How Do You Get Local Clients?
I have some local clients, but most of mine are national/global and mostly from word of mouth. My site ranks top for my local area for a multitude of keywords, but I get hardly any local clients from it despite the search results being around 50-250 per month per keyword. I've had around 5 over the past 2 years. I'd like 5 a week....
I don't think my local prices are too high either. I don't just look at SEO keywords, I rank for others like get more website traffic/visitors, 1st page of Google, how make more sales online etc those type of long tails. My site is mobile friendly, it's fast, it looks OK but could do with a revamp I suppose, maybe it's too wordy.
Or, should I tweak it and have a 'package' type thing where people can pay by PayPal and not have any dealings with me as I'm very hands on and usually meet them face to face or give them a full breakdown of what their site needs.
Basically, I fail at selling local SEO. Should I go old skool and throw leaflets around businesses that I'd like to work with - although this completely defeats the point in being an 'online expert'. Or should I just start aiming for bigger city keywords ie. London? I work with a marketing company that sub-contracts work to me but they are weak and have only sent me 4 clients in 18 months. They send video reports of their competitors and call them up, email them, basically waste 100s of hours on clients that hardly ever sign a contract. I don't use contracts with my own clients and I think this is exactly why..
The reason being is I've cracked local SEO with link-building. No citations, no G+, or any of that shit. I see top 5 results in two weeks, without fail, in any niche. At most it takes 6 weeks it's position #1-2.
Even though I've been in this game a long time, I'm always keen to learn from others.
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I know a guy that used to ring up the number on every junk mail flyer that he got through his letterbox, and ask them if A they had a website, and B if they wanted more customers via SEO etc. Worked really well for him, but it obviously relies on you being able to build up a rapport quickly with people over the phone.
Sometimes I think that we put too much emphasis on the IM side of things, when we could get a much better return on our time by just going head to head with our potential clients.... but maybe that's just me?
Glad to hear that you're winning in the local SERPs BTW.
Here's a couple of methods that work for me:
1) Directory type sites for either a local area or a specific industry. You can sell advertising space very cheaply, this is a quick sale because it's such a low figure and it builds trust and gives you a foot in the door to sell higher priced services. This method brings in enough clients for me alone. But you have to invest in site building and SEO to gain exposure for the site.
2) @2take2's method above works well. You can extend that to local newspapers too. If people are advertising in local papers, it tells you 2 things: They have money to spend on advertising and they don't really know what to do with it because i don't think anyone really reads local papers anymore. I did this a lot when i first started up, i just sent them a flyer usually and followed up with a call after a few days.
3) Hire sales staff on commission only basis. I've done this as well and it works well. There's a lot of students out there that need to make some money and are too lazy to do any real work for it lol. Get them to cold call for you and pay them anything from 50% - 100% of the first month's payment for any SEO services they sell. They can make a few hundred per week for making calls and you get new clients, it's a win-win but it's not easy to find reliable people to do the dirty work.
4) Business groups and forums. You could get involved in discussions etc but that's probably more work than you want to do. I would contact them and ask to buy banner space on the site or do PPV and get a pop up over some of the popular local business forums, offer a free SEO consultation or something like that.
People on second page of the google wants to be on the front page.
What you do with it is find fb groups and join the group like buy and sell groups.
Post your service in the group. Job is done! Start looking at next luxury car to buy!
To find groups there is great software for this called SOCIAL LEAD FREAK socialleadfreakpro.com. Okay the software is not free but is very powerful for stomping through fb groups and finding targets. I bought pro version and its magic.
All of my clients have come through word of mouth, referrals, and from my existing network of contacts, friends, etc. Just go out and socialize, talk to people, mingle. So many people own businesses and need help with this stuff, especially the help of someone they can trust because they know you or because you're a friend of a friend, or because you "just happened to meet at social event".
And be willing to get your foot in the door with some basic web work. Once they've paid you to do a few webdev tasks like add a page to their website, do a re-design, or do some basic web maintenance, it will be that much easier to upsell them on seo services a month or 2 down the line. And once you've done that you can even work your way in as more of a marketing consultant. Think beyond just SEO.
And if you do a good job, are honest, give clients value, and build a solid reputation, you'll have people beating a path to your door. Being a friendly, trusted marketing consultant to these business owners goes a longgggg way. Sincerely try to help businesses succeed, that's my recommendation.
Remember that most businesses are being bombarded with emails and phone calls about web & seo services on a near daily basis. Don't be just another one of these people that cold call low ranked businesses. Maybe it will work, but if you want to make good money and have clients for the long haul then positioning yourself differently is the way to go. And that means getting out there and networking and meeting people.
Also, SEO & Marketing isn't cheap. This isn't Tinder/plenty of fish. You can't expect people to just look at your website and jump into bed with you. You need to build trust, have them reach out to you, educate them on your site. Maybe your copy or the feel of your business isn't "coming off" well to prospective clients looking at your site.
You said: "The reason being is I've cracked local SEO with link-building. No citations, no G+, or any of that shit. I see top 5 results in two weeks, without fail, in any niche. At most it takes 6 weeks it's position #1-2."
I dont't understand this. Are you only wanting organic rankings? Why would you not want to get your clients ranked highly in local / maps as well? Just curious.
Local clients always say "hey...come and have a coffee and lets discuss my ideas".
F*ck to dat.
If I were you I would be looking at "local clients" on the other side of the world a long ways away from you.
JudderMan - Another idea is to specialise in just a few niches. I kinda fell into that because i was getting lots of referrals from the same niche, i since expanded that to build led gen sites for that niche (example: SEO for *niche*).
The benefits are you become a very trusted source in that niche, even for someone who doesn't know you because you can pull out a huge portfolio of ranked sites in that clients niche. Also makes it easy for me to build niche PBNs, which makes it easier to rank the client sites and my lead gen sites.
If i can rank that no problem...then i know i can rank a real site if u will...Then i use a call center to call everyone on pages say 2-5...Little easier selling to them when i can say hey my cheezie one pager is on page 1...lol
Now i can 301 that site to the client i get and then start working on there site as well....there happy because they get traffic right away
I have noticed a huge difference in CPC for different localities where the local businesses I guess, are a few years behind global trends. And not taking advantage of the cheap rates.
I know that there's a lot more to this than just differences in CPC, parity of customer value etc. But curious about the rationale behind your pricin
For local clients who do not know what seo is strategies mentioned above are good enough.