How to Make Money Using Your SEO Skills Locally
Written by PLRMan on February 23, 2009 – 10:41 pm -Do you know basic SEO? Using your knowledge you can start a new service in your own home town helping local businesses gain visibility online. Most business owners are at a disadvantage in not understanding the value of search engine traffic. Your advantage is having the SEO skills that 99% of the people who need it, don’t have.
I decided to open up my Redding Search Engine Optimization business after finding out how my friend was being ripped off by someone who offered him SEO services. Once I began talking to some local business owners, I began to realize just how valuable my own skills were. If you know SEO your knowledge is worth paying for. In this article, I’ll show you exactly what I mean.
My first client is also a close friend. I’ll call him Tom, to protect his, uh, identity (pride). I was researching the need for my idea on opening up an SEO service and found out that Tom was paying $100.00 a month to gain search engine traffic through a listing in a flower shop directory online. My first question to Tom was, “How much traffic are you getting from your listing?” Tom had this blank look on his face when I asked him that question. Then he said, “I have no clue.”
This is not surprizing at all. And it is why quality SEO services are a very needed service. Just because someone knows what Google is, it does not mean they understand the value of a proper listing. Let me show you what I mean.
In the next few minutes I was going to prove to Tom that his $100.00 a month was going right into the trash can. Sad, but true. It’s one of those times where you want to say, “Brace yourself, this is going to smart a little.”
The first thing I did was show Tom what a potential customer would find when conducting a search in Google for his type of business. The goal was to find his business through conducting a search using our town in part of the keyword phrase. The reason this is so important is because when people are seeking local businesses they will most often use the name of the town or city in their search.
For instance someone looking to buy flowers in Redding might conduct a search using the following keyword phrases in Google; Redding flower shops, where to buy flowers in Redding, flower shop in Redding.
We tried many different keyword combinations and the flower shop directory where Tom was listed never showed up. I have to admit that I was very surprized that even I couldn’t find the directory. And I actually know what I’m doing.
I asked Tom what the name of the directory was. Once I had the name, we finally found the directory. As Tom sat there dumbfounded I said, “If your customers cannot find the directory where you are listed, of what benefit is this directory to your business?”
Tom was shocked. He had no idea that paying $100.00 a month for his listing was brining him absolutely no traffic from the search engines. This is not a unique situation. Most people in Tom’s situation are in the same boat as he was.
Now that I had Tom’s full attention, I could offer him my SEO services. I know exactly how to get his website listed so his local customers can find him. It’s a simple matter of optimizing his website and some additional SEO that will require a little offsite work.
Instead of paying $100.00 a month to be listed in a directory that no one will ever find, Tom’s is paying me $100.00 a month to get his site properly listed in Google for local customers looking for his type of business. In this case, I wasn’t even asking Tom to spend any more money than he was already spending. This was, as they say, “a no brainer”.
I have already proven myself with several other clients having a number one listing in Google, MSN and Yahoo so it was not hard for Tom to see how I could help him too. If you have not established your skills online yet, simply offer your clients the first 3 months free. It should not take you longer than a few months to establish any local business a first page listing in Google using sound “white hat” SEO tactics.
If you understand how to properly optimize a website you can help any local business gain a better local listing in the top search engines like Google and Yahoo. Depending on the type of business you may never have to do anything more than optimize their website. More competitive services may require that you include offsite SEO as well.
This truly does not require you to be a savvy sales man or woman. Every business owner should have their offline business properly listed in search engines like Google. More and more people are using the Internet to find local services rather than the Yellow pages. Even when someone does not understand how things work, it takes just a few minutes to show them.
It was very easy for me to start my Redding search engine optimization services. If you already know SEO, this just could be the perfect time to open up your own SEO services and BYOB today.
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Tags: redding search engine optimization, redding search engine optimization services, redding seo
Posted in SEO |