How WordPress agencies can attract new customers

If you want your WordPress agency to thrive and grow, you need reliable strategies to attract new customers.

The purpose of this post is to help you implement those strategies for your agency.

Below, we’re going to dig into a ton of tactics that you can use to get new customers for your WordPress agency. We’ll cover tried-and-true tactics like search engine optimization and paid ads, along with other less-discussed strategies like using agency positioning to attract new clients and offering value-added services to convert them.

To make this as helpful as possible, we’ll divide this post into three sections covering how to reach potential customers, how to use value-added services to attract/convert those customers, and then how to leverage your existing work to attract new customers.

Reach potential customers with smart marketing strategies

Before you can get paying clients, you need to find a way to connect with people and businesses that are interested in the services you offer.

In this first section, we’ll discuss some in-person and digital marketing strategies that can help you do just that.

Implement a strong search engine optimization strategy (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to connect with potential customers who are searching Google for terms related to your agency.

For example, if you’re a Philadelphia-based WordPress agency specializing in WooCommerce, you’d want to do your best to rank for queries like “WooCommerce development Philadelphia.”

Competition in search will depend a lot on your market and the services that you offer. However, even in high-competition markets, smart keyword research can still help you reach customers searching for less competitive phrases.

You can also consider building a more robust content marketing strategy to reach people at different stages of the sales journey. For example, you might create a blog post about how much a WordPress website costs, which could help you reach people earlier in the sales funnel.

To learn more about SEO, check out our huge post with 60+ experience-backed SEO tips.

Be active on social media

In addition to connecting with people through search engines, you’ll also want to meet them on social media, which is where most people spend most of their digital time.

There are two ways in which you can do this:

• Create profiles for your agency.
• Build your own personal following.

To the first point, you’ll want to set up profiles for your agency on all the major social networks. These give you an official presence and allow you to share relevant content and updates. Many agencies focus on LinkedIn, but don’t neglect other platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, etc.

You don’t have to just rely on these business profiles, though. You can also try to grow your profiles, which helps you build a more personal connection with your customers.

For example, Mario Peshev, founder of DevriX, has over 22,300 followers on his own personal X page, which is more than the ~5,000 followers on the official DevriX account. A lot of people will have engaged with Mario before even learning that DevriX exists.

Our post on Twitter/X marketing strategies has some good tips for getting started with marketing on X.

Get listed in relevant business directories

Rather than finding your agency directly, some prospective customers will instead start their search using one of the many business directories that are out there.

To get in front of these people, you need to proactively list your agency in relevant directories.

Typically, this involves filling out a form or sending an email with some basic details about your agency. Some directories also might charge for listing, in which case you’ll need to decide if the potential benefits are worth the money.

For WordPress agencies, one great option is the Kinsta Agency Directory, which lists hundreds of WordPress agencies from across the globe. Prospective customers can filter by services offered, locations, average project prices, languages, and more.

You can also find other agency-specific directories, such as Clutch and AdForum, as well as general business directories, such as a local business directory for your region.

Specialize in a specific area and position yourself as an expert

Agency positioning can also be another great way to reach potential customers.

Basically, instead of just starting a “WordPress agency,” you want to pick a more specific area and become the go-to expert in that space.

Instead of just developing “WordPress sites”, you could be the expert in developing “online course platforms powered by WordPress”. You could even niche down further and be the expert in a specific LMS plugin, such as “LearnDash development” or “LifterLMS development.”

Or, instead of specializing in a specific type of project, you could specialize in a specific type of client, such as solopreneurs or nonprofits. For example, Surelutions, an agency in the Kinsta Agency Directory, specifically offers “nonprofit website design.”

Each time you niche down, your pool of potential customers grows smaller, which might seem counterintuitive. However, the upside is that you’ll have a better chance to reach and convert that smaller customer pool because you’re the expert in the services that they need.

It goes back to that old saying — would you rather be the big fish in a small pond or the small fish in a big pond?

Both models can work, and you certainly don’t have to position yourself in a narrow way.

However, if you already have expertise in a specific area of WordPress development, you can try positioning your agency as an expert in that space and see if it helps you attract and convert customers.

Attend in-person events for WordPress or local businesses

In-person events are a great place to network with potential customers and other relevant businesses.

To start, you can try to get to as many WordPress-specific events as possible. These could be official WordCamp events or just your local WordPress meetups — anywhere where you think the networking opportunities could be good.

Beyond that, you can also attend more general local business meetups, which can help you reach a different type of prospective customer who might not even know what WordPress is yet.

Many events will have dedicated networking times built into the schedule, which gives you a great chance to make connections. For example, WordCamp US 2024 had a dedicated networking block at the end of the day.

Speak at in-person or digital events to showcase your expertise

In addition to just attending events for general networking, you can also seek out opportunities to be a speaker at relevant events.

Not only does this give you a chance to reach potential customers, but it also helps you demonstrate your expertise, giving you a better chance to convert those potential customers into paying customers.

If you decide to position yourself as an expert in a more narrow area, you can also use these speaking opportunities as a chance to cement your expertise.

For example, Equalize Digital is an agency that specializes in website accessibility. The Equalize Digital team used this expertise to speak on WordPress website accessibility at WordCamp US 2024.

Beyond speaking at general WordCamps or meetups, you can also seek out more specialized talks. Keeping with the same WooCommerce development example, you could try to speak at WooSesh, a WooCommerce-specific online conference.

Typically, you’ll need to apply to be a speaker at these events. Many events will put out a call for speakers a few months before the event is scheduled to go on, so you’ll need to be proactive about submitting applications.

Build mutually beneficial connections with other agencies and freelancers

Beyond using networking to connect with potential customers, you should also use it as an opportunity to create mutually beneficial relationships with other agencies and freelancers.

If your agency focuses exclusively on creating WordPress websites, you could build a connection with another agency that focuses on the marketing side of things.

You can recommend that agency to your clients who need help with marketing, and the other agency can recommend your agency to clients who need website work.

You can even build these connections within the WordPress agency space. While you might think that all WordPress agencies are your competition, there are a lot of situations where collaboration makes more sense than competition.

For example, let’s say you’ve decided to position your agency in a more niche way and specialize in developing WordPress membership websites. You then build a connection with another WordPress agency that specializes in developing e-commerce stores with WooCommerce.

If that agency gets a client request for a membership site, they could pass that work to you. Similarly, if you get a request for an e-commerce store, you could pass that work to them.

Consider paid ads if it makes sense

If you want a guaranteed way to get your agency in front of prospective customers, you can also consider paid ads. Common examples would be using Google Ads or Facebook Ads to reach relevant customers.

This is not a requirement, and plenty of agencies achieve success without running these types of paid ads. However, it is still something that’s worth experimenting with, as you might find that it works well for your agency.

It can also help you achieve more immediate results while you wait for other strategies that take more time to develop, such as SEO.

If you do go this route, make sure that you set up proper analytics so that you can track conversion rates and see the return on investment (ROI) of your ads.