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.
One of my clients, we’ll call him Tom, owns a local flower shop. Tom pays $100.00 a month for a listing in an online directory for flower shops. I asked Tom if he had any idea of how much Internet traffic he was getting from the search engines due to his listing in this directory. He said, “Umm… I’m not sure.”
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 possible customer would find when conducting a search in Google for his type of business. The goal was to locate 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 if you wanted to buy flowers for a sick friend in San Francisco, but you lived in L.A. you might type the following into the search box, "L.A. flower shop". Even if you lived in San Francisco, if you wanted to learn about local flower shops in San Francisco, it is very logical to use that city as part of your keyword search.
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.
This is very sad. The problem here is that anyone can set up a business and offer their services to someone who really doesn't understand the value of that service. If someone does not understsand the difference between a valuable search engine listing and one that resembles that of a pile of dog doo, then they surely wouldn't know when they're stepping in it. As in the case of Tom, he was not only stepping it it, he was paying to step in it month after month.
After Tom overcame his innitial shock, he looked at me and said, "I don't want to know how this all works, I just want you to fix it." You see, Tom doesn't have the time to try and understand all the in's and out's of SEO. He knows the importance of new customers finding his services online and he was waiting for me to tell him what I could do about it.
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. Using basic "white hat" techniques you can help a local business gain a first page listing in Google just by optimizing their website.
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. Even if your client wants to tackle some keyword search terms that are more competitive, you can tackle this using content management and charge an addition fee as necessarry.
This is not a hard sell. Today it is vital to have your offline business properly listed in the top search engines.. if you come across someone who is totally Internet challenged, you can still show them exactly how valuable this is. Simply ask for 5 minutes of their time. Bring your own PC and Internet access if they don't have it. You can even meet at a local coffee shop with wireless Internet access.
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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