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Early on, most of my first wins came from people I already had loose access to, friends of friends, founders I had helped informally, or businesses where I could clearly see something broken. Freelance platforms worked for learning how to scope and communicate, but they were rarely good long term. I’d be careful with free work unless it is tightly defined and gives you clean before and after results, otherwise it just drags on. The biggest mistake I see is trying to sell SEO as a bundle instead of solving one obvious problem, like fixing a drop or cleaning up technical debt. Long term, referrals beat everything, but they only start once you have a few clear outcomes you can talk through confidently.
