How can you attract new SEO clients through different channels?

If you are struggling to find new SEO clients on Upwork, you can test other freelance platforms, showcase your expertise through a website and LinkedIn, and combine these efforts with proactive proposals tailored to individual businesses. The material supports these approaches to client acquisition, but does not establish which platform is best at converting prospects into clients. A more practical approach is to start with small-scale tests, then focus on channels that generate responses. If you work independently, you do not need to maintain a presence on every platform at once.

You can switch freelance platforms, but buyer experiences do not establish seller outcomes

Warrior Forum contributor Moodesburn1977 prefers Fiverr because its service categories are clear and its model is simpler, while finding Upwork too complicated. However, when discussing his results, he explicitly states that he was a customer purchasing SEO services and had not used Upwork. His comments therefore reflect a buyer’s experience, not evidence that new sellers can easily win orders.

• Fiverr: Worth including in your tests, but these comments do not establish how many orders to expect.
• Guru and Freelancer.com: Forum contributors suggest joining them, but the material provides no comparison of actual client acquisition results.
• Upwork: If it still brings in clients, contributor Monetize recommends keeping it rather than abandoning it outright.

There are also differing recommendations on how broadly to spread your efforts: Monetize advocates joining more platforms, while Taylor Scher, in a 2025 Backlinko article, advises independent professionals to manage one or two channels within their capacity. These views should not be combined into a conclusion that more platforms necessarily produce better results.

Your website and LinkedIn: Show potential clients why they should choose you

Forum contributors recommend creating a service website that showcases your expertise, portfolio, success stories, and client testimonials, then using LinkedIn to promote your blog and services. The point is not simply to declare that you know SEO, but to explain why clients should choose you and which needs your services can address.

For example, if you want to serve businesses in a particular area, you could use “SEO consultant + location” as a keyword direction for your website and write SEO articles that educate your target audience. These are approaches suggested in the material, not guarantees of rankings or client wins. The relevant comments also note that building a website and a reputation takes time.

Scher, meanwhile, describes using expert content on LinkedIn to establish his authority and consistently providing valuable content to his email audience. This offers one practitioner’s choice of channels, but does not mean every freelancer will achieve the same results.

Proactive outreach: Tailor proposals to websites rather than just waiting for inquiries

Another approach is to find business websites and contact details, then send SEO proposals tailored to those websites. You can also look for requests for marketing services on sites such as Craigslist and respond to the issues raised. Forum contributor DABK emphasizes that clients want the outcomes SEO can deliver, so proposals should explain the value of the service rather than merely list technical terms.

In the same article, Scher says that cold outreach, social media advertising, and pay-per-click advertising have been more effective for him in supplementing inconsistent inbound client acquisition. This remains a personal account, not a ranking of effectiveness. The practical principle is to test first, identify channels that suit you, and then invest more in them, rather than treating someone else’s account of success as your own expected outcome.