Local Business SEO Journal

Hey shawn -

Don't have the hosting auths either, he wasn't able to meet the day I posted that, HOPEFULLY I can meet and touch base this week as it's getting annoying that I can't get this really basic information. Would love to share some ideas with you though, will send pm soon. :)

If you have access to hosting and your client is the admin contact for his domain name. I would suggest you transfer the domain away from the existing hosting/designer ASAP
 


Damn that sucks :(, a lot of business owners/clients always get tempted by service providers that charges them less.

In regards to theme customisation, you could talk to the creators of the theme and see how much they charge for doing the customisations for you.. might end up saving money/time that way if they don't charge too much.
 
phoenix, does your state publish a new corporations list. It's a great source for new and anxious businesses to market SEO to.
 
I've recently become obsessed with getting more leads, getting better at pitching, the whole business development thing.

How do you guys go about building that network of people that are entrepreneurs, run businesses, need help? I've gotten some leads via vendor lists, etc - but I need to get more proactive as far as actually talking in-person with business owners. Any tips?

Your local chamber of commerce or government council should be running regular networking sessions, conferences or meet-ups for local businesses. If you attend them you should be able to find new business owners to pitch to.
 
Great thread phoenixrising, been following it for awhile. I am in somewhat the same situation as you. You seem to be focusing on web design, while am pushing to sell SEO services. If your good at SEO you should attempt to sell SEO services packed with your web design. SEO has less customers involvement, is easier to outsource and there's lot's of money in it.

Also checked out your website, it doesn't seem like you trying to rank it for any local keywords you should look into that. When you get some money try testing some PPC campaign's on Adwords.

Good Luck
 
I know what you mean, getting clients is the #1 thing to do, but having a nice website is also pretty beneficial. When I made my site I just bough a theme from theme forest: Premium WordPress Themes and Web Templates - ThemeForest

Also I recommend getting gravity form plugin it's like 1000X better then contact form 7. [ http://www.gravityforms.com/]

My focus is/was on setting up a business system so that I can be replaced by some else to do my work.

Also you can get some nice business cards from vista print for under $15 and in less than 5 minutes of work, definitely recommend getting some: www.vistaprint.ca

^ Everything above can be done in under a day, but the benefits are continuous, so it's definitely worth doing.
 
great post. I am new here and I read the whole thread since I just started doing local seo at my area. But then I am having hard time ranking the keyword since I didnt do listing on Local business websites. The reason for that is, I dont have client that want SEO. An I plan to rank the website to TOP 1 before pitching it to them.

So my question is that, what other backlinks should I use? Or should I create a fake business listing for the Local Business Directory? I am currently blog commenting on all the local keyword website. It seems to work till certain point but after that, you wont get higher ranking.
 
(Just made another $15 commission today, holla)

Nice!! Are you using any kind of amazon plugin for these sites, or just making them yourself? I'm trying to get a network of amazon sites going(some with amaniche and some with unique content and banners, widgets, and text links)
 
Hey phoenixrising hit me up I do SEO out of OC I could give you some tips to get clients.

Helping out a fellow WF member plus I wouldn't want to drive all the way down to SD for client meetings haha.
 
im a loooooong time lurker, but this may be one of my favorite threads. a lot of good info in here and i really appreciate it
 
Sup guys,

Picked up a SEO job today. Hourly, but it'll do for now in lieu of having clients (which I'm still pushing on). The guy's website is Free Business Audio mp3 Interviews | Internet Marketing Secrets And Business Marketing Strategy | Michael Senoff Interviews The Masters Of Direct Mail Selling, Advertising And Marketing and he's looking for SEO help. I've noticed a bunch of stuff, but mainly he ranks #1 for 'free marketing seminars' - doesn't look like a ton of search volume there for that. I suggested targeting higher volume keywords. Also, his homepage is designed in Frontpage with the blog being WordPress.

Should I advise him to convert the entire site to WordPress? If so, how do I even go about doing that while preserving link structure? Little lost on exactly how to proceed, but don't want to lose the job so any tips would be MUCH appreciated!

do yourself and your clients a favor and NEVER post their url's on WF
 
Hey phoenixrising, quick question for you. I see you were doing some marketing based off of Craigslist ads. Are you marketing to companies that are advertising services even though they wish not to be contacted for "other commercial interests"? Just curious, I've personally been a little bit hesitant about doing that but think I could have a valuable service for some people advertising there.