I feel like I’m being underpaid what should I do?

I’m from a third-world country and currently working with two clients in the same niche in Australia. I got both of them through referrals.

Right now I charge $800/month per client, which I know is very low compared to market rates, but it helps me manage my expenses so I agreed to it.

For one of the clients, I’ve been doing SEO for about a year, along with managing their Google Ads.

Recently their website started ranking on the first page in Melbourne for their niche, and they’re getting good traffic. Some of it may be niche competition, but I’ve spent a lot of time on local SEO, backlinks, and optimizing their ads.

For the second client, I’ve mainly been managing Google Ads and improving their campaigns. I reduced their CPC from around $6 to about $1.5, and their cost per conversion has dropped significantly, so the campaigns are now profitable for them. At the same time, their website has also started improving in SEO, moving from nowhere to around page 4–5 for some important keywords within about 3 months, which I think is decent progress.

The issue is that because the first client is now ranking well organically, the second client is pushing me to stop ads and rank them the same way within 2 months, which realistically isn’t possible with SEO.

The frustrating part is that both of these businesses previously worked with a Melbourne agency and were paying around $4,000/month, but now they’re paying me much less even though I’m handling both SEO and Google Ads.

Right now I can’t leave these clients because of financial reasons, but I definitely feel underpaid and a bit stuck.

My main questions are:

• How can I find better-paying SEO clients internationally?

• Should I try white-labeling for agencies instead of working directly with clients?

• Where do agencies usually find reliable white-label SEO partners?

I’m confident in my skills and even have a few people who could help me if I get more work, but the biggest challenge right now is finding better clients.

Any advice would really help.