Local Business SEO Journal

Great to see your continual progress building up your biz.

Again...Family, friend, good looking, not so good looking clients, always follow your own rules and have them sign a contract to protect you. Not to mention, it looks darn good and professional when you hand your contract to the client with all deliverables dated and agreed upon. But you should know this by now :)

As far as your site, you need a form for potential clients to complete. Basic one answering all the basic info about their business...

For the contact page, you may grab yourself this plugin WordPress › Easy Contact « WordPress Plugins
 


Great idea Sakana -

Update: THE FUCK PAID ME. FINALLY. He wants me on retainer for monthly services which I said I would do provided 1. There would be a contract and 2. Payments were made UP FRONT. He agreed.

Another update - I landed the event design and wedding planning client, she is a friend however and I figured that the best way to build out through her would be to charge a slightly lower rate and get a fuckload of referrals. She's pretty damn social and works hard, so I think this was a smart decision. More to come later.
 
Will finish event design site within the next two days.

Gave contact details to the Italian restaurant and stressed that while I and others love their food, if they have no online activity it's going to be hard for people in today's technology-driven information gathering age to ever really find them. I'll follow up this week.

Got into Google Engage, going to get a primer on PPC and pitching services to clients. You get 20x$100 Adwords coupons just for completing the course, and I'll probably pay the $100 to get the certification as it's going to be a trust indicator for clients. "Oh he's certified by Google -> if I was on the fence, now I'm not."

Going to Coachella in a few days, gonna try to grind out a ton of shit in the next three or so.

OUT
 
So my first client just landed himself on the Turko Files - in San Diego it's the consumer watchdog segment of a local news show.

KUSI News Weather Sports San Diego - What's Going On?

On the plus side, my super basic website design got some airtime! How fucking ridiculous is that..he takes over his father's business and burns it to the ground with his shitty business practices.

In no way am I affiliated to him though so it shouldn't hurt me any, but it's going to be a great 'first time' story for when I'm rolling in clients and cash :)
 
theyve been charging that for almost two decades. his dad used to run the business - 100% handmade, they had no competition in SD and he ran it extremely well. this clown is burning goodwill like crazy so i'd estimate they won't be in business for much longer. kind of sad really.
 
yup all of this happened post me working for him, not really sure where the train fell off the tracks :/

anyways I have two more (legitimate, moral human) clients that i'm working with!
 
All I have to say is Wow. This thread is awesome. I've had a ton of clients that promis the world only to find out they can't deliver the funds in the end.

Just had to make a comment about this thread.
 
Finished up the wedding site, got the check, on to other things. Right now I have a lot of POTENTIAL network contacts to get in touch with for referrals or potential jobs, but my networking philosophy is to give if I can, and not push for stuff unless I've given something first.

That being said I have a followup to do with the Italian Restaurant - I left my number with them but I need to go and ask for the head lady's number (she lives out of state) and call her up directly.

Anyone have any advice for getting new clients completely cold? I would appreciate any advice quite a bit!
 
Love the insight you've provided. I'm considering getting into local stuff and have learned a bit from your story. Which do you think is more profitable. Making small 3-4 page websites for customers or selling SEO services? How much do you charge on average? I don't even know where to start with pricing etc.
 
Hey dude -

I'm getting a lot more into the whole marketing aspect of the business - it's one thing to know you're good at what you do and you can do a good job, but if you can't convey why people need your services you're fucked.

I think the best thing for a beginner to do - keep in mind I am still one myself - is to target experienced professionals who run VERY small businesses - less than 10 people - who don't know much about the web. This is your best shot at getting customers who can be sold on a service like yours.

I'd advise selling basic web design first - this is way easier for people to understand. I'm starting to realize that you don't sell people "SEO" - you sell them on the benefits SEO provides. And this is different for every client - some want MORE sales -> more $, some want more visibility, some just literally 'want a website'. It's up to you to determine where they fall and sell them on that.
 
Ok.

Finished event design site completely by tomorrow, got a recommendation to a lady who is the head of the Associated of Certified Professional Wedding Consultants - national organization. Should be a great, hot lead as my client said the last person they talked to just went AWOL and they desperately need a redesign.

On another side of things, I am working on PHP, MySQL, and copywriting. I did a small test on a personal SEO site and updated it with some new copy. Clickthrough rate increased by over 100%, and in just two days conv ratio doubled. It's a very low traffic site, and I don't know how my changes will affect the SEO of the site. Hopefully it'll be all good though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jeffrey
Very interesting read. I have just gotten into the SEO game after building some sites for a few clients with deep pockets. I had always been more of a build them and send them on their way kinda dev as I always had projects in que, but after hiring someone to help do the sites, and starting to learn, I have to say... I AM HOOKED!!! Its so much more rewarding to see results of your labor, not to mention watching the bank account grow ;)

Its posts like this that people like me feed on. After spending time on a ton of other forums, its so nice to find one where people are actually HELPFUL.

Keep up the good work!
 
Thanks for the comments dudes. I'm actually going to try and pick up a job at a local company doing something similar to what I'm doing now, while continuing to freelance on the side.

I just "tricked" myself by putting all the money I made from poker into a Vanguard portfolio, so I really can't touch it at all. Forces me to live on like 4 months of expenses instead of 40. My goal is to deconstruct how they run their business, learn from their mistakes, and increase my level of competency in a variety of web based skillsets. PHP, Wordpress, HTML, CSS, MySQL, etc.

In addition, I will be pitching local businesses every day, with the caveat that I have to get rejected in order to "succeed" for the day. Will help get over the fear of approaching people and anxiety over being told "no".

The past month the two habits to instill were 1. No video games and 2. Run barefoot every day and I succeeded amazingly on both. I played games 3 days out of 30, and went from not being able to run more than a mile barefoot to just yesterday putting in over 5 miles.

ONWARD, MY FRIENDS.
 
Got a new client - machine shop here in my city, could definitely expand to more machine shops through connections with the people that work with my cousin at his engineering company.

Completely finished event design website and cashed check, learned how to hack into themeforest themes and customize them enough.
 
Uptime said:
Great going,

Small suggestion of performance data record keeping to help with future sales. Have the ability to show potential clients hard evidence of how you took previous clients websites from x to y position. What it meant to them with the increased traffic. Presented properly should help with the cred.
Click to expand...


Good advice. Also be careful to stay away from billing based on time spent. It is tempting to validate your value to the client - but over time you may be better off billing for the "secret stuff" you are doing. Assuming you are delivering success.

If not then you may have to justify your bill with time spent. But employers eventually devalue you if they think of you as hourly.
 
Yea, I think it's really important to sell based on value provided rather than hours worked. Definitely opens you up for bigger clients down the road as well where you can provide significant monetary value to their company by doing X or Y simply because of their size.

Pretty sure I've landed the machine shop contract, I did a quick logo design for them (graphic design is fucking fun, dudes) and they liked it. Also sent a few generic business template screens to them. They were just screens of Themeforest themes, but whatever it provides exactly what the company needs. No need for me to reinvent a theme for them when it's already out there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom