White Label SEO: How It Works, Margins and the Risks
What a white label SEO provider delivers, how to work out your monthly margin and the risks Google itself warns of.
Robbert Veer, Founder
7 min read
White label SEO is search engine optimization done by another company and sold by your agency under your own brand. You keep the client, set the price and send the reports. The provider does the audits, the content and the links. The risk stays with you, because your name is on the work and the client's site takes the consequences.
What is white label SEO, and what is an SEO reseller?
White label SEO is the service, and an SEO reseller is the agency or freelancer that sells it. The reseller buys the delivery from a provider and adds its own brand, price and client contact.
Three parties are involved.
- The client owns the website and pays you.
- You sell the work, set expectations, check what is delivered and report on it.
- The provider does the work and stays out of view.
The term also covers software. A white label SEO tool puts your logo on reports while you do the work yourself. This guide is about services, where the provider's staff do the work.
What do white label SEO services include?
White label SEO services usually cover the seven kinds of work below. For each one, ask for proof you can open yourself, every month.
| Work | What the provider does | Proof to ask for each month |
|---|---|---|
| Technical audit | Crawls the site and lists faults | The list, with what was fixed |
| Keyword research | Picks the searches to target | The keywords, each matched to a page |
| On-page changes | Edits titles, headings, internal links and page text | A change log with addresses and dates |
| Content | Writes pages and posts | Drafts sent to you before they go live |
| Link building | Gets other sites to link to the client | The address of every link and how it was won |
| Local SEO | Updates the Google Business Profile and directory listings | Each change and each listing address |
| Reporting | Tracks rankings, traffic and leads | Figures from the client's own Search Console |
A provider that cannot show this proof for a current client will not show it for yours.
What margin does white label SEO leave?
Your monthly margin is the retainer minus the provider's fee, your own hours and your tools, divided by the retainer. Here is one client with made-up figures.
| Line | Made-up monthly figure |
|---|---|
| Client retainer | $1,500 |
| Provider fee | $600 |
| Your hours, 5 at a cost of $60 | $300 |
| Tools and reporting | $50 |
| What is left | $550 |
| Margin on the provider fee alone | 60% |
| Real margin | 37% |
The 5 hours are the monthly call, the check on the provider's work and a report in your own words.
A website is sold once. SEO is sold again every month, so the margin depends on how long the client stays. Suppose winning this client took 12 hours of selling, which costs $720 at the same made-up rate. After one month you are $170 down. After two you are $380 ahead.
Clients leave early when they were promised speed. Google's SEO Starter Guide says "Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months" (Google Search Central). Say that before the client signs, and consider a minimum term. Our guide to agency pricing models compares retainers with other ways to charge.
What are the risks of white label SEO?
The main risk of white label SEO is that a provider uses methods Google penalizes, on a site that belongs to your client. Google tells site owners "you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire" (Google Search Central).
That sentence applies twice in a white label deal. The client hired you, and you hired the provider.
| Risk | What Google says | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Bought or automated links | Link spam includes buying or selling links for ranking purposes, and using automated programs or services to create links | Ask how each link was won, and open a sample every month |
| Mass-produced pages | Many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings count as scaled content abuse | Approve content before it is published |
| Guaranteed rankings | "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." | Never pass a guarantee on to a client |
| A penalty | "Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all." | Write the allowed methods into the provider contract |
The guarantee line comes from Google's page on hiring an SEO. The other three rows come from its spam policies.
Three more risks sit outside Google's rules.
- Client contact. A provider that knows your client list can sell to it. A non-solicitation clause with a time limit covers that.
- Accounts. Search Console, analytics and the Google Business Profile stay in the client's name. You and the provider get access, never ownership.
- Reports that flatter. A first place for a search nobody types is worth nothing. Ask for calls, forms and bookings next to the rankings.
How do you vet a white label SEO provider?
Run five checks before any client's site is involved.
- Ask Google's questions. Google lists questions to put to any SEO. They include whether the firm follows the Google Search Essentials, and what results it expects in what timeframe.
- Read a real report. Ask for a monthly report from a current client, with the names removed.
- Open the links. Ask for one client's link list from last month and open ten of them. Would you want those sites pointing at your client?
- Run a pilot on your own site. Use your agency's site for the first three months. A mistake there costs you no client.
- Put it in writing. Methods, reporting, account ownership, non-solicitation and the notice period all belong in the contract.
Google also tells owners to avoid SEOs that talk about link popularity schemes. A provider whose price list counts links per month is selling volume, so ask where the links come from.
Which clients should you sell white label SEO to?
Sell it to businesses whose website is sound and hard to find. A site that breaks on a phone needs rebuilding first, because Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of a site (Google Search Central). The same model exists for builds, and our guide to white label web design covers it.
The check takes a minute. Search the service and the town without the business name. If three competitors appear and a business with better reviews does not, you have a finding the owner can verify. Our guide to SEO leads goes through more ways to find these businesses.
Choosing whom to write to counts for more than the pitch. In our study, businesses with the weakest 20% of websites replied positively to a cold email about 3.2 times as often as a random sample of the rest. Emails that named the problem got 2.35% positive replies against 1.60% for a generic email, and that gap was not statistically significant. The study covered Dutch companies and email only. The method is in our write-up.
One more thing shapes the first message. Owners receive generic SEO pitches all the time. One true finding the owner can check in ten seconds sets yours apart, and it should never come with a promised ranking.
Leadodo is built for this kind of selection. Its AI, Twip, scores every website in a search out of 100 across 10 domains, and SEO is one of the ten. Twip's findings become the opening line of each letter and email.
Questions
Is white label SEO allowed by Google?
Google's guidance is about what is done to a site. It does not say who has to do the work, and its page on hiring an SEO treats outside help as normal. The methods are what count. A provider that buys links puts your client's site at risk whoever sends the invoice.
What is the difference between an SEO reseller and an SEO agency?
An SEO agency does the work with its own staff. An SEO reseller sells the work and buys the delivery from a provider. Many agencies do both, keeping strategy in-house and buying in content or links.
How much does white label SEO cost?
Providers charge by the month, by the hour or by the deliverable, and the figures differ widely. This guide makes no claim about any provider's prices. Get a written quote for one real client, then work out the margin with your own hours in it.
How long does white label SEO take to show results?
As long as any SEO. Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months. It also suggests waiting a few weeks before you judge whether a change worked.
Should you tell clients you use a white label SEO provider?
Whether you have to name the provider depends on your client contract, so read it. Do not claim an in-house team you do not have. Clients care that someone accountable checks the work, and that person is you. This is not legal advice.
Can you white label an SEO audit?
Yes. An audit is the easiest piece to buy in, since software can produce one in minutes. Our guide to the white label website audit shows how to use one finding from it to start a conversation.
Next step. Find the businesses whose websites search cannot find. Leadodo scores every website in a search, and your Outbound Machine writes to the weakest. See the features.
