 Mushfiq Sarker | Time: | Read online |
In this week’s teardown, I’m analyzing an SEO services marketplace site that I just purchased a few weeks ago. It is a 2-year-old SEO services marketplace website called Vettted.com.
I acquired Vettted in early 2024 because it is a great fit with The Website Flip ecosystem and the WebOperators agency with its large pool of buyers of SEO services.
Many of my readers need help with specific SEO tasks and Vettted is a marketplace where you can easily hire experienced SEOs to do projects like link building, on-page SEO, technical SEO audits, and more.
While the previous owner has done an awesome job of building a profitable service marketplace from the ground up, there are many opportunities to grow it to the next level.
In this teardown, I will review what is working well for the Vettted marketplace and the SEO and CRO improvements that I plan to work on over the next few weeks.
This is what I cover in this report:
- Website overview
- Major highlights
- Competitor overview
- Easy wins to increase revenue and/or traffic
- Actionable takeaways you can apply
Let’s get into it!
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✅ Website Overview & Highlights
Vettted.com has grown from an idea that started in a basement in Portugal to a thriving marketplace of SEO services in just a couple of years.
Ahrefs shows a strong growth trend in organic traffic over the past year and a growing number of referring domains (211).
The website was first launched around 2021 by Vasco Monteiro, an SEO in Lisbon, Portugal. He leveraged his audience on his Facebook Group and YouTube channel, both called Vasco’s SEO Tips, to help grow the marketplace to thousands of transactions.
Vettted differentiates itself from other marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork because we focus only on SEO services and we vet each provider to ensure high quality. Fiverr and Upwork let virtually anyone sell services so there are many questionable providers that you have to filter out.
Customers can order specific SEO services like niche edits, guest posts, content audits, and technical SEO audits. There is also the option to schedule a consulting call with an SEO expert for a set price (for example Vasco Monteiro charges $88 for a 15-minute call).
The clean website design looks great and does a great job communicating the value proposition for the visitor. It is easy to navigate the site to find the services you are looking for, learn about the provider, and make a purchase easily.
Highlights
- 100+ marketplace sellers offering a wide range of SEO services
- 10,000+ completed transactions
- Hundreds of reviews and ratings of completed projects
- 100+ pages of user-generated content (user profiles and product pages)
Why is this site winning?
- Relationships with SEOs with strong personal brands like Jacky Chou and Vasco Monteiro who talk about the marketplace on social media
- A unique niche marketplace that attracts natural links and mentions
- Lots of traffic from branded search
Top 3 Competitors
Here are similar competitors targeting offering a similar product:
- Fiverr – Like Vettted, Fiverr offers many SEO sellers that offer very specific project-based services like guest posting, press releases, and backlinks.
- Upwork – Upwork is one of the top freelance marketplaces with many SEO professionals that offer hourly or project-based services.
- SEOClerk.com – A similar marketplace that offers project-based SEO services like link building, guest posts, and local SEO, although many services look questionable.
Let’s get into the easy wins to grow this specific website.
🔥 5 Easy Wins To Grow This Website
There are opportunities to significantly grow this brand. I break down the following easy wins:
- Add more subcategory pages and more content to existing pages
- Add upsells and cross-sells to the shopping cart
- Increase trust signals on product pages
- Improve on-page SEO and technical SEO
- Recruit well-known SEOs to become sellers
Let’s get into it!
➡️ Win #1: Add More Subcategory Pages and More Content to Existing Pages
Originally there were just 3 category pages off-page SEO, on-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
We are working on adding many more sub-category pages of specific types of SEO services that people search for on Google.
Since there are many more types of SEO services, we can target specific keywords for services that people frequently search Google for such as press releases, local SEO, guest posts, content strategy, keyword research, etc.
The idea is to add pages with the following structure:
This type of nesting structure will allow the following:
➡️ Win #2: Add Upsells and Cross-Sells to the Shopping Cart
When visitors are ready to make a purchase, offering an upsell or cross-sell in the shopping cart is a great way to increase revenue by recommending a related or complimentary service that the customer may also want.
For example, if someone is interested in this seller’s niche edit service they may also want the seller’s other service which is a guest post service. A checkbox to add the complimentary service could be added below the cart summary.
In addition to upsells, there could also be cross-selling prompts that suggest related services by other sellers.
For example, someone buying an .edu link service is interested in increasing their site’s link authority so they may also be interested in an editorial link on MSN or a press release from Business Insider.
➡️ Win #3: Increase Trust Signals on Product Pages
Currently, the product pages provide basic information about the service offered but more social proof could be added to give buyers confidence and increase conversion rate.
Each product page currently shows the number of stars and thumbs up the seller received, but it is not obvious what these numbers mean. It would be more helpful to explicitly state the number of orders and % positive feedback (e.g., 108 Orders, 100% Positive Feedback).
Additionally, social media profiles could be added to the product page to show that the seller has established a reputation online.
For instance, if the seller has social media profiles such as X/Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn, these can be added to the product service page to give the seller more credibility.
Embedding a short video of the seller talking to the camera and describing their service is another way to increase trust and show that there is a real person behind the service.
➡️ Win #4: Improve On-Page SEO and Technical SEO
While conducting an initial on-page SEO review, I identified an opportunity to make the title tags more catchy and clickworthy.
For example “Get Backlinks on Vettted” could be changed to “Top XYZ Best Backlink Services on Vettted”.
On the technical SEO side, I noticed a lack of internal linking between pillar pages and subcategory pages. Adding more internal links to these pages can make it easier for Google to crawl the pages and understand the site structure.
Additionally, I noticed that the headings were not consistent throughout the site with H3s coming before H2s.
While this may be a small improvement, the small improvements can add up to a more organized and well-structured site that is easy for search engines to crawl and understand.
➡️ Win #5: Recruit Well-Known SEOs to Add Services |
While there are several SEOs on the marketplace with a strong online following, we have just scratched the surface of the SEO community which has many thousand high-quality providers.
One option is to conduct an email outreach campaign to people in the SEO community who already offer services and have a following on social media. We can explain how we can help them receive more business and leads with minimal effort and no upfront costs.
We could also explain that offering consulting calls or small projects could be a great way for an agency or freelancer to generate leads for potential long-term clients.
As more SEOs sign up on the seller side it could generate a network effect where more SEOs hear about the marketplace from social media and word of mouth and consider joining as well.
If you are interested in selling an SEO service on the Vettted marketplace, please apply here.
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👉 Actionable Takeaways
Here are actionable takeaways that you can apply to your website today:
