How Does SEO Help Local Businesses

[wparlaman]

Hello,

I recently took a position as a digital marketing manger with a advertising agency.  Its my job to grow the digital marketing department.

One of the issues I am running into is 90% of our clients are local businesses.  When doing keyword research it is very difficult to find keywords with lots of search.

For example, if I am optimizing for a Ford dealership in Hackensack,NJ there are not a lot of searches for this term.

How can I justify a larger SEO budget when there is just not a lot of search volume for these keywords?

This is nothing like Dog Training Videos or something similar.

Am I missing something?

Where can I pull traffic from for local businesses to justify larger SEO budgets?

Thanks,

Bill

[EGOL]

If you get one client for a dentist that client might spend an awful lot of money.   I just paid nearly $1000 to get one tooth repaired.  They want nearly $100 for a six month check!  So, if you can get that dentist one patient per month that dentist should have positive ROI.

Your work gets a car sold... geez... they want $350 to do the $30,000 mile check!  If you get one car customer per month they should have positive ROI.

Now, at the end of 36 months that dentist should have sustained revenue of  72 cleanings a year and at least 18 minor repairs - unless he has bad breath that scaress away the patients.  The result of your work on a monthly basis would be ((722200)+(18*200))/12 ....  $2700 per month

So, if you are charging a few hundred a month then that might be a good return (for the dentist)... but if you are looking for $2000/month clients then you are fishin the wrong pond.

[anthonydnelson]

When there isn't a lot of KW volume for the local terms, you need to look beyond doing on-page optimization for one or two major KWs. It's not simply a 'target these words and watch the business flow-in' type of optimization.

Instead, your SEO efforts should be based around creating a content strategy. Content that will be interesting, useful and naturally contain a ton of relevant local long-tail phrases that have a tiny search volume of their own. You might not have a keyword that brings in 100 visitors in a month, but you might have 500 keywords that are bringing in 2 or 3 visitors per month. 1500 monthly visits!

Content FTW!

[Mcarle]

I'm a small local business ...

I have TRIED to hire SEO before, but every time I look into it I am not happy with what I run into.I would kill to have someone else take over the SEO for me & gain me clients so I could give them bigger jobs as well...Right now I am paying the 99 a month to do it myself as well as several hours per week.(Hours that I am NOT out gaining clients in person)

Now on to your issue of local vs not so local...

1. It depends on your local economy, here in Oakland it is a very mixed bag but I live quite close to larger markets such as San Francisco I even pull "local" clients from as far as Modesto & Carmel.

2. If your client can understand that people WILL travel to buy from the PERFECT vendor then he/she can pull clients from anywhere...I have had clients literally buy a plane ticket & fly to me to shoot as well as have me fly to them... Your job is to gain that small business a few killer out of state clients show them just how much ROI you can give them.

3. Many special niche markets have VERY loyal clients, who are willing to drive, fly, have products mailed to them...Make sure your clients understand that and once THEY start seeing the money flow more will flow to you...

4. If your clients are in a vacation destination then take advantage of local tourism industry...

Lots of search is not as important as targeted click through conversion search.

I honestly don't care a bit if I get 150 hits a day or 1500, I want clients...

I have in fact increased by web traffic by 100% since Jan and held it at this new level....Guess what...I might have 2x the number of visitors to my site but I don't yet have 2x the number of bookings or 2x the booking rates.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bill,

You're getting some excellent feedback already from members here. I thought I'd pop in to make sure your question is being understood. You write:

"When doing keyword research it is very difficult to find keywords with lots of search.

For example, if I am optimizing for a Ford dealership in Hackensack,NJ there are not a lot of searches for this term."

In Local SEO, one seldom finds high volume keyword phrases with the geo keywords attached. Unless the business is in LA or NY, the number of searches DISPLAYED with city keywords attached will generally be low because the available data centers aren't showing you actual local data. So, your core term takeaways from kw research tools are going to be non-geo-specific keywords (car dealership, ford dealership, ford cars, used cars, affordable cars, car lot, or what have you). Make your list out of these terms and then add on whatever geographic terms are necessary.

Perhaps you already know this, but from the way you phrased your question, it sounded to me as if you might be judging search volume on criteria you can't count on. This is an oft-voiced beef in the Local SEO industry...keyword research tools do not present an accurate picture of true local searches. So, the workaround I've described is what is used by pretty much every Local SEO I know.

Does this make sense? Please, let me know. Great discussion in here, everybody

[ChrisDyson]

As Egol advised you need to understand your clients market.

Whats their average sale?

Whats the lifetime value of a customer? (repeat business)

Potential for Referral business? (Professional Services, Home maintenance)

What is their current marketing spend and Cost of customer Acquisition (COCA) look like?

Can you provide a lower COCA than their current marketing spend?

You don't want to be selling "SEO" you want to be selling your clients on the fact that you can reduce their Cost of Customer Acquistion and provide a higher ROI than their current advertising efforts.

Think of the potential clients near you e.g. Glazers, Home Security Installations, Fencing Suppliers, plumbers that have a high Average sale - a dozen extra sales per year for these businesses could have a serious effect on their bottom line.

[wparlaman]

Anthony,

I think you are right on point with content strategy. I guess the challenge is coming up with content that will drive the right traffic.

If we are selling cars in the NYC area and I write a great article on how to detail your car like a professional and someone from Arizona visits the site, the visitor is not targeted.

The other thought I had was to write about local happenings where the car dealers are located.  Make more of a local portal than a site just dedicated to people looking for cars in a local market.