Local SEO

LegitAM

LegitAM

WF Premium Member
Apr 7, 2010
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You guys who do Local SEO, when you're doing backlinks for your clients do you only use directory backlinks or do you still do the typical spammier comments such as blogs, profiles, etc?


I'm a Local SEO newb trying to map out a plan of action... any advice is appreciated. I still have plenty of searching to do as well.
 


Usually for Local SEO, assuming its a reasonably small town and uncompetitive set of keywords... you can get away with just using a list of high PR sites to build on. But some additional spammy links won't hurt.
 
bauss said:
Usually for Local SEO, assuming its a reasonably small town and uncompetitive set of keywords... you can get away with just using a list of high PR sites to build on. But some additional spammy links won't hurt.
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Yeah, thus far everything is pretty easy to rank for using my dummy sites. I will be using these dummy sites as proof to my clients that I can produce results.

If a potential client is already ranked on PG 1, even at rank 1, what do you say to them to convince them to use your service? Perhaps tell them you can get them X positions on the first page (utilizing Web 2.0, directories, etc), that way all Pg 1 ranks 1-5 are various pages linking back to that same business?
 
Local SEO is not much different than usual SEO... list your business in local maps, directories, enroll your business in local directories... and then perform usual SEO techniques...
 
LegitAM said:
Any suggestions on Pricing?
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High enough to make the sale.

I have no experience in local SEO, but just my business experience...sell the highest you possibly can while still providing value.

Biggest thing here would be, be able to prove that your services provide profit for the company.

Like say....500 local residents visit my site a day....or I have 5,000 unique visitors a month searching for "pizza"

Edit: Obviously the best would be for #1 position for "pizza" or whatever they received 50 new customers that month.
 
wiredniko said:
High enough to make the sale.

I have no experience in local SEO, but just my business experience...sell the highest you possibly can while still providing value.

Biggest thing here would be, be able to prove that your services provide profit for the company.

Like say....500 local residents visit my site a day....or I have 5,000 unique visitors a month searching for "pizza"

Edit: Obviously the best would be for #1 position for "pizza" or whatever they received 50 new customers that month.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my plan is to offer free 2 weeks of service (but still have them sign a contract), then bill monthly + 2week fee. I just don't know the price points and there is ZERO competition in my area for this.


  • A few services I would be offering:
  • Pg 1 domination for X amount of keywords
  • Web 2.0 sites
  • ranking on google maps (once I learn this technique)
  • FB fan page with X amount of fans.
  • One page on my local directory that I would create articles & tailor to their business with local SEO in mind. It is run through WPMU, so they will be able to have access while I still have mast controls.
I just have never charged for SEO so I'm not really sure on price points for packages. I don't want to go to my first pitch and way over charge, nor do I want to undercharge.
 
1. Don't say FB page with X fans....the fans should be real not bots...and why put yourself in that position anyway.

2. There is a sticky somewhere that talks about directory stuff...there is a price mentioned..

I would also have pricing tiers like

Basic
FB page
Web 2.0 site (be specific...so lets say Twitter)
Google Maps

Advanced
FB Page
Web 2.0
Google Maps
Directory

Premium
Pg 1 domination for X amount of keywords
Web 2.0 sites
ranking on google maps (once I learn this technique)
FB fan page with X amount of fans.
One page on my local directory that I would create articles & tailor to their business with local SEO in mind. It is run through WPMU, so they will be able to have access while I still have mast controls.

Different people respond to different price points. Be prepared to talk about the advantages of each...just avoid making the basic package sounding useless...because its better to get some money than no money at all.

Then one you have a base, you can tag the basic and advanced guys once every three months saying, hey if you started going with Premium you would also get blah blah blah...company XYZ uses premium and has seen an increase of 10% in sales...customers...whatever. You could increase profits and only pay $xxx extra a month.
 
Thanks a bunch! Very helpful post man! All FB fans I would be supplying are local (I've hired people to make FB accounts purely for local Fan collection for this service). However, for the FB pages, would you suggest not saying it will come with X set of fans?

wiredniko said:
1. Don't say FB page with X fans....the fans should be real not bots...and why put yourself in that position anyway.

2. There is a sticky somewhere that talks about directory stuff...there is a price mentioned..

I would also have pricing tiers like

Basic
FB page
Web 2.0 site (be specific...so lets say Twitter)
Google Maps

Advanced
FB Page
Web 2.0
Google Maps
Directory

Premium
Pg 1 domination for X amount of keywords
Web 2.0 sites
ranking on google maps (once I learn this technique)
FB fan page with X amount of fans.
One page on my local directory that I would create articles & tailor to their business with local SEO in mind. It is run through WPMU, so they will be able to have access while I still have mast controls.

Different people respond to different price points. Be prepared to talk about the advantages of each...just avoid making the basic package sounding useless...because its better to get some money than no money at all.

Then one you have a base, you can tag the basic and advanced guys once every three months saying, hey if you started going with Premium you would also get blah blah blah...company XYZ uses premium and has seen an increase of 10% in sales...customers...whatever. You could increase profits and only pay $xxx extra a month.
Click to expand...
 
LegitAM said:
Thanks a bunch! Very helpful post man! All FB fans I would be supplying are local (I've hired people to make FB accounts purely for local Fan collection for this service). However, for the FB pages, would you suggest not saying it will come with X set of fans?
Click to expand...

I would not say anything about fans.

Think about this. If you had a business....would you care if you had 5,000 or 2,000? Furthermore would you pay someone to get 3,000 more?

I am betting you its not even 3k fans you are talking about, its probably 500...so it comes down to this. What would you rather have a FB page or a FB page with 500 people?

You might say page with 500 people...but would you pay any extra for it?

Probably not.

That's all I am saying. So the cost for you to provide the fans does not match the customer's expectations.
 
wiredniko said:
I would not say anything about fans.

Think about this. If you had a business....would you care if you had 5,000 or 2,000? Furthermore would you pay someone to get 3,000 more?

I am betting you its not even 3k fans you are talking about, its probably 500...so it comes down to this. What would you rather have a FB page or a FB page with 500 people?

You might say page with 500 people...but would you pay any extra for it?

Probably not.

That's all I am saying. So the cost for you to provide the fans does not match the customer's expectations.
Click to expand...

Good Point. I'm thinking about setting up 3-5 different packages and then have a "mix-n-match" package between all my services. I also considered having my directory as the "base" service (I rank that for all targeted keywords), then offering every other service for an additional fee, but I fear that makes things a bit too complicated.

Also, I'm just starting to get into researching how to rank businesses on the google local/maps, any advice there is appreciated as well.
 
Don't know how google maps work.

What I would do is for everything you make for customers ad links to your page. So you are creating links to your directory. Since your directory will get benefits it will rank higher.

So you link to businesses, businesses link to you...but so will their twitter, FB...etc etc
 
wiredniko said:
Don't know how google maps work.

What I would do is for everything you make for customers ad links to your page. So you are creating links to your directory. Since your directory will get benefits it will rank higher.

So you link to businesses, businesses link to you...but so will their twitter, FB...etc etc
Click to expand...

Definitely. Since I'm using WPMU, I want to try and find a nice theme for the directory homepage since it is going to be deemed as "exclusive business directory" strictly for my paying clients. What I'm doing is setting up dummy pages to get ranked for all local business oriented keywords, then keeping them dummy till I sell them that particular page.

what are your thoughts on this:

I'm thinking about setting up 3-5 different packages and then have a "mix-n-match" package between all my services. I also considered having my directory as the "base" service (I rank that for all targeted keywords), then offering every other service for an additional fee

Again, thanks for all the help!
 
Legit, im doing pretty much the same thing. I;ll pm you later on (im at my 9-5 right now blah) and we can go over some ideas if u want
 
Makavelimob said:
Legit, im doing pretty much the same thing. I;ll pm you later on (im at my 9-5 right now blah) and we can go over some ideas if u want
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Might be interesting to share your ideas with the others in this thread, you could get some good constructive criticism from the combined knowledge of everyone here
 
LegitAM said:
Yeah, my plan is to offer free 2 weeks of service (but still have them sign a contract), then bill monthly + 2week fee. I just don't know the price points and there is ZERO competition in my area for this.

  • A few services I would be offering:
  • Pg 1 domination for X amount of keywords
  • Web 2.0 sites
  • ranking on google maps (once I learn this technique)
  • FB fan page with X amount of fans.
  • One page on my local directory that I would create articles & tailor to their business with local SEO in mind. It is run through WPMU, so they will be able to have access while I still have mast controls.
I just have never charged for SEO so I'm not really sure on price points for packages. I don't want to go to my first pitch and way over charge, nor do I want to undercharge.
Click to expand...
I dunno about the free 2 weeks personally. A lot of people will just take the trial and cancel, costing you a lot of time and money.
 
-joe- said:
I dunno about the free 2 weeks personally. A lot of people will just take the trial and cancel, costing you a lot of time and money.
Click to expand...

True, I thought about that as well. Just trying to think of other ways I can snag a business if they are questioning my service and are on the way of declining it.
 
LegitAM said:
True, I thought about that as well. Just trying to think of other ways I can snag a business if they are questioning my service and are on the way of declining it.
Click to expand...
Perhaps mention something about their competitors? I'm sure you can bring them into the equation somehow.
 
PandaJam said:
Perhaps mention something about their competitors? I'm sure you can bring them into the equation somehow.
Click to expand...

Good point again. BTW, I just want to say thanks for everyone PM'ing me and posting in here. It has really helped me as well as others (since we are able to collaborate fairly detailed due to being in different areas).

So here is what I'm doing currently:

-I haven't yet begun to pick up clients as I'm still testing the waters on my local SEO skills with dummy pages for local business keywords.

-I've got tracking setup and am getting at least 5 visits a day, which for some businesses is an extra $6k a month (this makes it easy to convince the business owners to buy my business services)

-I've installed Analytics to track all pages.

-My partner has started working on sales scripts and searching for businesses that are not yet open in our area (that way we can help them get immediate exposure).

-I'm working on learning the tricks to ranking in the google maps/local business rankings that come up.

-I found two competitors in my area, but they don't seem to be targeting the same way I am or in my town. I'm planning to gear my plans more towards SEM, social media, and web 2.0

Still pretty nervous about all this though because I don't feel like I have much structure yet. I'm not rushing to launch it though, also any of you guys who have sales script templates I'd love to get ahold of them if possible.
 
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