🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast
Nick LeRoy: The Reality of Living the SEO Freelancing Life
Freelance SEO consultant, podcaster, and newsletter author on what SEO freelancing actually looks like past the honeymoon phase — and what it takes to build something sustainable.
Nick LeRoy is a freelance SEO consultant, podcaster, and newsletter author based in St. Paul, Minnesota. When it comes to SEO, Nick specializes in SEO strategy, technical SEO, editorial strategy, and website migrations.
“User Satisfaction and Content Measurement with Jen Boland” — founder of Satisfyly on how to actually measure whether your content is satisfying users — and why most content metrics measure the wrong thing.
— Jen Boland, Satisfyly | Listen: Jen Boland on Content Measurement →
Key Takeaways
- Freelance SEO success is an operations problem, not just a skills problem. Nick’s framing: most SEOs who go freelance are technically excellent. The ones who thrive long-term are the ones who also build the systems — client onboarding, reporting, invoicing, pipeline management — that make the practice sustainable.
- Newsletter publishing is a client acquisition system that compound over years. Nick’s SEO For Lunch newsletter has become a consistent lead source and credibility signal. The audience it attracts is exactly the audience his ideal clients come from.
- Specialization earns premium rates faster than breadth. Nick’s advice to new freelancers: become the person people call for one specific thing. Being the migrations specialist, the technical SEO specialist, or the B2B SaaS content specialist earns more per hour than being generally good at SEO.
- Referrals are the highest-quality lead source — and they require active cultivation. Nick’s referral network didn’t happen passively. It was built through community participation, public content, and consistently delivering results that clients talk about to their peers.
Connect with Nick LeRoy
- Newsletter: seoforlunch.com
- LinkedIn: Nick LeRoy
The Unscripted SEO Podcast features candid, unscripted conversations with SEOs and digital marketers. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.
