Local Business SEO Journal
- Thread starter phoenixrising
- Start date
Finishing up machine shop -
plans to grow despite having no formal web training and being self taught:
1. found a great list of businesses related to machine shop
2. use work for machine shop to push into more of them
3. use that momentum to dominate 'machine shop' web designing
4. use wealth of experience in that vertical to expand into other verticals
5. use that to build a solid portfolio
6. get into a design/dev firm so i can learn faster and better
7. world domination
plans to grow despite having no formal web training and being self taught:
1. found a great list of businesses related to machine shop
2. use work for machine shop to push into more of them
3. use that momentum to dominate 'machine shop' web designing
4. use wealth of experience in that vertical to expand into other verticals
5. use that to build a solid portfolio
6. get into a design/dev firm so i can learn faster and better
7. world domination
Emailed a bunch of leads today with personalized emails. Logged it all, if I don't get a response within a few days I'll probably walk in, start up a conversation and then refer to my email.
Using the UCSD Vendors list, I've decided to just tailor what I can do for them based on what they need. A LOT of the sites just need a total redesign, and some of them just need some tweaks and some SEO work done.
Will report back.
On the machine shop:
I'm done, I used FreshBooks to invoice him the last 50% and have made an effort to overdeliver, despite being super frustrated at this guys micromanagement style. We'll see if it works as far as getting clients through him!
Final note: If you guys want testimonials for your service to propel you and give you some social proof, ASK for them specifically. People are busy as hell, they won't take the time if you don't make things EASY for them. I usually put it something like:
"Hey, I appreciate your business and had a blast working with you, blah blah, is this an accurate representation of our relationship?"
Then I go on to create a short testimonial that's accurate, and all they have to do is say YES, go ahead and post that. Either that or make it easy for them to create one without actually creating it for them.
Using the UCSD Vendors list, I've decided to just tailor what I can do for them based on what they need. A LOT of the sites just need a total redesign, and some of them just need some tweaks and some SEO work done.
Will report back.
On the machine shop:
I'm done, I used FreshBooks to invoice him the last 50% and have made an effort to overdeliver, despite being super frustrated at this guys micromanagement style. We'll see if it works as far as getting clients through him!
Final note: If you guys want testimonials for your service to propel you and give you some social proof, ASK for them specifically. People are busy as hell, they won't take the time if you don't make things EASY for them. I usually put it something like:
"Hey, I appreciate your business and had a blast working with you, blah blah, is this an accurate representation of our relationship?"
Then I go on to create a short testimonial that's accurate, and all they have to do is say YES, go ahead and post that. Either that or make it easy for them to create one without actually creating it for them.
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?
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.
Thanks FlyingCake - looked into it and I'll be hitting up the chamber soon.
I've been sending email pitches, anyone care to critique one I've recently done?
Website: Wholesale Automotive Machine Inc
Email:
Dear Dave, Brent, Jerry, or Lorena:
My name is NAME and I am a local web designer and developer. I assist San Diego businesses in bringing their company online, improving their online presence, or redesigning their current website to bring it to modern standards. I've just finished up a contract with a local machine shop - you can find their website at Alex Machine | CNC Prototyping and Production Alex Machine Inc..
I came across your website at WHOLESALE AUTOMOTIVE MACHINE INC. and noticed many areas that can be drastically improved to help your visitors navigate better and understand your company more fully.
Layout and Flow - Currently, your website has decent navigation, but the content is laid out sub optimally. I'd like to reorganize the content on each of your pages to present a visitor with the most relevant and important information about your company in the easiest way possible for them to understand.
Images - I'd like to improve the layout and functionality of the images on your website, especially with regards to the 'Services' page. Images help a visitor visualize the services or products a company offers - having them function properly and look beautiful is key to creating a positive impression of your business.
Design and Usability - Technology online moves extremely fast, and oftentimes something just five years old has been outpaced three times faster than it would have been if it was offline. The usability of your site could be improved with a redesign - things like adding space to the sides of the site and making sure it works on all modern browsers are critical for delivering the same content to everyone.
These are just some observations I've made after studying your website, but I would absolutely love to meet with you and discuss these in more detail. My phone number is (858) 248-9106 - please feel free to call anytime, or just reply to this email. Thanks so much for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!
Regards,
I've been sending email pitches, anyone care to critique one I've recently done?
Website: Wholesale Automotive Machine Inc
Email:
Dear Dave, Brent, Jerry, or Lorena:
My name is NAME and I am a local web designer and developer. I assist San Diego businesses in bringing their company online, improving their online presence, or redesigning their current website to bring it to modern standards. I've just finished up a contract with a local machine shop - you can find their website at Alex Machine | CNC Prototyping and Production Alex Machine Inc..
I came across your website at WHOLESALE AUTOMOTIVE MACHINE INC. and noticed many areas that can be drastically improved to help your visitors navigate better and understand your company more fully.
Layout and Flow - Currently, your website has decent navigation, but the content is laid out sub optimally. I'd like to reorganize the content on each of your pages to present a visitor with the most relevant and important information about your company in the easiest way possible for them to understand.
Images - I'd like to improve the layout and functionality of the images on your website, especially with regards to the 'Services' page. Images help a visitor visualize the services or products a company offers - having them function properly and look beautiful is key to creating a positive impression of your business.
Design and Usability - Technology online moves extremely fast, and oftentimes something just five years old has been outpaced three times faster than it would have been if it was offline. The usability of your site could be improved with a redesign - things like adding space to the sides of the site and making sure it works on all modern browsers are critical for delivering the same content to everyone.
These are just some observations I've made after studying your website, but I would absolutely love to meet with you and discuss these in more detail. My phone number is (858) 248-9106 - please feel free to call anytime, or just reply to this email. Thanks so much for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!
Regards,
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
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
Thanks man - I haven't done much with my website yet at all, havent even settled on a design, keywords, anything. Solely focused on getting clients right now - I feel like when I start thinkking about creating a website, getting biz cards, etc i'm getting away from GETTING MORE CLIENTS which IMO when you are under 5 to 10 clients total is the primary concern.
Feel free to hit me up, I want to expand into full SEO and full PPC services (actually about to apprentice with a dude who does ppc) so i'd love to chat!
Feel free to hit me up, I want to expand into full SEO and full PPC services (actually about to apprentice with a dude who does ppc) so i'd love to chat!
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.
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.
Cool dude, thanks for the advice. I'm in between paying clients right now so I may as well build all of that up. Picked up a solid theme from themeforest and am building out the site.
I am doing the website for Toastmasters of La Jolla as part of a volunteer project for them. I've been a member for half a year now and I think it'll be a great way to get more people to the club, as well as a great credibility booster for me!
I am doing the website for Toastmasters of La Jolla as part of a volunteer project for them. I've been a member for half a year now and I think it'll be a great way to get more people to the club, as well as a great credibility booster for me!
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.
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.
Yo so while I'm hunting for my next client, I'm going to be running FB Ads promoting affiliate stuff. My first campaign launched today, I got 6 ads going just about 30 minutes ago.
Right now it doesn't look like they're being served, I bid a few cents above the minimum suggested bid. Will keep thread updated more often now that I'm running PPC as well.
Right now it doesn't look like they're being served, I bid a few cents above the minimum suggested bid. Will keep thread updated more often now that I'm running PPC as well.
Def. failed bigtime on my first campaign, did a bunch of tests and found some good info out though. Trying a gaming offer, went broad, went targeted, went cpc, went cpm, and got some good data. No conversions as far as I can tell, bad CTR. We'll see how this goes.
Hit up a girl I know who's basically a polyglot, she helped me with some translations for a foreign campaign i'm starting.
I don't THINK I can get the math working on the gaming campaign unless I cut the demo's tight, or do some creative stuff with the specific interest targeting. Rocking 0.025% CTR for my broad targeting.
I did a tight demo targeting people into LOTR and saw my CTR bump to 0.04% - better and over a decent sample, showing that targeting more specific interests will get more clicks, but mathwise and eCPC wise it's still shit as far as making the bitch profitable. We'll see.
Image-wise, I noticed that cluttered images didn't do too well. Also, images where the 'object of interest' doesn't have much of a contrast difference with the background were weaksauce. Also, images where I had to scale it down too much to fit what I wanted in (eg too 'busy) didn't perform well.
Doing some splits of extreme face closeup (eyes and mouth max) vs full face as well.
ON THE SEO/WEB SIDE:
Sent out like 35 lead emails, only 1 response stating he only trades for services. Either my email pitch is weak (likely), or these machine shops rarely check email, or something else. Need to cold call and walk in and start conversations, start building some ground swell for my services...especially because I'm gonna want to throw some cash at PPC and I don't really feel like digging into savings.
I don't THINK I can get the math working on the gaming campaign unless I cut the demo's tight, or do some creative stuff with the specific interest targeting. Rocking 0.025% CTR for my broad targeting.
I did a tight demo targeting people into LOTR and saw my CTR bump to 0.04% - better and over a decent sample, showing that targeting more specific interests will get more clicks, but mathwise and eCPC wise it's still shit as far as making the bitch profitable. We'll see.
Image-wise, I noticed that cluttered images didn't do too well. Also, images where the 'object of interest' doesn't have much of a contrast difference with the background were weaksauce. Also, images where I had to scale it down too much to fit what I wanted in (eg too 'busy) didn't perform well.
Doing some splits of extreme face closeup (eyes and mouth max) vs full face as well.
ON THE SEO/WEB SIDE:
Sent out like 35 lead emails, only 1 response stating he only trades for services. Either my email pitch is weak (likely), or these machine shops rarely check email, or something else. Need to cold call and walk in and start conversations, start building some ground swell for my services...especially because I'm gonna want to throw some cash at PPC and I don't really feel like digging into savings.
not sure what you're asking, sounds like you're trying to sell premade websites? haven't done much of that, can't really help
- maybe try pitching local businesses to build ones from 'scratch' and set them up with a solid wordpress optimized website?
I figured I should drop some data down on progress since starting everything.
Total Local Business Income: $2053.75
Total Amazon Affiliate Income: $122.77 (Just made another $15 commission today, holla)
Not enough to live off of yet, but I'm hustling around scraping up cash every way I can right now, some offline business projects have made a decent chunk of cash as well.
Analysis: I could be going a LOT harder than I am right now. For example, my SEO'd domains for amazon affiliates could be raping, but I didn't see early success so I basically let them die off - mistake. I think the key is to keep creating and DGAF about the results, be oriented to the process, not outcome.
Total Local Business Income: $2053.75
Total Amazon Affiliate Income: $122.77 (Just made another $15 commission today, holla)
Not enough to live off of yet, but I'm hustling around scraping up cash every way I can right now, some offline business projects have made a decent chunk of cash as well.
Analysis: I could be going a LOT harder than I am right now. For example, my SEO'd domains for amazon affiliates could be raping, but I didn't see early success so I basically let them die off - mistake. I think the key is to keep creating and DGAF about the results, be oriented to the process, not outcome.
Very impressed with the amount of information here and the effort put in by the OP. I'll be watching this thread.
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)