As AI continues to evolve, freelancers and agencies are finding new uses for the technology. It makes sense that many of us start by improving our workflow. Resolving those existing pain points helps us accomplish more with less effort.
However, AI also presents opportunities to broaden our horizons. We can use it to do things we haven’t tried before. Even better, we can experiment with ideas that seemed too ambitious a few years earlier. For example, consider projects that had a big learning curve or were time-consuming. Perhaps they don’t seem as daunting in the age of artificial intelligence.
The right tool could be the key to offering new and improved services to your clients. It’s a vehicle for increasing revenue and strengthening customer relationships. What’s not to love?
Let’s look at how AI can help you expand your agency’s service offerings. We’ll cover potential service ideas and considerations before presenting them to clients. You might even find the perfect growth opportunity for your business.
Find Tasks AI Can Do Faster and Better
Time is often the biggest barrier to creating new services. We’re busy enough without having to learn something new or focus on tedious work. More than anything, these are the tasks AI can help us tackle.
If you often find yourself knee-deep in code, you can use AI to lift the burden and increase productivity. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Performance and Security Audits
Is your client’s website running at peak performance? Is it chock full of vulnerable code? Some plugins can help you find general answers. However, a full audit is often the best way to diagnose and fix issues.
The problem is that it takes significant effort to go through each line of code. You also need to know what to look for during the inspection process. Not everyone has the depth of knowledge in PHP, JavaScript, and other languages found in a WordPress website.
AI tools can save you a ton of time. Even a relatively lengthy code audit can be performed in the background (freeing you to enjoy a cup of coffee or two). Plus, some models are adept at finding security issues and performance bottlenecks.
The big caveat here is that AI can point out issues, but you may not be able to fix every one of them. For example, avoid making changes to WordPress core or third-party plugins. Those changes would be overwritten during a software update. You could, however, alert a plugin author of what you found.
On the other hand, the results can lead you to find better options or use AI to build a custom solution. Regardless, it’s a service you can charge for.
Custom Plugin Development
There are two truths in agency life: No two projects are the same, and no WordPress plugin can cover every niche. That’s what makes custom development an appealing service.
Here again, we face limits on our time and coding abilities. But even an expert developer may not have enough room in their schedule for a complex plugin. Then there’s the future commitment to maintenance. It’s a lot to put on your virtual plate.
AI models make perfect development companions. They can use WordPress documentation to follow best practices and generate plugins with relative ease. Some more advanced apps can also create a logical file structure for you.
This opens multiple possibilities for your agency. You can create one-off plugins to cover client needs. You might also level up by creating more general-purpose plugins for use across multiple sites. A plugin with enough appeal could be sold in the marketplace.
In every case, there’s an opportunity to boost your revenue. Add custom plugin development to your project and maintenance fees.
Content Starters and Analysis
It seems like content is always a sticking point when working with clients. We’re either waiting for clients to deliver it or we’re tasked with cleaning it up. Then there is also the ever-evolving challenge of SEO.
We still don’t recommend using AI to generate production-ready content. It’s simply too generic and won’t reflect branding without human intervention. However, it can help in several areas.
For one, you can use it to create “starter” content. This is text clients can review and edit to match their needs. The final results might be completely different – but that’s not the point. Seeing content on their screen might be the impetus they need to keep the project moving forward. That saves you time and a few headaches.
AI can also analyze content for accessibility and SEO best practices. Use cases include simplifying language, determining keyword density, improving titles, and generating meta summaries. It’s also handy for researching competitors.
Now, these common tasks can be completed in a fraction of the time. Adding them to your service list provides more value to clients. In addition, the SEO analysis could be a source of recurring revenue.
AI Could Be Your Agency’s Growth Engine
Perhaps AI’s value to your business is all about perspective. Sure, you could use it to make less-good versions of what you’re already doing. Generating slop and calling it a day isn’t great for your long-term viability. We won’t argue that some people have chosen this path.
However, AI is also capable of helping you be the best version of yourself. It just requires a more thoughtful approach. Use these tools to tackle the busy work while keeping a close eye on the results. Most importantly, be the decision maker in what you build. In other words, don’t accept AI’s initial output as the final answer.
Treating this technology as a partner is a path to growing your agency. The extra time and mental bandwidth you gain will allow you to identify new revenue opportunities. The ideas above are just the tip of the iceberg.
Ask yourself: What can AI do better and faster? How can it strengthen what I do best? How can I use it to improve client services?
The answers might lead you to something great!
The post How AI Can Help You Expand Your Agency’s Service Offerings appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.