Local Business SEO Journal

dchuk said:
google has been slow as fuck lately. make sure you get some amit bookmarks on your site asap to get it out in the open and on the radar
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Amit's the first guy i go to with a new site. Have since done dfb, blg, Matt and Jason's service that doesn't have an acronym that I know of, linkilicious...all of this has gotten me to 4 and 5 on yahoo and bing but only 134 on google for one keyword and still not on the map for the other main ones.

Google is the ultimate cockblocker.

(Oh and +1 for the call tracker. )
 


turbolapp said:
Amit's the first guy i go to with a new site. Have since done dfb, blg, Matt and Jason's service that doesn't have an acronym that I know of, linkilicious...all of this has gotten me to 4 and 5 on yahoo and bing but only 134 on google for one keyword and still not on the map for the other main ones.

Google is the ultimate cockblocker.

(Oh and +1 for the call tracker. )
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Are you layering your BLG blasts? I found great results by creating initial squidoo, wordpress, blogger (Tier 1) etc. then blasting those with interlinked BLG blasts day 1 (Tier 2) then using the variable in day 2 and interlinking Tier 1 and Tier 2, then following up with Profile/comment/xrumer blasts.

For local it has worked a charm, front paged for keyword + city (albeit not competitive) but with no keywords in the domain.

Then I wrinse repeat for important pages in the site (services, individual service/product pages) to solidify rankings.
 
> u know of any call tracking for spain, france and the uk?

Call Measurement, Call Tracking and Call Reporting by Calltracks
Not used them - they're probably really expensive.
If you get pricing info post back or PM me, especially if they are any good.

I'm currently looking into whether a SkypeIn number could be used for cheap, simple call-tracking. All I really want to know is how many phone leads a website generates for a client. It can't be that difficult!
 
jiri2 said:
are your call trackers just like normal telephones, as in same price as a normal phone number for whoever phones from the website, great number of people stop when they see surcharge and head off to yellow pages or whatnot)?
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I can buy a phone number that matches a local area code or use a toll free 1800 number. I've tried both, and found that people are more willing to call a local number than a 1800 number, at least for my niches.
 
Not a whole lot to update, met the guy today and him/his family seem awesome. Very passionate about their business and very excited to grow it in the coming year.

He's going to have the wp-admin and hosting details to me by Thursday and we're gonna meet back up and talk strategy/compensation. I think I have to figure out the pricing scheme pretty soon.

Can't decide exactly how I want to do it, anyone have any suggestions?
 
phoenixrising said:
Not a whole lot to update, met the guy today and him/his family seem awesome. Very passionate about their business and very excited to grow it in the coming year.

He's going to have the wp-admin and hosting details to me by Thursday and we're gonna meet back up and talk strategy/compensation. I think I have to figure out the pricing scheme pretty soon.

Can't decide exactly how I want to do it, anyone have any suggestions?
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phoenix congrats on the client and thanks for creating and updating this thread.

In regards to the extended delays of getting a simple login id and pw something doesn't sound right. You mentioned that the current site basically has nothing to salvage. If another delay occurs I would take control of the hosting for the client and and point the domain name to the new server. Maybe I'm miss-understanding the situation but the multiple delays for simple login info smells.

Whatever you do make sure don't lose any current rankings with your updates and additions. 301 / .htaccess / etc to protect what you have so far.

As far as pricing I internally forecast my time, effort and expensives involved to achieve the objective and make sure my min hourly rate is met plus a margin. This is given to the client as a package price based on attainable results met not as an hourly rate. I personally prefer to work off of a set price vs. hourly whenever possible. Wish I could give $ examples but every clients website complexity seems to vary and the competition determines the effort needed to break into the top 3. I also weigh all of this against the business they are not getting presently. Then what it will mean to the owner by getting even the low end prediction of highly targeted traffic. Sounds like your client doesn't need any convincing of the impact so you are 3/4's of the way there. Don't short change yourself on the price and be careful how you phrase potential results.

I've had good success with local in a couple of different regions but I also don't consider myself an expert. So take the above with a ton of sodium.
 
MikevanderHeijd said:
Are you layering your BLG blasts? I found great results by creating initial squidoo, wordpress, blogger (Tier 1) etc. then blasting those with interlinked BLG blasts day 1 (Tier 2) then using the variable in day 2 and interlinking Tier 1 and Tier 2, then following up with Profile/comment/xrumer blasts.

For local it has worked a charm, front paged for keyword + city (albeit not competitive) but with no keywords in the domain.

Then I wrinse repeat for important pages in the site (services, individual service/product pages) to solidify rankings.
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Like the 3 and 4 day projects? Or are you talking about a different method?

And yes I do that.
 
Uptime said:
In regards to the extended delays of getting a simple login id and pw something doesn't sound right. You mentioned that the current site basically has nothing to salvage. If another delay occurs I would take control of the hosting for the client and and point the domain name to the new server. Maybe I'm miss-understanding the situation but the multiple delays for simple login info smells.
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Seems pretty straight-forward to me:

phoenixrising said:
God damn this 'designer' is taking his sweet fucking time handing over the admin details. Charged the guy $1300 to reg a domain, get hosting and throw up the simplest WP page you could imagine past "Hello World!"
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The designer doesn't want to lose his unsuspecting customer by having someone with skills/experience (in this case, phoenix) point out what a weaksauce site s/he put together. When I take over sites from other hosts, getting the credentials takes a simple phone call (since trading such info over email is admittedly much riskier).

@Phoenixrising: while I really hope it's just a misunderstanding and that you do get the admin info, I wouldn't be surprised if you got stiffed again.
 
As far as the login details go -

The product my client sells is produced in-house, and orders spike during christmas so he's literally been slammed for the last week or so. He just didn't email the designer, so that's part of the reason I haven't gotten the details. When we met I stressed the importance of getting the information, and he totally understood. If it does happen to go badly and I don't get the details, is it possible for me to redirect hosting of the site without knowing any of the original hosting information?

As far as compensation -

He sells a product that is best marketed through high schools - of which he's in 30-40% of the ones in our city so far. There is even room to expand within the 30-40% of schools, not to mention adding additional schools. I think that the online presence will extend his reach to schools outside of an X mile radius that might not hear about his business through normal channels.

Based on this it seems like some sort of performance-based compensation might be the best play - they don't know anything about IM or keeping an online presence, so is it fair to charge them based on customers referred through the internet?

It was not hard at all to get his domain to #1, but I was thinking that I would register 1-2 more domains targeting variations of his product and populate them with his business information, etc. Good idea?
 
Oh also -

If I want to expand this into a full fledged business, how would I go about setting up reseller hosting and domain names, or where would be the best places to go?
 
I sign these businesses up with my preferred hosting company using my affiliate link and get $50 per hosting account sign up.
 
phoenixrising said:
. . . If it does happen to go badly and I don't get the details, is it possible for me to redirect hosting of the site without knowing any of the original hosting information?
. . . .
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He who controls the DNS trumps all others. If your client has the domain on his credit card then even if he doesn't have the registrar login details he can get them. Setup new hosting and point the DNS to the new server. I would seek council with the elders here about the best way to keep the juice just to be safe.

However with the new information that the owner just dropped the ball on emailing the guy hopefully that can be avoided.
 
Been a bit of a delay, but I finally go the wp-admin details today. Yes!

I'm gonna get to work doing basic onsite SEO stuff and throwing some content and theming edits on there, excited to actually get my hands on this bitch and GO. I don't think I'm gonna get hosting details from the designer but I really don't care, my work doesn't really require it.

My client said he's already referred me to 2 of his suppliers who don't have ANY internet presence at all and also said I'm a 'member of the family.' I think I'll be able to charge a fair price for the value that I've provided based on this info.

We're going to meet on Friday to discuss strategy and compensation.

I think I might even throw an HD video of him talking about his family's business on the site.

p.s. I think I can get local high schools to link to his website too, BADASS
 
God damn this 'designer' is taking his sweet fucking time handing over the admin details. Charged the guy $1300 to reg a domain, get hosting and throw up the simplest WP page you could imagine past "Hello World!"

RAGE
 
Has been a while, but here is what's new:

1. With my first client, we have worked out a payment structure that consists of an upfront fee for deliverables and work performed to get things up and running, including link building, basic seo, and a site redesign. Additionally, a monthly retainer for statistics, upkeep, and basically full service on the internet side of his business.

2. He has referred me to a friend that does bail bonds in my city. He has paid firms to get his website ranked for bail bonds related terms in the past and they have failed. He manages his own PPC, but says that he is spending more than he should and doesn't know if his return is good.

This will be a much more challenging project for me. I don't think I can go after 'bail bonds' or even 'my city bail bonds', so I was thinking about breaking it down into the various communities he services, and running some 'satellite' sites that all point to his business. Is this a good strategy?
 
phoenix: congrats on your first client! i have been in the local seo business for several months now and now have multiple accounts, in addition to my personal SEM endeavors. work your ass off for your clients, and watch the referrals roll in!

as far as point number 2 is concerned, lose that negative attitude! i know that there are a lot of competitive niches out there, but remember, you are not promising number one spot, only more business. take that aproach when pitching them. im not saying that targeting the micro communities is a bad idea, thats actually good. but you would be surprised at how many people say the same thing you do and dont bother.

alot of these seo companies have been dropped by their clients and are falling further and fruther in the SERPS, and arent hip to the new algorithm parameters.

if you ever have any ?s please feel free to PM, there is plenty of $$ for everyone to go around!
 
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