If you are really attracted to the idea of selling SEO services, then there are a number of factors you should consider. First, nice job for doing some research. If you reading this it is because you’ve realized the importance of a proper survey of the players before jumping into any relationships. In business they call it due diligence. That’s appropriate.

The first thing to realize about the search engine optimization space is that it is much more competitive than you think. There are simply very low barriers to entry. And if you remember anything from Adam Smith – you will understand that this will put downward pressure on prices (remember supply and demand curves?). The other thing to recognize is that SEO services today don’t mean just changing someone’s title tags. That’s very 2003. And those days are seriously over. If you don’t have a clear handle on the difference between on-site SEO and off-site SEO, you have more work to do than I thought.

If you do have the knowledge and desire to really offer SEO, then becoming an SEO reseller might be the smart first move. The reselling model is not unique to SEO. There are resellers in many many different industries. Many well-known ones are in technology. And the same trend is developing in search engine optimization. Here’s a quick overview of how it works.

Someone decides they want to be an SEO reseller because they want to be in this space but don’t current have a search engine optimization product to bring to market. So they look around for organizations that are specifically set up to offer the services. Most good programs offer a private label, or white label SEO, approach where the customer is not aware that the delivery work has been outsources. This is generally attractive because the customer relationship is maintained with the organization that sold the account. In this fashion, being an SEO reseller is VERY different from being an affiliate sales person.  If all works well, both the sales organization and the delivery organization make a share of the profits. The customer receives excellent value and all are happy. At least in theory.