Are You Cheap or Are You Exceptional? How to Price Your Services

The success of your service-based business will be built on the bedrock of how you answer this one simple question:

Do I want my services to be perceived as economical - or exceptional?

It seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? I mean, of course we want to be perceived as exceptional.

But positioning your offerings as exceptional is more difficult than it sounds. It takes guts, unwavering faith in your abilities, and an unflagging devotion to producing quality work.

I've lost count of how many times I've sat down with a fellow creative person and said, “Look, you have to start charging more money. Just do it!”

In today's post, I'm going to have that little chat with you, right here on Copyblogger. If you're a writer, designer, or any type of service provider, this article is for you.

Why is it so tough to charge what you're worth?

It seems like it should be easy. You want to charge more? Just charge more!

But in reality, being more expensive than the average service provider means:

• You'll lose out on some business.


• You'll have to keep a straight face while people overreact to your prices.


• You'll have to continue to believe in yourself even when people look you in the eye and tell you you're being unreasonable.


• You'll need to navigate through potentially uncomfortable negotiation sessions.

The first “marketing tactic” many new service providers try is, “I'll be cheaper than everyone else!”

Bad idea.

Positioning yourself as the bargain service provider sets you up for problems that are way worse than having to sit through some tough negotiations.

The pitfalls of positioning yourself as the “bargain” service provider

Bargain service providers attract bargain-hunting clients. And bargain-hunting clients aren't your best clients. Actually, they're going to be your worst clients.

Here's why:

Bargain-hunting clients need education

Clients who buy services based on price don't usually know what they need. They go into the process of contracting a service without a firm grasp of the solution that will take care of their problem.

They expect you, the service provider, to help them develop (for free) the solution they'll pay you (a bargain rate) to create.

I ran my own design studio earlier in my career. It didn't take me too many sessions of sitting down with clients who'd never worked with a designer before, holding their hands through the process, and receiving their teeny-tiny checks to realize, “Gee, this would be much easier if the client already understood what I offer!”

Bargain-hunting clients don't appreciate what you bring to the table

Clients with a healthy budget for your services have developed that budget because they have:

• Bought your type of service before, so they know what it costs


• Worked on projects using the assets you provide (copywriting, content marketing, design, coaching, etc.)


• Seen the value your service provides (that's why they have a budget for it!)


• All of the above

Bargain hunters, on the other hand, need to be “sold” every step of the way.

Wouldn't you rather be doing creative work than selling creative work? I know I would.

Bargain-hunting clients view your service as a commodity

Service-based businesses are people-based businesses. And no person I know wants their creative work to be treated like a commodity that is sold to the lowest bidder.

How to begin positioning your business as exceptional - not cheap

Getting the best possible price for your services starts with the right mindset.

The first person who has to be convinced you're worth what you're charging is you.

You must go into the pricing process with the firm belief that you provide a quality service. You have to be prepared to walk away if the potential client doesn't see the value.

Because after all, wouldn't you rather earn a nice living while serving fewer clients?

That's what we're aiming for here: quality clients who value your work - and are willing to pay for it.

Get your mindset right and the rest will fall into place.

What's the rest?

It's one thing to believe you're worth it, and it's another to price your service in a way that protects you from “scope creep.”

Scope creep is the inevitable growth in complexity and time spent on a project that happens when you don't carefully nail down exactly what you'll deliver, when you'll deliver it, and how you'll deliver it.

This is the first of three articles we're going to share on pricing your services. In the next article in this series, Stefanie Flaxman will teach you how to ask the questions and get the answers you need to precisely explain what your client is paying for. And she'll provide some guidance on how to handle it if your project scope starts expanding.

Then, in the final article in this series, Beth Hayden will appear on her white horse with simple steps for pricing your service that you can apply to almost any business.

Stick around: We'll be delivering this series to you over the next couple of weeks. We want you to have the confidence, techniques, and tools you need to earn the most you can from the work you do.

Some of our Certified Content Marketers have reported a little “problem”

We've noticed lately that some of the writers we've certified and are featuring on our Certified Content Marketers page have told us about this little issue they're having.

Since taking the Certified Content Marketers course, passing their certification exam, and getting featured on the page, their business has exploded.

They can't handle the volume of work they're bringing in.

Such a terrible “problem,” right? BlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

From Tax Geek To World's Fastest Triathlete: A Q&A With Olympic Gold Medal Favorite Gwen Jorgensen

If you're not familiar with Gwen Jorgensen, you will be soon. The two-time reigning ITU World Triathlon Champion, Jorgensen promises to become a household name during this summer's Olympics, where she will be the heavy favorite to bring home the gold in Rio. Over the past two years, Jorgensen has arguably been the most dominant athlete in the world; at one point, she won a record 13 consecutive World Cup races, a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that ITU races -- which are comprised of a 1.5 kilometer swim, 40 kilometer draft-legal bike, and 10 kilometer run -- are often decided by a sprint finish.

The Importance Of Aligning Your Company's Online And Offline Marketing Tactics

The real magic happens when online and offline tactics work together ? not independently of each other or, worse, alone. Unfortunately, some marketers are still dropping the ball when it comes to aligning them.

Stupid Touchpoints Are Worse Than No Touchpoints In Customer Experience And Customer Service

More isn't always better in customer service and the customer experience. In fact, adding new touchpoints to your customer experience and your customer service can diminish the experience for your customers rather than improve it, if the new touchpoints are added thoughtlessly or are executed in a glitchy or tone deaf manner.

Why Celebrating Your Wins Can Make A Big Difference For Growing Companies

When you set the bar to show others, including your employees, that no achievement is too small to celebrate, you set in motion a wave of positive activity that is beneficial for everyone involved.

Buy The Dip On Jobs Data

As we discussed earlier in the week, market participants are trained to be fixated on the monthly jobs data. That was evident in today's market reaction, as it always is. The payroll number-the number professional investors have been trained to trade-was weak this morning. The unemployment number, on the other hand, was at the best level since November 2007.

4 Effective Ways to Build Backlinks for a Brand New Site

Starting to build links for a new site is a lot like climbing a mountain.

You're starting from ground zero with a lot of enthusiasm, but when you realize you have to climb for days to get anywhere, that enthusiasm often turns to the feeling of being overwhelmed.

But when it comes to your site, the weather conditions, metaphorically speaking, are terrible as well.

No one can see you from above, so they can't help you out-you are on your own.

That already rules out certain link building (climbing) strategies.

This fact is nothing new.

But the advice for new site owners is outdated and just plain bad in some cases.

I recently saw multiple guides that advised building (and paying for) directory links and social media bookmarks.

That kind of stuff was useful over five years ago, but today, it is a waste of your time and money-resources that could be spent building links that will help you get immediate traffic and long-term search rankings.

Seeing those guides was the inspiration for this post because no one beginning a site should start off on the wrong foot.

I'm going to show you four ways to build links specifically tailored towards new sites.

These are the links that actually matter. If you get a few dozen of them, you will see an immediate impact on your traffic levels. 

1. Invest in a gift for the community

Almost every new business has the same problem: no one knows you. Even if you have a lot to offer, again, no one knows you.

One of the main objectives of the link building tactics we'll look at in this post is to get attention.

And there are many ways to get the attention of people you don't know.

The best way, in most cases, is to offer something of value-as big of a value as you can provide.

Here are a few options.

Option #1 – create a photo gallery: Any good blogger knows the importance of having great images in posts.

While some bloggers hire a designer for the most important pictures, it's inconvenient and not always affordable for less important pictures.

However, most bloggers would gladly exchange a link to a site for a free picture.

That's why I propose hiring a designer (or taking pictures yourself) and creating a free image gallery. Then, send out the link to the gallery to medium-top bloggers in your niche, explaining that they are free to use them in exchange for a link back.

For example, in the fitness niche, you could take pictures like these:

Spending a few hundred dollars upfront here will not only open doors to other bloggers but get you several dozen really good links.

A final important note is that you should create images around common points in your niche.

For example, if you were in the content marketing niche, you could create custom images for things that are often mentioned such as:

• SEO tools


• SEO rankings


• Reader personas


• Inbound marketing


• The different marketing channels

And so on…

Option #2 – create a free tool: If you're interested in getting a ton of traffic yourself, on top of links, you can create something for your community of users rather than just bloggers. And that something is a tool.

Tools can be a great way to grow your site and earn backlinks at the same time.

For example, the keyword research tool Keywordtool.io has been linked to by over 3,880 unique domains. Honestly, that's a relatively simple tool to build or get built.

After a bit of time, you can get links (good ones) that work out to under $1 per link, which is amazing. Add all the traffic that you can also get on top of that, and you can see why tools can be a great thing to make.

The big drawback is that it will take some time to build the tool in the first place, especially if you can't code it yourself.

Additionally, you're going to have to promote the tool. Write posts about it in niche forums, subreddits, and on social media.

Option #3 – do original data analysis (or research): One option that I really love, yet almost no one does, is to do original analysis or research.

Look at any good data-driven post-for example, my post about how to win on Facebook.

What you'll see is that most posts link to someone else's research.

It takes a lot of time and effort to do original research, which is why it's much easier to link to someone else's research than to do your own.

You can take advantage of this by providing the research that bloggers in your niche link to.

In that above post, the research was done by Buzzsumo, and I simply analyzed the data that they sent me. Of course, I'm going to give them a few links for that, and it also opens the door for a great relationship.

Find an interesting question always asked in your niche, dig in, and do the research. When you're done, email the results to the top bloggers in your niche, and give them first dibs.

2. Study competitors, and learn from them

The toughest thing you can do is reinvent the wheel.

Your competitors have likely spent years building up their reputations and earning backlinks to their sites.

Many of these backlinks are from sites that you could also get a backlink from.

That's why competitor analysis is a great place to start for any new site.

Here's a simple 3-step process to follow.

Step #1 – Find your close competitors: The closer a competitor is to you, the more likely that their backlink sources would be appropriate for you.

If you know your niche well, you can likely do this off the top of your head. Otherwise, search for “best (specific niche) blogs.”

It's best to make a big list somewhere for later.

Step #2 – Find their best backlinks: This is simple to do now, thanks to tools such as Ahrefs and Majestic. Simply put in your competitor's domain into either tool, and search its database:

Next, find the “inbound links” or equivalent option to see a list of all their links:

If you want to see them all, you'll need a premium account. Both sites offer a trial period that you can take advantage of.

The links should be sorted by default in order of strength. Obviously, you want to go only after the best links (usually the top 20-30% of links).

From there, you'll have to visit each page and find the link:

Step #3 – Can you replicate the link? Here is where your marketing skills come into play.

Some links, like links from private blog networks, can't be replicated.

However, links from guest posts, forums, social networks, blog comments, etc. can be replicated. You can often get very similar links to those of your competitors'.

From there, you need to go after that link.

For example, if you see that your competitor wrote a guest post on a site, I strongly suggest you read some of my posts on guest-posting effectively and then apply that information to try to secure a post of your own.

Unfortunately, I can't walk you through this step in great detail because it differs for every type of link. However, you will get better at it as you gain experience.

As a final note, you should stay on top of your competitors. Check which links they are getting on a regular basis, say once a week or once a month. It's usually easier to replicate links that are more recent (rather than years old).

3. Forum links can have value

Let me start off by being very clear: most forum links are garbage.

Signature links and profile links rarely have any real value.

If you have a link on a page that no one visits or links to, your link isn't going to count for much.

But what about the most popular threads on a big forum?

These threads rank well in Google. They have a lot of high-quality, relevant content, and people even link to them on other sites.

Links, especially near the top of the page (like in the opening post), can carry a good amount of weight.

For example, Brian Dean used to post on the Warrior Forum when Backlinko was newer.

He would include a link to his content on the first line and then paste the rest of his post. Here's an example:

That thread got over 14,000 views and almost 100 replies. A decent portion of those viewers likely visited his website.

Also, because it was so popular on the forum, it has a lot of internal links pointing to it on high authority pages on the forum.

It also has 12 external domains pointing to it to give it even more authority.

Every forum has its own rules for posting content, but as long as you're not just dropping a link and saying “go visit my site,” you should be okay.

However, you need to genuinely put the time and effort into understanding what the users of your forum want and then give it to them. You need your thread to get popular if you want a good link.

No, these links aren't the absolute best and most powerful (from an SEO perspective) that you can get. But for a new site, a few relatively strong links from forums can help build a strong foundation.

4. If you want to burst onto the scene, guest-posting is a must

Most link building strategies for new sites are fairly slow.

They take consistent effort and deliver consistent results.

But you rarely get thousands of readers and hundreds of links within months unless you do them exceptionally well.

I consider guest-posting an exception to the rule. Even though you have to do it really well to get results, most bloggers have the ability to succeed with it.

And guest-blogging works for you even if you're brand new. If you have a good pitch, it doesn't matter what your name is.

When I think of guest-blogging to build up a new site, I think of Danny Iny, who is often referred to as the “Freddy Krueger of guest-posting.”

He got this nickname because he seemed to be everywhere when Firepole Marketing (now Mirasee) first launched.

His main strategy for getting traffic and links was guest-posting. He wrote dozens of guest posts and quickly took Firepole Marketing to the top tier of marketing blogs.

I won't go into guest-posting in detail here because I've done it multiple times before:

• Guest-Posting on Steroids: A 4-Step Blueprint That the Top Guest Posters Use


• Advanced Guest Posting – The Advanced Guide to Link Building


• Why Guest Blogging is The Best Inbound Marketing Strategy (A Data Driven Answer)


• Make Your Mark: 9 Easy Steps to Become a Successful Guest Blogger

The one adaptation that you will have to make, since you're brand new, is not to start at the top.

Don't start by pitching to a site like Copyblogger or Forbes. Instead, find a few smaller sites that are more receptive to pitches.

Then, you need to wow them with your post and promote that post as well.

Once you can prove that your writing is great, then you can start pitching to bigger sites, citing your other successes as proof that you're a serious blogger.

Conclusion

Here's the reality: You're in a tough spot.

Building links for a new site is not easy, but if you're willing to put in consistent effort, it can be done.

I've shown you four of the most effective ways I know to build links for a new site. I encourage you to focus on just one or two of them until you've exhausted their potential.

If you've been in this situation before and have any creative link building ideas to share with others, I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.