Where do i find Local SEO Clients?
-
Hey,
So i've been doing SEO for a while now and know a lot of tactics and a lot of ways to get my/others sites hire.
I know good software (and have that software with full licenses and know the methods to use it in whitehat ways that will work well), internal content linking, title/description, webmaster tools (both google and bing), sitemaps etc...
I have clients and my own sites that i have managed to get high in google, as well as my own local site that is number 1 in Google for my hometown + SEO, but that only gets about 80 searches a month and gets me very little if any phone calls a week.
I've also just ordered 250 high quality business cards, that i spent ages designing to look awesome.. If these work well i'll print some more and stick all over the place...
I currently have 2 local clients, 1 is a local web agency who every client they have they pay me a specific amount to boost that company in Google and the other is just a family friend who pays me a small amount a month to build links for him.
I'd like to have 10-15+ clients all on my payroll with a nice amount of income that i can live off.
I just finished full-time school and am just coming into the big wide world and have for paid for my new laptop, desktop, 2 monitors, SEO software licenses and SEOMoz account from niche blogs, software and SEO coaching and such..
I've built a brilliant online portfolio for people and have had a lot of great feedback from online clients.
But i can only earn around $10-$110 per online client for SEO and around $8/hour for coaching... I'd like to be able to make that a LOT more.
I do web/graphic design as well and have built a nice portfolio for that as well.
So back to the main question, how did you and how do i get local clients?
Thanks!
-
Hi there,
I'd like to ask if your online portfolio is targeted locally - that is important to local seo. Or do you have your own business website that represents the service you are offering?
I have worked for a client whose business is local SEO. Below are some of the tasks we usually do:
- optimize his business website locally (we usually include the area in the keywords - e.g. local seo consultant+san jose area) to target seo clients from a specific area.
- we submit a complete company profile to leading local directories (yahoo directory, bing local, google places, yelp, etc.)
- and my client usually visits local companies such as those in the manufacturing industry (personal reach out is important in local seo business)
- some of my client's clients are referred locally (recommendation from friends, colleagues)
At present, we are maintaining more than 15 local websites.
Regards,
Roy
-
In the Title of Craigslist, put your city. Craigslist has a LOT of DA and Google puts the listings in the SERPS. Sometimes it only takes an 15 minutes for the crawl. Just do it once and see if it works.
-
I'm in UK now.. Craigslist is TINY in the UK.. no 1 knows about it and there's no big alternative
-
craigslist. that's my answer.
-
Yeh, i will go around handing out the business cards
The only problem with that is, business cards are damn expensive in the UK..
£35 for 250 good quality business cards...
I've already used 250 in a week, i found that if i go to weddings or partys, go and give them to the people who are on your table (make conversation with them) or the people who are standing around the edge bored.. it gives them something to do whilst they're bored.
I got 5-6 phone calls from this and i only went to 3 events
-
really the best thing you can do its go and hand business cards then you not "another one" that calling this places and offer a website, you have the advantage of local use it.
regard Skype, work with Voip company and have you freelancer register to this company for like $50 a month you will make unlimited calls.
-
I found that it takes a LOT of phone calls and/or emails to get even a single result and people tend to feel frustrated by you calling them, i was thinking about hiring an online freelancer and giving them skype credit to call 1,000 businesses and see if i got any leads but then i thought to myself that 1,000 phone calls through skype would be around $500 and the freelancer would probably spend over 1,000 hours researching and calling...
-
hi and welcome to this community
look to me that the problem you heaving it's that you try to target only your local community and it's great as nationwide level will be very hard to target with the competition and the sites that ranking up.
for local i found that the best way to do it it's:
go online look for restaurants, spa, nail salon and many other local bossiness and you will see many coming up in Google maps but in domain location you have Google.maps meaning they don't have a site or didn't claim this listing and here you go call this business , email or if are a good marketing place and you do have the benefit of being local just go there and hand this business cards.
you can also open yp.com and many other directories and again look for business without websites.
hope that help you
Mike
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Train Client to SEO?
What would you do if a potential client asked you this: Bob and I could meet with you soon to discuss how we would like to work with you regarding SEO. We are specifically curious whether or not it is worth it to have you work on SEO-related issues for a specific period of time or to pay to have you train Bob in doing so for that period of time. We would be interested in comparing rates and the value of each proposition. I am tempted to tell them that I do not doing SEO training. But, I have a feeling that there is a way for me to help the client and to make some money for myself as well. I'm curious what the rest of you would do in this situation though. Thanks in advance.
Industry News | | theBREWROOM0 -
Looking for an SEO consultant/agency specializing in ecommerce and data architecture? Any suggestions?
Looking for an SEO consultant/agency specializing in ecommerce and data architecture? Any suggestions?
Industry News | | EE-Tom1 -
How to Find A SEO Guru?
How to find a SEO Guru I am a looking for a SEO to take over our SEO needs for our website.I am not interested in learning SEO and would rather leave it to the pro's.We already have great traffic 800K+ monthly but we need to take it to the next level and beyond. I have searched through SEOMOZ and read articles everywhere and done all that, I think I am more confused now than when I started on how to find a great SEO. While their are plenty of great SEO guys out their a lot of them I don't feel comfortable putting our business in their hands.Their are some smaller SEO's and some shady SEO's that won't work for us.Then some just don't have the credentials or background for us to hand over our hard earned money and have the future of our businesses in their hands. We want someone who has worked on big projects and had great success and is a industry leader but is willing to work with me and be hands on just not send me reports and suggestions. I am Trying to find SEO guru who knows his stuff and knows it well.I know i will pay good money for this but would like to find some up and comers so I don't have to sell unborn children to afford their services. What would be a good way to a great seo maybe even a guru? Finding the right SEO has become a daunting task.
Industry News | | chrisyak0 -
Choosing an SEO Company
Hi Guys, My first question for the forum. So here's my question, everyone in here has something to do with seo, but how would you choose an seo company. There are many a wild claim made by so many companies. Having done seo on our portfolio for about 6 years, however now I just dont have the time to spend. In my initial inquires I have asked for examples of their work and run a back link analysis to see the kind of links they have been building for their clients but so far all I have found is a load of directory links and no real innovation. I would be interested in your thoughts of how to sound out some companies. Thanks Alex
Industry News | | alexkemsley0 -
Secondshells.com has $3k a month to spend on SEO & marketing. HOW should I spend it & with whom?
We have a Magento based ecommerce site www.secondshells.com and are looking for ways to improve traffic. Our goal is to drive sales of our products. We are in the Android tablet accessory business, since its fairly new the competition is not that great, we would like to get up in organic rankings for our keywords. We have blog updated daily, building backlinks, PR, facebook, twitter, google+, Videos on Youtube, PPC, product feeds to Bing, Google & The Find. The foundation is there but it's a lot to handle in-house. The real question is who to choose to execute the strategy & where to pick them from. There are 1,000's of companies, individuals, Elance & Odesk. Who to choose to execute is more difficult than choosing the direction. We are straightforward and intelligent and want people who can provide a plan of action, execute and report it. All white hat seomoz style of promotion. There are so many choices and avenues to pursue that it is difficult to make a decision as to which way to go. Any guidance or suggestions will be appreciated. SecondShells
Industry News | | BossMike0 -
Best way to recruit quality SEO staff?
We are in a nice position in that we are growing everyday. As the result, we need more staff, but do not have the time to bring along someone without any real SEO background. I have used just about every source over the years to hire people with good and bad result.
Industry News | | RobertFisher
For an SEO, with experience in some or all of the process: Link building, Keyword Analysis Site evaluation, eCommerce, Analytics... where do you go to find someone good? What about to find them yesterday? 😉 Obviously, they do not have to be expert at all, but they need to be familiar with all and have experience in at least two or three.1 -
Why do most Local Directories turn around and lie and try to steal your clients?
OK, it'ssssssss RANT TIME! I am quite accustom to clients sending me emails they have received stating how their site is not optimized and the spammer can get the site ranked number one on Google. They all have @Gmail.com so I am assuming that is a very large SEO firm. Occasionally I send them an email from an anonymous account asking about their site and phone number and they have neither due to exigent circumstances (I assume prison left them broke). But, I am ready to declare war on some local directories! I have now had several clients call me regarding inquiries they received within minutes or days of local.com or merchant circle or SuperPages etc. having us post a listing for the client. Ten minutes ago, I get a call from a pleasant young fellow who introduced himself as being from Web.com. As he began to talk (or read) he stopped all of a sudden and said, "Oh, I see you do most of what we do....." I stated hold on a minute, now who are you with?" It finally came out that my local specialist had listed our company or changed our company with them a few days ago and they were calling to tell me how unoptimized we were." NOTE: I am always pleasant to the caller as they are just doing a job. I said, understand that what I am going to say is not about you, but about your company. I sign up multiple clients with you which helps your business and you run around behind my back and tell them I did not do a good job and you can help them. They just need to leave me. He responded, "Sir, we never recommend anyone leave a company." I said, I am sure you don't. In the end he stated that it probably was not a best practice to mess with people who bring your site business. So, here is the question: Why do we put up with this crap?!?!?! When are we going to say: If you have a directory, be a directory and not a cover for a web sales firm? Why don't we start a couple of directories that are exclusive to those who can answer basic SEO questions and have an email address with the same domain as their marketing web site. Why do we keep letting these clowns do this? Imagine, having built my wife a site, she comes in at the end of the day and says: "I got this call from these people who said the site was not optimized correctly and we are not ranking in Google?" That was Local.com, I believe. My favorite was the rep who called and the more I questioned the SEO and ranking knowledge they were professing, she said: "I think I should let you speak to our Google expert." I said, Great. Three minutes later she returned to tell me he had gone to lunch and would call me back." I am still waiting. Hope I hear from a few of you, sorry for the long rant. I do feel better now though 🙂
Industry News | | RobertFisher2 -
Is it smart to reveal your clients and projects in the Q&A forum? What about on your own SEO blog?
On one hand it seems like having my cake and eating it too: blogging about SEO using my clients as case studies in order to give them a couple backlinks. On the other hand it seems like asking for it from Google or from competitors. Got any advice? And what of mentioning actual domains and brand names when asking questions here in the forum? One one hand it seems like I'd get more specific advice, on the other hand, once again, it seems like it comes with some amount of risk. Any advice? Thanks!
Industry News | | TheEspresseo0