

As Scott Adams says:

Goals are the results you want to obtain. Systems are the processes you follow to achieve these results.

Believe me when I tell you that you will forget cases and examples; it is vital that you write and document everything because that way your methodologies will be much more efficient.

It makes no sense to always search and search for the same solution to a failure or an error of an SEO plugin, for example. If you document, you have it at the touch of a search and you forget. And it doesn’t mean that you always have to follow a script.

Even though I have a base «template» for my audits, for example, it is clear that I like to occasionally let myself be carried away by a certain level of improvisation and free analysis.

But creating systems allows you to be safe, not to be wrong (so much) and to make your time profitable by being able to go much faster.

Believe me, it doesn’t seem like it, but you advance a lot in this of speed. And don’t forget that it is something continuous. It is a constant evolution.

As James Clear says in his famous book of atomic habits:

«Success is not an objective or a finish line that you have to cross. It is a system of improvement, an endless process that has to be refined»

Customer Management

I could include it in the previous subchapter of systems and documentation, but I prefer to explain it separately.

Just as you establish a system of your methods, and document the cases (and your knowledge), you must create a specific system to manage your clients.

You must establish the rules of communication, how you will serve them, how you explain your results to them, create email templates, budgets, project instructions.

The list of customer documentation can be endless.

But it is not about going crazy with thousands of templates and documents, but about establishing an «almost automatic» system that allows you to save time.

That clears your mind, and that does not mean a burden, a new client, but the opposite a joy.

Burning out in the service sector is super common. It has happened to me. I have had very intense stages of work overload where I would have liked to burn everything and free myself from the tension.

But it is thanks to these systems that I have learned to manage my clients more and more every day. Giving me freedom and above all, peace of mind.

Many of the methodologies (and theories) of productivity advocate precisely for efficient systems that allow you to free your mind. And it makes sense. If you have a load that you always have there, it does not allow you to focus correctly on your tasks.

I now, while writing these lines, am calm, knowing that the time I dedicate to this blog is a wonderful time to clear my mind with writing and does not mean a burden of pressure with the time of my clients.

Each thing in its place, time and space.

And this, like everything, is a continuous work process. It does not mean that I do not have times of more stress; I am human and I make mistakes. But without the system I would be desperate because I do not see a way.

Outsourcing Tasks, Creating a Team and Economic Management

One of the best things I could do was learn to outsource areas of my life. I recognize that this step was the most difficult of all, and I am still fighting in the present with some things in this regard.

By chance of life, and thanks to the WordPress community, I met Camilo Álvarez. An incredible SEO consultant who wrote me an email at the right time of a work overload that I had and where I had stopped collaborating with another consultant due to differences in the way of working. We did not coincide well.

Camilo’s email came to me at a wonderful moment and we decided to try our luck and collaborate together. It has been a relationship of years of trust; that beyond the labor part, I consider Camilo a good friend. 🙏

Knowing him and his family, even though we still can’t see each other in person, has been a privilege. He is an analytical, detail-oriented, responsible guy and we have been able to combine our methodologies well.

That has allowed me to delegate many tasks that I executed directly, and allows me to focus my efforts in other areas.

I am still a one-person company («Company of one», like the book by Paul Jarvis), but Camilo and his family, for me, are part of a larger team that allows me to scale my services, improving in all aspects what I can offer by myself.

In addition, the process is not done alone. I know I can count on him for any questions, advice, and despite the distance and the change of time zone, we are there for each other. And that is worth a lot.

I am still struggling to outsource more things; accounting for example, I have been outsourcing with an advisory for years, but I still generate my own billing and expense control.

Thanks to AI I have learned to automate many processes, being much more efficient, but I like to have some control to make better decisions at an economic level.

Anyway, I can think of many things that I could outsource, for example, commercial management, networks, content, etc., that I still assume myself because I have not yet known how to implement it.

Economic management for a freelancer is key. You have to be clear about how much you earn, how much money you invest in tools, what are your personal and professional expenses, how to invest.

I was always chaotic in this aspect but years ago I met Melissa Durand, with whom I did a financial training. It was a before and after.

It helped me see my problems, understand my patterns and improve my economic documentation.

Her training is still reflected years later. Currently, she works in the advisory that takes my accounting.

Another resource that has been very good for me has been Nudista inversor. A very smart guy who teaches you in a very didactic way and I appreciate all the value content that he has given me in that membership.

It is one of the most profitable memberships I have had, allowing me to improve many processes and systems in my life as a freelancer.

7. How to create your personal brand as an SEO consultant

One of the most difficult lessons to learn in this of being a freelancer in the world of SEO is to understand that your value is not given exclusively by your technical knowledge, but by a series of social skills that we do not work correctly.

For me, setting up a company meant giving it a name and meaning. That is why I created an «agency» that was called Ku-SEO. But as I told you before, I pivoted over the years to my own name.

Not even the tato remembered that elaborate name!

Only me.

At that moment I realized that people were not looking for a brand, they were looking for a real person who knew how to give them confidence, answers to their searches.

They were not looking for the best SEO in the world, which by definition, there is only one. They are looking for a reliable SEO consultant. That they can trust that person, even if you don’t know everything, nor always know all the answers.

The point is that to become that person you need to work on something essential: communication.

How you communicate your work can be the most important factor of all your work. Much beyond ranking, sales, links.

And only honesty and sincerity will give you the keys to be able to communicate with your own style.

What do I notice a lot? Some social wildebeest. Super valuable consultants at a technical level, who are very closed in on themselves, who are afraid to expose themselves publicly and do not transmit their work, their reflections.

I understand that if you are a shy person, it is difficult for you to take that step. I know it.

If you see me in a talk, I dress up, I make a fool of myself, and you might think: of course, it’s easy for him. Well, it’s not like that. I understood that I had to be myself. Forget about brands, strategies and vinegar hosts.

The more sincere you are, the better you will transmit your value. People connect with people. Not with Versace models.

Find your communication style.

You don’t have to be a clown like me, you can be a more serious and discreet person, but whatever you do, do it from sincerity and affection. From the humility of understanding that you are not the best SEO consultant in the world. And nobody cares about that.

What they want is a reliable person who can help them achieve some objectives.

Share content, experiments, failures. Let it be seen that you are a person passionate about your profession. You can’t be an SEO consultant if you don’t like to train yourself.

You learn more when you try to teach how things are done. That’s why I enjoy teaching so much. It is a wonderful intellectual challenge to look for how to explain complex concepts to someone in an understandable and pleasant way.

But as Austin Kleon points out, quoting the writer Blake Butier:

«Be an open node». If you want to receive, you have to give. If you want to be seen, you have to observe first. Close your mouth and listen from time to time. Be respectful. Be considerate. Don’t become human spam. Be an open node.

And that is essential. I see many people focused on themselves and promoting themselves and they do not realize that it is a conversation, not a catwalk to the ego. Help other people achieve their goals and you will achieve yours.

Find your voice; we are in a wonderful time to create content. In the formats you want and feel comfortable. Writing? Video? Podcast? Try each and every one of them. Don’t feel bad for experimenting.

But above all, have fun. Don’t put pressure on yourself and don’t compare yourself to anyone else.

Compare yourself with the same version of you 3, 6 months, a year ago. There you will see a true evolution.

I didn’t know I was building my brand, and it has been a fantastic investment because it allows me today to have a constant flow of clients who trust my professional judgment, but above all, know that I will do whatever it takes to help them.

And if you’re wrong? Well, put that down too. Who said we have to be perfect? Do you know how many times I have made mistakes throughout my career?

That makes you more human and will open more doors than hiding it. I think in services we put too much pressure on ourselves in that sense.

Communicate, create, transmit. Become the professional that any company wants to work with. In current times, there is no excuse. We just have to stop seeking perfection and simply do.

8. Mistakes that prevent you from making a living from SEO

Each person has a path and it is difficult to encompass all the reasons in a rigid list, but after so many years working and teaching, being able to talk and collaborate with other SEO consultants, teaching, etc., I think we can summarize the main errors in the following list:

• Relying only on large clients
• Not differentiating yourself from other consultants
• Not measuring the real profitability of your time
• Not investing in brand or training
• Not having a long-term strategy
• Not seeking a model of economic stability
• Not diversifying income sources
• Not organizing your work to be more profitable in terms of time and money
• Not delegating

We have to understand that we are not simply professionals. We are a company and we have to act in accordance with that principle.

What is the simplest and most necessary objective for any company?

To be profitable.

That the expenses do not exceed the income, that there is a constant flow of income and that allows you to grow.

Sometimes we launch as freelancers (and I did it for a long time) with a self-employment formula.

Instead of working for someone else, we work more hours and we are the worst bosses. We don’t pay ourselves on time, we work overtime and we limit our economic possibilities, for not seeing another way out.

Error. Textbook error. I was there a long time ago.

If I am going to be self-employed, I have to be profitable, generate a salary and liquidity for the company. Even invest the profit in looking for new sources of income that allow me to diversify.

That if I go to an event, it comfortably pays for the trip, enjoy, learn because what I achieve allows me to grow professionally and, therefore, economically.

Not understanding our profession as a company is a very common mistake and it took me a long time to learn this.

Many of the errors mentioned are normal. We enter the hamster wheel; we understand that the better you serve your clients, the more and better time you will have. And we dedicate ourselves exclusively to our clients and their needs, without attending to anything else.

And yes, it is true in a way that you have to give them love and offer a good service, but you also have to understand that all these hours of training, strategy, investment, will not be billable, but represent the best investment for your future as an SEO consultant.

So get out of the hamster wheel and dedicate a few hours a week to improving your strategies and better marking your next objectives.

9. What the future of SEO will be like (and why consultants will still be needed)

I have been reflecting on these issues of the future of SEO for a long time. It is something that obviously affects us a lot.

If you are interested in my reflections, my latest post: «Pink elephants and black swans» I made an analysis of what awaits us trying to anticipate the conversational future of internet searches.

The AIs have generated a bestial and super interesting paradigm shift. But unlike many colleagues in the profession, I don’t have that tiresome vision that SEO is dead.

It is one of the most silly expressions in the world, which we have been using as a tag since the beginning of the discipline and has no real value.

As I pointed out in that article, Aleyda Solis, one of the best SEOs in the world commented on LinkedIn the following:

LLMs are expanding and evolving (not killing) search as a discovery/marketing channel, and yes, some changes will be necessary, but if you’ve been doing SEO for a while, like me since 2007, you know that search platforms and user behavior always change.

The SEO I do now has nothing to do with the one I started in 2007 (…)

Let’s move forward together to continue evolving responsibly as an industry, providing impact and results to clients/companies, and avoiding noise.

It is true that the SERP is changing and we always have to analyze it based on Google as a company. As a company that seeks profits and has become the largest advertising agency in the world.

It controls the distribution and all the changes are based on its user: Us.

It doesn’t care about the contents of the websites. It seeks to give answers to people.

We as consultants will have to develop new strategic skills, not just understand ranking and crawling factors. Analyze in real time how organic traffic changes and how we can increase the authority and quality of our content.

Brands will continue to need professionals who understand key concepts such as visibility and business.

They need people trained to generate visibility strategies and stand out in search results, whether from Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot or any LLM agent that appears on the market.

The world changes, technology changes, society changes.

Change is the only constant; this has been studied and demonstrated since the dawn of humanity. It is one of the basic principles of Buddhism. So let’s not think we are smarter than centuries of human evolution. 😉

10. Conclusion: Final words

As I have shown you in this long article, there are thousands of options to live from the world of SEO.

I am not going to repeat all the strategies, products and paths.

But it is important that you internalize that:

«It is not just about positioning websites, but about building a profitable life doing what you like»

It is possible. I guarantee it.

But like everything in life, you need a change of mentality (mindset). Face your fears, your insecurities and start exposing yourself a little more.

You have to improve your communication skills (essential). You have to stop pretending to be perfect and simply do.

To understand that you are a company. Therefore, analyzing the strategy you should follow, the monetization paths, establishing objectives and quarterly milestones are essential to advance as such and improve your results.

If you are interested in being part of this path, I leave you a bonus that you can take advantage of now. A pill in video format to which I will give you access where I explain: «How to live from SEO as a freelance (and not die trying)».

You just have to subscribe in the following form and I will give you access.

Live long and prosper!