Here’s what it’s all about…

There’s so many competitors today, it’s so easy for your customers to call up 3 companies and shop around for the cheapest price…

But this little situation is your fault…

It’s not that you have cheapskate customers, (there are plenty of them) it’s that you give them nothing else to compare to your competitors other than price…

It’s the same service, the same product, the same boring speel on your website…

No wonder your customers shop around for the cheapest price…

You’re all saying the same thing…

There’s no difference between you and that other guy…

Luckily for you, I’ve got 3 very simple ways to help you to stand out from your competition and escape the price comparison hell that’s currently suffocating your business…

But before I get into the 3 Step Annihilation Plan, you need to know who your competitors are…

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah… If you wanna know How to Stand out from Competitors then you need to know who they are, but…

The easiest way to work out who your top competitors are is to head over to Google and do a Google search for “your service & your service area”…

So if you’re a gardener…

And you live in Chicago…

Your search would be something like “lawn mowing chicago”…

The top 3 who show up in the search results are your top 3 competitors…

Now click into each website and take a look around…

Just don’t over do it…

Most times, looking at your competitors is a rabbit hole that you don’t want to go down…

You’ll either waste time going through their nonsense and think that’s the way you need to do it…

Or you’ll realise they’re way better than you and freak yourself out…

Just know that, no matter what you see on competitor websites, 99 times out of 100 they have no idea what they’re doing…

Especially the bigger companies…

Don’t be intimidated…

It’s actually pretty easy to stand out from your competitors…

So, know who your top 3 competitors are and look at what service or product they offer…

If they show pricing, great…

If they have an offer, even better…

Now let’s move on to you and your business…

Most of what I show you here about standing out, your competitors are not doing…

Trust me…

Your competitors are too scared to try this first one I show you…

Just keep reading…

The 3 very simple ways to help you to stand out from your competitors…

1. Show a Ton of Personality, especially for a business…
2. Specialise in one thing…
3. An irresistible offer stack…

These 3 are all you need to stand out in any local market…

Trust me, nobody is doing this in your local area…

And when you apply the “Magic 3” your competitors will have no chance…

Let me explain each one in more detail…

Show a Ton of Personality, Especially for a Business…

The easiest way to stand out is to stop trying to be all “professional” and up tight…

Just be a real person…

One of the reasons a customer will choose you over your competitors is because they like you better…

Your customers want to deal with real people, not a business…

This is pretty easy…

Any time you post to your business website or socials, make sure you write or talk like you’re talking to a friend…

Imagine you are sitting down with a friend and telling them about your service…

What would you say?

That’s how you want your business to come across…

Like your customer is talking to a friend who is there to help rather than a greedy business who wants their money…

This one strategy is one of the easiest ways to stand out from the competition…

Just be yourself…

Nobody else is doing it…

So when you do it, guess what??

You stand out…

And the great part is, your customers love it…

They feel as though they know you…

The key is to talk like a real, down to Earth friendly person…

Or a not so friendly person…

Just be you…

If you’re a grumpy bastard then let that shine…

Don’t fight me on this!!

Just don’t be too much of a bastard…

Your customers probably won’t want to call you if you’re “angry ranting” all over your website…

Try to make them laugh a little as well…

An angry rant that’s funny is way better than boring vanilla company talk…

The most important thing is to be yourself…

This is especially important with local service based businesses where your customers don’t know who to trust…

Think about this…

If all of the quotes come back at around the same price, but you’ve got a personality driven website…

And you managed to make your customer laugh so they continued to read…

Then you tell them a little about how you solve their problem…

They see a couple of pictures of you…

They see a video of the fantastic work you do…

Then you have your little angry rant that they find entertaining…

Do you know what happens next?

You won’t just stand out, you’ll win out over the competition…

This also works if you’re a little more expensive as well…

If your customer feels like they can trust you more, you can be the most expensive quote and you’ll still get most of the work over your cheaper but boring competitors…

Sounds pretty awesome right?

Lemme guess…

You wanna see what this looks like?

Well, Stanley my friend…

May I call you Stanley?

Great…

Well, Stanley….

You’re currently reading a prime example of how to inject your personality into your website…

I practise what I preach…

When I try to get a message across I find it soooo, soooo boring!!!

So I write in a way that entertains me…

If I have fun writing it, then when you read it, you’ll have fun reading it…

Make sense?

And if you don’t find my writing fun then bugger off to another website…

Let some other boring “Schmuck” tell you how to stand out from your competitors…

Now you know that wasn’t aimed at you…

You thoroughly enjoy my rants, don’t you??

That’s why you’re still here…

And now you know, this stuff works…

Ooh Wee, your prices are about to skyrocket…

The thing is, if you want to really increase your prices, you might need a little more to stand out as the go to business…

That’s why you’ll also want to…

 Stand out by Specialising in one thing…

This is a hard one for business owners to get their head around…

But if you want to stand out from your competitors…

If you want to charge higher prices and still have more work than you can handle, you need to specialise…

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re a plumber trying to advertise your business…

Maybe you’re a plumber who specialises in….

Uumm, let’s say…

Kitchen renovations…

Or a plumber who specialises in sewer blockages…

Here’s the thing…

It’s ok to have multiple specialties but it’s best if they are related or work well with each other…

For instance…

Let’s say you’re a plumber and you specialise in kitchen renovations…

You could also add in bathroom renovations as well, but I wouldn’t try to branch out into maintenance repairs or sewer blockages…

Make sense??

You can offer so many services but there’s a few that you like to do, and more importantly, they make you more money…

These are the services that you want to specialise in…

Focus on becoming the leading expert in this one thing…

When your customer comes looking for a plumber to renovate their kitchen, they’ll find your competitors who do everything…

Kitchens, bathroom, sewer blockages, emergency repairs, gas installations, new homes, roofs, gutter installations and the list goes on…

Makes sense right?

They’re plumbers and they are qualified to do everything on the list…

But then the customer comes across your website and you’re the plumber who specialises in kitchen renovations…

This is what you do all day everyday…

The testimonials on your site are all from previous kitchen renos…

All of the before and afters are from kitchen renos…

This by itself can be enough to put you above your competitors…

But to really stand out from your competitors, you can take it one step further…

Because you work with these clients all the time, you know what their biggest problems and concerns are…

You worked out that your best customers all seem to worry about getting the design wrong…

And once it’s finished, they wish they did things differently…

They look at their kitchen everyday and think…

“If only we put this over here or, maybe we should have had this bench facing this way”…

And the thing is…

This is exactly what they were worried about from the moment you started working with them…

So you put together a guide…

Free Guide Reveals…

The Most Common Kitchen Design Regrets and How to Avoid Them!!

“Know exactly how your kitchen will look and get it right before you sink $60,000 on a kitchen you have to live with for the next 20 years”…

This is so specific to your ideal customer’s fears, they won’t be able to resist downloading your ebook…

You give them tips that will help them but more importantly…

After they read your ebook, they’ll see you as the expert…

And they’ll feel as though they know you better than your competitors…

Do you know what?

If they know you, they’ll trust you…

And if you want to stand out from your competitors, this is a great way to do it…

But you can and should take this one step further…

To really stand out from your competitors you need…

Stand out with a irresistible offer stack…

Let’s recap real quick…

You’ve got your prospects’ attention by talking to them like a real human being, not a weird business…

Then, in their confused search for help, you stand out as the only one who can help by specialising in the exact thing they need…

I’d say you’ve pretty much done it…

You’ve really set yourself apart from your competitors…

It would be almost impossible for you not to win the customer from here…

Unless…

You’re too expensive!!

In most cases, the work you’ve done till this point would give you the privilege of selling your products and services at a higher rate than your competitors but you still run the risk of price shock, especially when your offer is exactly the same as your competitors…

You’re a nice guy or gal…

The customer really likes you…

You clearly know your stuff…

But that higher price for the exact same service that your competitor is offering is a little too spicy for some…

So here’s what we do to put your offer on a different level than what your competitors offer…

We give them an irresistible offer stack…

An offer stack is where you take all of your customers’ problems and objections related to the service you offer and you keep adding bonuses until you eliminate all of them…

Is this making sense??

Let me see if I can explain this…

Let’s stick with the plumber example…

Imagine for a moment that you specialise in kitchen renovations…

And your ideal customers’ biggest problem is that they don’t want to go through all of the hassle of renovating, not to mention the expense, only to realise that they should have done their kitchen differently but now they have to live with it…

They’re also worried about living on a construction site for a long period of time…

They’ve heard horror stories about jobs being delayed and have real concerns that it could happen to them…

They have 2 kids and the thought of preparing meals on a construction site is enough for them to never want to go ahead with the renovation…

Unless you can offer them a solution…

Most companies would simply offer a quote to do the renovations…

If you want a new kitchen with this type of bench and these types of cabinets, it’ll cost you this much money…

This type of offer doesn’t solve any type of problem for the customer…

Yes they get a new kitchen, but the customer is still worried they’ll make a mistake and waste a lot of money…

Whereas, an irresistible offer stack would eliminate each problem and objection one by one…

For example, the offer could include…

1. A consultation with your in house kitchen designer to design the kitchen right the first time
2. Virtual reality mock ups of their exact kitchen to see what it would look like before any money is spent.
3. A guaranteed installation time of 7 days or we cover 50% of the labour cost.
4. 7 nights stay in a local Air bnb while the renovations are being completed.

With an offer like this, you can double your closest competitor and still get more work than you can handle…

The key to an offer like this is you want it to make you nervous…

If it doesn’t, then the offer isn’t good enough…

If it doesn’t scare you then it won’t excite your customer and you fall back to competing on price…

If it freaks you out, then your competitors will never have the guts to copy you…

Guess what?

But don’t panic about this offer…

It won’t send you broke…

Because you specialise in only kitchen renovations, you have your process so tight that you know you can get it all done in 5 days…

And the local AirBnB??

Well, because you are doing a bunch of kitchens every week, you’ve been able to set up a great deal with a local AirBnB agent…

You get the properties so cheap, you’re almost making a profit on it…

Does this make sense?

Great!!

That’s how you’ll be able to stand out from the competition…

It’s no real risk to you but it eliminates all of your customers’ problems and concerns…

And that my friend is how you stand out from competitors…

When you stand out in a bold way like I’ve laid out above, you can’t be copied…

And that’s one of the major problems with trying to be different and standing out…

The moment it works, there’s always someone willing to copy you and take away your uniqueness and advantages…

But when you deploy these 3 methods, most businesses won’t have the guts to do what you do…

So remember, if it scares you, your customers will love it…

If it scares you, your competitors will also be too scared to copy you…

And that’s the most effective, long term way you can stand out from your competitors…

One Bonus “Stand Out” Strategy Free of Charge…

These methods that I’ve explained here are far from the only way to stand out from your competitors but they are 3 of the most effective ways…

One other way that’s worth a mention is customer relationships…

Some people call it customer service but I think customer relationships is a much better way to look at  it…

Having a successful business is all about the relationships you create with your customers…

So many of your competitors focus on getting more customers and making more money but the focus should be on your customers’ experience when they work with you…

When you let them know what time you’ll be there or that their package is on the way, or call to find out how they’re going a week after you installed their new aircon unit…

This makes all the difference…

It’s a really powerful way to stand out from your competitors…

Put your customers’ needs before yours…

Pretty simple but nobody does it…

That’s why when your business is the one who does focus on the customer, you’ll stand out in a sea of competitors…

Well, that’s about all you need to know about “how to stand out from competitors”…

I hope you’ve found this information useful, but that’s about all I’ve got time for today…

If you have any questions, leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you…

Now, go forth and completely eliminate your competitors…

Go on…

Drive ‘em out of business!!

Well, at least follow what I’ve laid out above and stand out, Dagnamit!!!

Peace,

Jace…

The post How to Stand Out From Competitors With These 3 Ballsy Techniques… appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

This could work if you want to get reviews on Google or even if you want reviews on Facebook, it dosen’t matter. The strategy to actually get customers to leave you a review is the same…

I don’t need to tell you how important reviews are for enticing your customers to give you a call…

You already know that…

And you probably already know that customer reviews really gives you a boost in the map rankings and Google Seo, right??

But perhaps what you don’t know is that with the right strategy in place, it’s really simple to get 5 reviews in a week…

Or 20 reviews in a month…

And if you dare to dream…

100 reviews in only 6 months…

Ok, let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Let’s start with getting you 5 reviews this week…

Introducing…

The Most Fool Proof, Drop Dead Easy, Guide to How I Get More Reviews Each And Every Week…

So let me just start by saying I own 3 local businesses…

I’ve had a lot of experience struggling to get customer reviews…

It seems to be a trend that if you do a great job for your customer, and they tell you how much they love your work, that you’d expect them to jump onto Google and Facebook to tell the whole world about this great person and company that they discovered…

Wrong…

It rarely ever happens…

As I’m sure you’ve discovered for yourself…

The thing is…

They don’t know how much that review would help you and to be honest, it’s not on the top of their list to help you…

They aren’t sitting around wondering how your business is going and what they could do to help…

So if you want that precious review from your happy customer, here’s what you need to do…

You Have to Ask Them For A Review!!

It’s as simple as that…

Every time you do a job, or you send out a product or whatever it is that you do, you need to ask your customer to review your business…

99 out of 100 won’t do it unless you ask them…

Get it??

Every customer you do work for…

Ask them to review your business…

So if you aren’t already asking, start today…

This will have the biggest impact on the number of reviews you get…

Now I know that at this point, there’s usually 2 groups of business owners…

1. You’re asking for reviews but people don’t leave them…

Or 

2. You feel uncomfortable asking for reviews…

I can only help one of you at a time so let’s start with…

You’re Asking but Happy Customers Still Won’t Leave You a Review…

Ok, ok, so there’s 3 things you need to consider with this…

Make sure you ask for the review within 24 hours of doing the job…

You want the experience to be fresh in their minds…

They love your work today but a week from now, they don’t care as much…

So make sure you ask them right away…

What if they still don’t review your business?

Well, what can I tell you??

Your customers get busy and they forget…

The easy fix is to send them a reminder…

Wait 2 days and if they haven’t left you a review then send a friendly reminder…

And if they still don’t leave you a review??

I’d send another reminder about 3 days after that…

And if they still don’t leave you a review??

I’d forget about it…

I’ve had companies send me a reminder every week for a month and now I hate these guys…

So damn pushy…

Do you know what’s better than getting a review?

Getting a repeat buyer…

So don’t push too hard…

1 review request and 2 reminders is plenty…

What you have to remember is that some people will never leave you a review…

Except it and keep them as a paying customer instead…

And sometimes you need to realise that your business isn’t all that great to be reviewing anyway…

You did a good job and the customer is happy but your service wasn’t that spectacular that they would want to leave you a review…

So if you want to know How to Get More Reviews… Deliver a Service Worth Talking About!!

It can be as simple as that…

If you unblocked their toilet, then great but, ehh…

Do you deserve a review?

Maybe you do but can your customer be bothered??

But if you were on time…

And you called to confirm the day…

Then when you arrived you were dressed clean and tidy…

You took off your boots to walk on the carpet…

You cleared the blockage and cleaned up all your mess…

Ohh and while you were there, you noticed that the bathroom tap was dripping so you offered to give them your special “Money Saver Plumbing Audit”…

This is where you inspect the 5 main areas where a home is losing money on faulty plumbing fixtures…

It only takes 15 minutes but fixing one dripping tap could save them $150 over the year…

Then you do your audit and discover that their cooktop is electric and 15 years old…

You have a much better gas unit that would save them $300 per year on their bills…

After you change the washer for them and fix their dripping tap, you give them a quote for their new “money saver” cook top and let them know that they don’t need to replace it right now…

But once they’re ready, you can help them save money…

You go on your way but not before you give them your direct “Emergency” phone number only for your VIP customers…

And tell them that you can help them if they have any plumbing emergencies…

You’ve just given them an experience like no other company out there…

And 1 day later you follow up to make sure the toilet and tap are working properly and ask them to call you personally if they have any trouble with either one…

Now ask for a review…

See what happens…

And not only that…

Raise your prices while you’re at it…

Turn off all of your advertising because the repeat work and referrals will be too much for you to handle…

But more importantly..

The Number of Reviews You Get Will Jump Through The Roof…

The big take away here is that if you want to get more reviews then you need to deliver a service worth reviewing…

It’s as simple as that…

If this is too much work for you then you need to consider if being a business owner is for you…

Pocketing all  of the profits and having the freedom of being the boss comes at a cost…

Taking care of your customers and I mean, really taking care of your customers is the cost you have to pay…

Otherwise, maybe you’re in the wrong business…

Just something to think about…

Moving on…

This One Thing Could be the Reason Your Customers Aren’t Leaving You Reviews…

I had this one customer who wanted to leave me a review but they had one big problem…

They couldn’t work out how to leave me a review…

I sent them to Google My Business but they didn’t have a Google account…

If your customers don’t have gmail, or a youtube account then they can’t login and leave you a review…

No problem, I’ll just send them over to Facebook to leave me a review…

2 days later…

No review…

I reached out to my customer and asked them if they had left a review on Facebook…

Apparently, they couldn’t work out where they needed to go on my page to leave a review…

So here’s what I did…

I wrote a little step by step guide that I sent to them so they knew exactly how to leave the review…

It was literally, click on this button here and I dropped in a screen shot of the button…

It was so simple that any confused customer could follow and leave me that precious review…

You know what happened?

I sent them the guide and they never went and left me that review…

They had already moved on…

They lost interest…

That is why I always send out this step by step guide to show them exactly how to leave me a review the moment I ask for the review…

Take them by the hand and show them while they’re hot and ready to review…

If it’s too hard for your customer, they won’t bother coming back and doing it again…

You get one shot at it…

So make it as easy for them as you can and you’ll be rewarded with more reviews for your business…

So there you have it…

The Triple Attack Method to Get More Online Reviews For Your Business…

For you there who has the B@lls to ask for reviews, Go Forth and Prosper…

You have everything you need as long as you take action…

That’s the only thing I can’t give you…

So go on, get outa here and get to work…

Now for you “Big Fraidy Cats”…

 Let’s look at the most non-scary way to get more customer reviews…

How do I put this…

You need to step up and be brave…

You’re scared of being rejected or it’s embarrassing to ask for reviews, I get it…

But if you can’t work up the courage to ask a happy customer to leave you a review then maybe you’re not cut out for to be a business owner…

But you’re here right now trying to get better so I know you really want this…

Just rip that damn bandaid off and do it…

Now with that said…

You do have some options to make this a little easier on yourself…

Firstly…

Only ask for a review from customers who are really happy…

Then, have a set message that you can copy and paste and then text it to your customer…

You don’t have to ask them in person or over the phone…

Just send them a text…

When they say yes, you can also text them the link to go straight to the page where you want them to review you…

And if this is still too hard for you…

Get someone else to send them a text…

You don’t even have to do it yourself…

Ask you partner or your brother or your mum…

I don’t care…

Tell them exactly what to text and then get that text to your customers…

Here’s what’s going to happen when you do…

Most people will ignore it…

Yep, even the happy customers…

Then you’ll have a group of customers that’ll reply back with, “Of course I will, send the link over”…

Once you get that response and your reviews start to grow, you won’t care about sending out the review request…

Who cares if they don’t respond?

There’s always a buch who will and they’re the ones we care about…

You just have to do it…

One More Thing Before we finish up all this talk about How to Get Reviews…

I have a simple 3 step process that I use when I ask for a review…

I can show you how I ask for the review, how I follow up if they don’t leave a review and how I take them step by step through the process to make it super simple for them…

Just enter send me an email to jason@thelocalbusinesslifestyle.com and I’ll send it right over to you…

That’s it from me…

Peace,

Jason…

The post How to Get More Reviews… The “Way too Simple” Technique to get a Flood of Reviews appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

Sharing these secrets could ruin me…

It could be extremely risky sharing how I do Local SEO Marketing to turn over huge profits for my business…

You could be one of my greedy competitors trying to knock me off the top spot…

And if you did manage to master local SEO marketing and knock me from my throne, you’d be stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars right from under me…

So why would I reveal my local SEO marketing secrets and risk it all?

Well the truth is, for you to take my secrets and use them against me would be highly unlikely…

Firstly, you would have to be in my local area…

Then you’d have to be offering the exact same service as me…

And to top it all off, the way I do local seo marking and the way I position my business on Google, my rankings are locked away safe and secure…

Just how your business rankings will be when you follow my systems…

Please don’t take this as arrogant bragging…

It’s just confidence in knowing I’ve ranked above “Goliath Businesses” that have been at it for decades…

So I’m not worried…

Now, before we dig into the juicy stuff, there’s something you need to know…

This is How to do Local SEO “Marketing” not a step by step on how to rank your site…

This guide is about the balancing act of trying to satisfy Google so you rank but ultimately what you need to put on your website so your customers will actually call…

This is the local seo marketing strategy to get you more customers and score higher priced sales…

Understand??

I show you the best local keywords to go after and what you should say and do once a customer lands on your page but I don’t show you how to rank that page…

Ok, so now let’s get into the first step…

The Key to Local SEO Marketing is Finding the Local Money Making Keywords…

This is one of the most important steps in the whole process because if you choose the wrong keywords, you may rank but you aren’t going to get any calls, right?

So getting the right keywords is really important but it’s also really easy…

You just need to do a little bit of thinking before you decide to go after a keyword…

For example, let’s say you’re a Roofer who works around Brighton…

Now think about the keywords that customers would type into google when they need a roofer…

Something like, “Roofer”, “Roof Plumber”, “Roof Repairs”, “Roof Restorations”…

And if you do a quick search volume check for these keywords you get 14,800 searchers per month only for the keyword “Roofer” and only in Australia…

Imagine ranking number one and potentially getting 14,800 calls a month…

Business will be booming!!

Personally, if I’m a Roofer who wants more customers from local SEO marketing, I’m not going to try to rank for these keywords…

These keywords have a huge search volume but the search term is too general…

There’s no money in these keywords…

If you work around Brighton, Victoria and someone in Sydney searches for “Roof Repairs”, your website will show up…

Do you really want calls coming in from Sydney??

Na didn’t think so…

I know we can do better…

Here’s what a “Money Keyword” looks like…

You’d get so many more customers if you went after specific keywords like “Roofer Brighton”…

Putting the suburb on the end of the keywords makes all the difference…

It cuts the search volume down to 110 per month but these people searching are looking for exactly what you offer…

Someone who gets more specific with their search is ready to spend money…

Hence why I call them “Money Keywords”…

So now, take all of those keywords that customers would use and put your suburbs on the end of them…

Do it for every service you offer and every suburb you service…

You could have 100 plus keywords but that’s ok…

It’s just more ways to get customers…

So next you have to build out these pages on your website and put a different marketing message on each page to entice your customers to give you a call…

But before you do any of this…

A word of warning…

If you want to do Local SEO Marketing properly, Never Follow Your Competitors…

In all honesty, your competitors are clueless when it comes to marketing their business…

They’re roofers or plumbers, they’re not marketers…

And if they hire an agency to do their marketing, they usually know how to rank websites but they’ve never owned a business so they don’t know how to market effectively…

They’ve copied whoever came before them and “they” didn’t know what they were doing…

And the only reason they rank at the top of Google is because there’s no better option…

Until now…

Because, once you know how to do local seo properly and you couple that with killer marketing, you’ll be unstoppable…

So let’s move on to the marking part…

Make Sure You Meet Your Customer Where They’re at…

This is marketing 101…

Continue the conversation that’s in your customers head…

So in other words…

When a customer does a search on Google for your service, and they click through to your website, what are they thinking right at the moment that they land on your page??

And that all depends on what they type into the search engine…

For instance…

If they come looking for “pool builders melbourne”, that’s very different from “fibreglass pool installers melbourne”…

It could ultimately be the same service but they have different thoughts in their mind when they do the search…

So as an example, when someone is searching for “pool builders Melbourne” and they land on your website, the first thing they should see is that you’re a Pool Builder and you’re in Melbourne…

They need to know they’re in the right place…

Now, what are they thinking?

Are they looking for a phone number or do they want a little more info first?

Well, they didn’t mention fibreglass pools or concrete pools so they might be a little further back in their pool journey…

So you could meet them with something like this…

The 3 Critical Things You Must Know Before You Even Consider Building a Pool in Melbourne…

Then you give them the option to download a short PDF that explains what they need to know…

You give them some info to help them make a decision and get them closer to making a purchase…

And who do you think they’ll call once they’re ready?

That’s right…

You!!

You helped them to understand what they needed to know, so now they trust you…

Now what if they searched for “Fibreglass pool installers Melbourne” instead??

Well, this customer is a little further along the pool journey and they know they want a fibreglass pool…

So now you hit this customer with…

The 3 Things You Must Have Before Installing a Fibreglass Pool… 

Get This Wrong  And You Could Instantly Double Your Installation Cost…

Just to be clear, I just made these headlines up on the spot as an example…

To market your business properly, you need to know…

What’s their biggest problem related to your service??

The best way to work this out is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes…

Imagine that you’re on your phone and you’re searching for “your service”…

What would they be thinking at that exact moment that they type in a money keyword and then click through to your site??

Let me give you an example…

When I was running my deck restoration business, my “ideal” customer would always have a problem where they had paid thousands 2 years ago to have their decking done, they used all of the best oils and cleaners and now the deck looks terrible, it’s all peeling and needs to be redone…

Or they did it themselves in the past and it looks terrible so this time they want a professional who knows what he’s doing, right?

All of my competitors would say something like…

“Welcome to Decking ‘R’ Us… We’re the best in town. We’ve been doing deckings for 20 years and we use the best equipment, so if you want your decking done, look no further”…

To be clear, this is just terrible…

It’s all about the company and not about the customer and their problem…

The customer doesn’t care about you, they only want to know how you’re gonna help them…

Got it??

So when they click over to your website, this is what you could say…

Don’t be fooled by the “Decking Experts”, Your Thousand Dollar Deck Restoration Will Only Last 6 Months Unless You Do This…

Then I go on to explain why their decking peeled and how we stop it from happening again…

I came up with the solution to the problem that they’re currently facing…

Using this type of marketing, I’ve been able to win jobs when I was much more expensive than the competitors…

That’s one of the basics of local SEO marketing…

Know your customers biggest problem related to your service…

Agitate the problem and make them really feel it…

Then relieve their pain with your solution…

Which leads us to the next step…

Your Marketing Should Solve Your Customers’ Problem With an Irresistible Offer…

This is a critical step in your local seo marketing…

Remember that one of the most critical ranking elements is your customer experience while they’re on your website…

It also happens to be one of the most important aspects of your marketing as well…

You need to give the customer exactly what they’re looking for…

And if you can manage to tap into the customer’s mind and know what they’re looking for, you’ll get the Google ranking and the phone call…

I’ve already gone through how you stand out and actually address the concern the customer has at the very moment they land on your website but this is only the first step…

This will definitely get your customer to call you and you’ll be rated above your competitors for sure…

But, you still haven’t got the sale yet…

They still have concerns and objections that you need to squash…

The best way to do this is with an “Irresistible Offer Stack”…

An irresistible offer is an offer that your customer would be crazy to say “No” to…

The way you create an offer stack is to completely eliminate the main problem your customer faces, then stack on bonuses to address any objections that they have to your service…

For example…

With the deckings, the customers’ main problem was that they paid thousands for a deck restoration and it only lasted 6 months…

When they come to my website, I show them how to stop their deck from peeling and fading…

This information is designed to position me as the expert so they’ll give me a call but I also optimise it for my keywords so Google will rank my site…

If you put this info on your page you’ll be doing great marketing and also great local SEO…

Then I present them with my offer stack…

The main problems I have to eliminate are…

Deck fades after only 6 months…

1. We offer 3 coats instead of the industry standard 2. 2 coats gets you 6 months whereas 3 coats get you 18 months…

The most expensive oils were used but they started to peel after 12 months…

2. The reason the decks peel is because the oil was applied too thick. We have our special “Brush on, Brush off technique that we use to apply only what the decking needs…

They had their decks done in the past and they hated the final colour…

3. We include sample pots of any 3 colours they choose so we can sample the colours right on their deck so they know how that colour will look on their specific timber…

They want their deck to last 5 to 10 years instead of the typical 6  to 12 months…

4. We have a special maintenance program of cleaning and recoating before the damage occurs so it’ll look great for 5 to 10 years…

 They really want someone who knows what they’re doing because the last guys clearly didn’t know…

5. Our whole process is different to the competitors. They sand with big machines. We explain how the machines make the deck weak and then we offer our “Gentle technique” of environmentally friendly chemical stripping…

So the last problem was solved by  the information you put on your website…

They read it and now they believe you know what you’re talking about…

This information on your website actually sets the stage for your solution and your offer stack…

Now you can present your offer stack to eliminate all their concerns and seal the deal…

If you do all of this, you’ll have a great local marketing strategy in place…

That’s how you market a local business but now you just need to take care of the SEO…

To do Local Seo properly, you need to go back through your marketing message and you need to optimise it for Google…

Here’s a quick outline of what you need to put on your webpage to optimise it properly…

1. Keyword in the heading…
2. Keyword in the opening sentence…
3. Make sure your first headline is H1 and your second headline is H2…
4. All subheads should be H3 or H4…
5. Have internal links to relevant pages on your website…
6. Have external links to other relevant websites…
7. Include geographical information on each page…
8. Aim for close to 1000 words of relevant content…
9. Scatter your keywords through your text so it sounds natural…
10. Don’t use your keyword too many times…
11. Use variations of your keyword…
12. Optimise images with alt tags…
13. Make sure your webpage loads fast…
14. Optimise meta data and title tags to capture attention and include keywords…
15. Make sure to claim your Google Business Profile…
16. Optimise Google Business Profile but that’s for another post…
17. And don’t forget to get quality backlinks

There’s so much more you can do to optimise properly for local seo but that should be enough to get you to page 1…

Well, that’s pretty much it when it comes to dominating Local SEO Marketing…

I think I’m gonna leave it there for today…

If you need any more help, I have a tonne of other articles that go into more details on the Local SEO or even how to market and write content for your website…

You should have everything you need to dominate in the world of local business…

But what I’ve outlined here for you today is a killer local marketing strategy…

It’s the same one that I use to grow my own local businesses…

So I hope you’ve learned a few things that you can implement in your business right away…

The thing is…

You need to take action…

That’s the only difference between a local business that thrives and one that dies…

So take action today and look back in a month’s time and see how much your business has grown…

Well, I’m outta here…

Peace,

Jace…

The post SEO Nerd Reveals How to do Local SEO Marketing in 2023… appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

The truth is, you don’t need any money to start a landscaping business…

Any equipment you need, you can always hire from your local Kennards Hire even if you don’t have any money…

And you don’t need any money for advertising either…

As long as you follow what I show you in this here guide you won’t need a cent…

Just keep reading, I’ll show you how…

Let’s get into it shall we, my moneyless landscaper??

The 3 Easiest Ways to Start a Landscaping Business With no Money!

Ok great, so here’s the first thing you need to do is…

You need to get customers…

The idea is to get customers, sell them on your services and get paid 50% upfront before you start any work…

This way, you can get some cashflow to hire equipment, buy materials or any tools you need without spending any of your own money…

And considering you don’t have any money, this is going to be a game changer for you…

But in order to spend “Other People Money”, you’ll need paying customers…

So that’s why I’m about to show you some of the best ways to get landscaping customers when you have no money for advertising…

The first one is…

Piggyback on the Good Will of Other Non-Landscaping Businesses…

Make a list of all the landscaping services that you can offer with your current skills and tools or equipment you have…

Write down everything…

It could be something like…

1. Retaining walls
2. Hydroseeding
3. Installing instant turf
4. Landscape design
5. Build Deckings and pergolas
6. Pruning and hedging
7. Lawn care

Whatever you can currently do with what you currently have…

Keeping in mind that if you have no money, you can always take a 50% deposit before you start any work so you can get materials or even hire any machinery that you need…

So now you know what service you’re going to offer, we need to get some customers…

Because you have no money, you won’t have time to build a website and mess around with trying to advertise…

And honestly, you don’t need a website to start out…

What you do need is to get customers right now…

So here’s what you should do…

You’re going to make another list…

Yep…

Another bloody list!

Anyway, think of all of the other businesses that have your customer…

No, not other landscaping companies…

You want other local businesses that don’t offer the same service or compete with you…

Your list could be…

1. Lawn mowing company
2. House painters
3. Handyman
4. Home Builders
5. Real Estate agents
6. Gutter cleaners
7. Plumber

Now take this list and do a local search on Google for each of these services you listed above…

Start with 3 companies for each service you list…

Then…

Call them up and ask them if they can handle more customers…

Yep…

Ask if they want more customers…

I know we’re supposed to be getting you landscaping customers, but you can’t call up companies and beg them for work…

Well you can, and in some cases it will work but I have a much better idea…

You see, most people only care about themselves and what you can do for them…

Why should they recommend their customers over to you?

They don’t even know you…

How about if we do something nice for them first and then ask them to send over some customers??

Yeah, that could work…

But what could a local business need?

Hhmmm??

How about more customers???

Yeah, we can send them customers and they’ll love us so much…

Then we can ask for customers in return…

But we have a little problem don’t we??

You don’t have any customers…

No, you don’t, but you do know someone else who has customers…

The other local businesses on the list…

So you call up the handyman and you ask him if he can handle any more customers…

You tell him that you get a bunch of customers who always need little repairs done but you don’t do that sort of work…

Then you ask him if you can send the customers over to him…

He’s gonna love you for it…

“Yeah man, send them over”…

Ok, now you can ask if he can also send you over customers who need landscaping work done…

But let him know the specific types of work you want…

Like hedging and pruning…

Or Lawn repair and maintenance…

So next time he notices patchy lawns on one of his clients’ homes, he’ll recommend you…

And you can send customers over to him as well…

Damit! but you still don’t have any customers yet…

Ok, so let’s get some customers to send over to your handyman friend…

What we need to do next is call the home painter and offer him the same thing…

Now you’ve got 2 local businesses sending you customers but we can’t stop now…

Call up the gutter cleaning company and offer him the same thing again…

Next time he’s cleaning gutters and there’s trees hanging over his clients home, he can recommend you to trim them back…

Wow, we’re really starting to get somewhere…

So what you wanna do is, call up the plumber and the next time he digs up someone’s backyard to fix those pipes, he can recommend your service to fix up the Landscaping that he just destroyed…

Do you think with 4 or 5 companies sending you customers, that you’ll start to get customers that you could send back to each of your referring partners?

Yeah you will…

If you think that this is too much work then shame on you!!

But I feel you…

There’s an easier way to do it and you still don’t need any money…

The alternate way to do this is to offer your “business friends” a commission for sending you a paying customer…

Basically, you can offer to pay them $25 or $50 or $100 for everyone they send over who becomes a customer…

Now, the commission you pay them all depends on how much a customer is worth to you…

You don’t want to give away all of your profits, but if you go too cheap, your business buddies won’t send you any customers…

If you make it attractive for your business friends to send you customers, they’ll be on the lookout to see if they can send you some work…

If there’s free money in it for them, they’ll be more inclined to find customers for you…

Just a thought…

And that my friend is how you start a landscaping company with no money…

Well, it’s one way…

Don’t go anywhere because I’ve got another pretty cool way to start a landscaping business if you have no money…

This next method is how I started up when I had no money…

I fired up the internet and went onto a search engine called Google…

You might have heard of it…

Next, I created a very, very basic and very free website on wordpress…

Then I went over to Google ads and put up an ad in my local area…

Now hold on…

Before you claim you have no money for ads, just know, you don’t need any money…

You can set up your landscaping business with no money and start running ads and you don’t need to pay until 30 days later…

When I did it, I got my first call 30 minutes after I went live with my ad…

And that one job put $1500 in my pocket…

I think the total cost for the month was $95…

But I was getting at least $1500 a week for that $95…

I took some of my earnings and paid my ads account at the end of the month…

And then I had money so it was no problem…

As effective as this ads method is…

And while you can start up with no money, get landscaping customers in today, then pay it off at the end of the month…

I know this could be a touch too risky for some of my risk averse peoples…

So how about this next free way to start a landscaping business with no money??

Now, this one is free but it will take a lot longer to start getting customers in…

But, it’s one of the most effective ways to advertise your landscaping business…

It’s one of the best online advertising methods for any local business and it’s free…

Have you ever heard of Google My Business??

Yep, it’s those map listings that show up when you do a local search for a landscaper…

Yeah well, let me tell you…

If you can get your landscaping business to show up when customers go looking for a landscaper, you’ll be making all sorts of money…

Did I mention that it’s free??

Here’s the thing…

Whenever something costs you no money, you always have to pay with time…

Because truth be told…

Getting your business to rank at the top of the map listings can take 2 weeks or it can take 6 months…

That’s why you need to head over to Google My Business and start the process…

Claim your listing, fill out your information and get your business verified…

Then you can look at some of my free training on how to get your business to rank at the top of the maps listings…

Well there you go my greedy little landscaping friend with no money…

If you follow my 3 ways to start a Landscaping business with no money, you’ll have money soon enough…

Well that’s all from me…

Peace,

Jace…

The post How to Start a Landscaping Business with no Money… appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

Inbound advertising is where the customer comes to you instead of you chasing the customer…

An example of inbound marketing is when a customer searches on Google for an emergency plumber, they land on your website and they call you…

They Initiate the contact which means they want to speak with you…

You never want to waste time talking to people who aren’t in need of a plumber…

You’ll be too busy running your plumbing business and making money to be out chasing customers…

So with that said, let’s look at the first inbound advertising method..

The best way to advertise a plumbing business would definitely be…

Getting listed on Google My Business…

Advertising on Google Maps has had the biggest impact on my business out of all of the advertising methods I use…

Google My Business is definitely the best way to advertise your plumbing business in 2023…

If you look at the search volume for only one keyword like “Plumber Richmond” it comes up with 210 searches per month…

That’s 210 potential customers calling your business…

When someone searches for a plumber, they really want a local plumber….

Some people click on the ads but very few…

Most people skip over the paid ads at the top of the page and head down to the Maps listing…

That’s where the majority of those 210 people will click on…

Those who don’t, the remaining will head down to the top 3 spots on the local search results…

You do the math…

The biggest rewards come from the Map listing…

When you get listed on Google for a bunch of these local plumbing keywords you won’t be able to keep up with all the calls coming in…

Here’s how you should approach advertising a plumbing business on Google My Business…

Head over to Google My Business to claim your free Google Business Listing…

Fill out your listing with all the information they need and get verified as soon as possible…

If you already have a website then use it, but if you don’t have a website, you can use the one Google generates for you from your maps listing…

This will get you listed and then you can optimise to rank at the top of the Maps listings…

What’s that you say?

You don’t know how to do that??

Don’t worry, I’ve already written a guide on how to rank on Google maps…

So now you have no excuses…

Alright, let’s keep going…

Now to be effective at advertising a plumbing business on Google My Business, there’s a few things you want to do…

The first thing is to post a tonne of pictures…

But not just any old pictures…

Of course you want to be posting before and after photos of your handy work, that’s standard…

But the real gold comes from posting pictures of you and your team…

For some strange reason, people don’t trust plumbers so they want to see what you look like before they call…

You don’t need to be good looking, you just need to look friendly and trustworthy…

So wear a uniform and button up your shirt damit!!

It’s not hard…

Would it kill you to get a haircut??

Just do what you have to do to look clean and friendly…

And’ I’ll tell you another little tip when it comes to advertising with pictures…

Put some pictures on there with you and your kids…

Trust me, it’s borderline exploitation but it works wonders to build trust with anybody over 50…

The other thing you should do if you’re going to be successful with advertising on Google Maps is…

 Constantly get Reviews…

Firstly, your customers love it…

You’d be surprised how many people call me and tell me they read my reviews online and want me to do their work…

The second thing with getting more reviews is, Google loves it as well…

Get 2 reviews every week and see how Google pushes you to the top of the local map listing for plumbers…

Be consistent with these two methods and see how your plumbing business will get traction…

Now you’re starting to show up in the map listing, your plumbing business should be set…

There’s a lot more you can do to advertise your plumbing business, but if you only advertised this one, you’ll have more than enough work to make a decent profit…

And once this starts working…

You’ll probably be tempted to not do any other advertising for your plumbing business…

But remember what I said right at the start of this article…

You need 3 different inbound advertising methods at all times…

And that’s because at any time, Google can drop you from the listing for no reason or any reason they want…

What are you going to do then??

It’s ok, you’ll probably cry…

It happens to the best of us…

So if you want to advertise your plumbing business in the best way possible, you’ll need at least 2 other ways to get customers in…

Here’s what I suggest…

The Second Best Way to Advertise a Plumbing Business Would be Google Local Search…

Yep, more Google…

Google kills it when it comes to feeding a plumbing business with customers who’re ready to buy…

And there’s a whole hoard of customers that need a little more information before they call you…

They’ll do a Google search and go to your website to see if you know what you’re talking about…

That’s where your service and suburb pages come into play…

And top that up with your content creation that answers all the questions that your customers have…

Because the one who can answer their questions is the one who will gain their trust…

And ultimately their business…

Ok, I’ll be the first to admit it…

This is a ton of work…

But that’s what makes it such a great way to advertise your plumbing business…

Let me tell you about plumbers…

They’re so bloody lazy that 99% will never do this…

Relax, I can say this, I’m a plumber…

Anyway, this is a great thing because when you do it, you’ll take over your whole neighbourhood and the competitors won’t even try to stop you…

So, get to it…

Now you’ve implemented 2 of the best ways to advertise your plumbing business, but you still need 1 more…

Hook up with other local businesses that serve the same customer as you…

This last one isn’t traditional advertising as we know it…

It’s more of a marketing strategy…

But we need 3 and this is a really powerful way to get more plumbing clients…

So what you do is, make a list of other businesses in your area who have your same customer but don’t compete directly with you…

Don’t contact another plumber and see if they have work they don’t want…

A great businesses to partner with would be…

1. Gutter cleaner
2. Roofer cleaner
3. Handyman
4. House cleaner

The list goes on…

You want businesses that will come across plumbing issues and can recommend your business to their client…

The gutter cleaner and the roof cleaner will come across gutter leaks and roof leaks all day…

The handyman and the house cleaner will constantly come across leaking toilets or leaking showers…

Call them up and ask if they come across any plumbing problems could they recommend your company…

There’s a heap of businesses that will gladly send the customer your way because it makes them look good to their customers for putting them in touch with the plumber…

And everyone struggles to find a good plumber…

But you could make this more effective by either offering to pay them for each customer they send you or you could send customers their way as well…

It just depends on what works better for the other business…

So there you have it…

That’s the way I recommend advertising your Plumbing Business…

It’s not the only way, but it’s definitely one of the best ways…

And the fact that it’s hard, means less competition for you…

Besides, if you really want to do this, I‘ve got a whole heap of guides and articles to help you along your journey…

If you have any questions or there’s any other topic you want me to help you with, leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you…

Peace, 

Jace…

The post <strong>The Best Way to Advertise a Plumbing Business in 2023…</strong> appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

First up, this is a great question to be asking…

Everyone bangs on about how if you don’t have a website then your business is doomed but the honest truth is…

If you run a local business you do not need a website…

There’s so many different ways to get customers that don’t involve having a website…

And these methods are so effective that you could grow your local business to the point where you have employees and you can be flat out for the next 10 years all without having a website…

To be honest, if you’re just starting out and you need customers straight away, I wouldn’t recommend getting a website…

Trying to build out a website and then customers to your website will take way too long. It’ll just slow you down and could take months before you ever see a customer from your website…

You would’d be better off using these other methods to get the money coming in and get it coming in quickly…

Once you’ve got money coming in, you should get a local business website up and running…

But to start out, you should try these other customer getting methods before you build out your local business website…

Get Listed on Google My Business and use Their Website…

Google my Business is like a cheat code for local business owners who don’t have a website…

All you have to do is claim your free listing on Google Maps and once you rank you get to skip past all of the local businesses that do have websites ranking on Google…

And all you need is to be local…

That’s it…

Well, you do need to optimise your listing and put up pictures, but essentially, you don’t need a website because Google will build you one right on their platform and it’s automatically updated every time you put a picture or update your maps profile…

Getting listed on Google my Business is easy…

If you want to know how it’s done, check out my guide on how to rank on Google Maps…

But, if you really don’t want to get into all that internet stuff just yet, I don’t blame you…

You should do this instead…

Team up With Local Businesses and Tap into The Customers that Come to Their Website…

This is one of the most effective ways to get local customers without a website…

The idea with this one is to make a list of non competing businesses who also have the same customers as you…

Let’s say you pressure wash roofs…

You could team up with a roof plumber who comes across dirty roofs on a daily basis…

His customer could benefit from having a roof clean so the plumber recommends your roof cleaning service to his customer…

That’s essentially what it is…

But if you want this to work, you can’t just be a parasite and take from the plumber…

There needs to be something in it for him as well…

You could offer to pay him a certain percentage of the work that he gets you…

Or you could offer to also recommend work over to him from your customers…

But what do you do if you don’t have customers to send to him??

Here’s a little trick to instantly get a list of your own customers…

Well, you can also team up with a tree pruning service and a gutter cleaning service…

They also send you customers…

So now you have customers coming in from 3 different companies…

All you have to do is send your customers from your gutter cleaner and tree pruning friends over to your plumber…

And send the customers you get from your plumber over to your gutter cleaning buddy…

Everyone wins…

You don’t need a website or any of your own customers…

Just be the middle man and tap into the other businesses customers they get from their websites and then share them between your network…

It really is that simple…

There’s actually local businesses everywhere who will send you the work without wanting anything in return…

I get calls all the time from other businesses looking for someone to help out their client…

It just works better if you can return the favour…

And if you do what I’ve laid about above, you can do it easily without spending a cent… 

You don’t need a local business website or any customers of your own…

The best part is you can do this right now and have customers as soon as today…

You just need to get off your a$$ and take action…

Or keep reading, cause I’ve got another easy way to get customers without needing a website…

Eliminate the Need for a Website by Tapping into Already Established FaceBook Groups…

When I first saw this method, I didn’t think it would work…

But then I saw a local cleaner who I was consulting with, deploy this strategy and she filled half her schedule in 1 week…

The idea was to set her up with a website and get her listed on Google Maps…

Obviously this takes a little time to set up, so in the meantime, my cleaner friend made a little listing on Facebook that was so, so basic…

It was just her business name and contact details with the headline, “Looking for a Cleaner in Mornington?”

Then she listed what she does and that was it…

Next she went to a bunch of local Facebook groups and posted her ad…

Then she shared it and posted it again as often as they would allow her…

12 months later she’s fully booked and pocketed over one hundred grand in her first year…

Not bad for a small local business with no employees and no website…

This worked so well that she doesn’t need to set up her website…

So there you have 3 of the most effective ways to get customers for your local business without needing a website…

There’s definitely more ways than the 3 that I’ve outlined above but these are 3 of the most effective ways so I’m going to leave it there…

You won’t need any more than this…

With that said, after you start getting customers, I do recommend setting up a local website…

When you add a website to the methods above, it’s like putting your client attraction on steroids…

You’ll completely eliminate those slow periods in your business…

That’s one of the main complaints I hear from local business owners…

One day it’s flat out that they’re turning work away, the next they’re freaking out because nobody is calling…

When you build a website that ranks locally for the search terms that your customers use, you’ll never have a slow period…

And a website gives you credibility…

A local business without a website looks cheap and it’s hard to get higher prices for your services…

So by all means, get your business going with the methods that don’t need a website but once you start making money, invest some back into your business and get yourself a website…

I hope you got some value from this…

That’s it from me…

Peace, 

Jace…

The post Do Local Businesses Need a Website? The Truth Revealed… appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

Wanna know a great marketing strategy for local business?

It’s the one that I use whenever I start a new business venture or want to move into selling new services.

It’s pretty simple, that’s why I love it.

And it’s one of the most effective Local marketing strategies I’ve ever used…

Are you ready for this?

It’s called “Find the buyers and sell them what they’re buying”

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this local marketing strategy. The great plans are always the simple ones…

But if you’re looking for a complex, hard to execute plan, you won’t find it here…

I only do simple, plain, but never boring, marketing that any humble, local business owner can do to get the calls coming in right away…

So if you want to know how to find your buyers and then sell to them, then this is for you…

How to find out where your buyers are and how to get in front of them…

Ok where were we?

Oh yeah, I was about to show you how to find the buyers who want what you’re selling…

The number one place to find the buyers who are eagerly searching for what you’re selling is no doubt, Google…

But before you freak out and start to think you don’t know how to get on Google or it’s too hard to show up above your competition, just stop…

It’s easy, you just need to know one thing.

What are your buyers typing in when they go to Google to find the service you offer?

That’s it…

And it’s actually pretty easy to get this info as well…

Here’s what you do:

Head on over to Google Keyword Planner. You’ll need to log into your ads account or sign up. Don’t worry, it doesn’t cost you anything…

Now once you’re in Google Keyword Planner, type in a keyword phrase that a buyer would use. 

A great place to start is “Your product or service” followed by “your suburb”.

It would look something like this, “Florist Bentleigh”

Or, “mowing service kew”

Before we continue, just a little side trip…

Notice how I haven’t told you to create a “customer persona” and write a mission statement?

Right now, a make believe customer persona is the worst thing to focus on. 

What we’re doing here is focusing on the market…

Once you understand your market properly, and you’ve worked with all the different types of customers in your market, then and only then can you create a customer persona…

If you create a make believe persona before you know who you like to work with, you could be building your business around a customer you can’t stand or doesn’t even exist…

It’s much better to study the market as a whole, get in front of them, sell to them, provide the service and most importantly…

Talk to them and get to know them…

You’ll soon discover the types of customers you like to work with and the ones you can’t stand…

You’ll know what makes them tick and a lot of the problems they face…

Once you know this about your customers, then you can create a customer persona based on a customer that actually exists and one that you like working with…

From that point on, you can create all of your marketing for that one person but we aren’t there just yet.

Today we’re becoming experts of markets…

Continuing on…

Ok, so let’s open the keyword planner and take a look.

We go into “Discover new keywords”…

Let’s see, how about “plumber melbourne”

Make sure you’ve got the right location at the top left of your screen. 

I’ve put in the whole state, you could also change that to the suburb…

Now what do we have?

Look at the number of searches “plumber melbourne” has each month…

2400 buyers searching for a plumber in Melbourne each and every month…

Whoa…

How much fungolas would you make if you could show up in front of 2400 buyers every single month?

How many would you really need to have a thriving business?

Now you can see the potential in this local business marketing strategy, let’s get back to it…

A couple of things you want to look out for is, make sure there is a monthly search volume, and then look at the competition. You would ideally want a low to medium competition but if it is high, don’t be discouraged.

It means that there is money to be made with that keyword phrase. It will be a little harder to rank for and will probably take a little longer to do, but once you get there, just imagine the number of calls you’d get from 2400 buyer searches…

The last thing you want  to note is the cost to bid on that term. 

In this case, the top bid is $24.58…

So every time someone clicks on your ad it’ll cost you around $25…

Sounds expensive right?

Well if you set your ads up to speak to your market, and you sell a service that is more than $25, then it’s not expensive at all…

But don’t worry, you don’t have to run ads. It is the quickest way to get in front of your customers and get money coming in but you still have a couple of other options that are free…

Either way, you’ll need these keywords for all 3 options.

So back to hunting for keywords…

Open a Google Spreadsheet 

And put “plumber melbourne” on the list and keep searching.

Notice how there are terms such as “gas plumber melbourne” that have less competition?

Or even “drain cleaning melbourne” has a low competition. This would be a perfect place to start…

Do you know what this means?

You just found your way in…

This would be a great keyword to show up for.

And once your in, you gain strength with each keyword you rank for. Over time, you’ll knock off the high competition keywords…

When you rank for the low competition keywords, it gives your other pages credibility in the eyes of Google…

So the low competition keywords fuel and strengthen your website to rank for the high competition keywords…

I call this local business marketing strategy:

Google Domination

This is what it looks like when you “dominate” your money keywords…

Check out Handyman on the Mornington Peninsula.

This is one of my businesses…

As you can see, I show up first for Google Ads, Google Maps listings and the SEO listings…

What do you think are the chances that when a customer searches for my services, they give me a call?

This is exactly how I get in front of local buyers and sell to them…

And this is the best way to do market research…

Get in front of them and have a conversation like you’re friends… 

When a customer likes you, they open up and will start to tell you things that will give you ideas…

They will tell you things that will make your brain flood with ideas…

But the key is to listen…

Don’t dominate the conversation…

With this local marketing strategy, you can start getting customers in straight away while you’re still working out all the ins and outs of your business…

You can make money today…

That’s why so many local businesses fail.

They worry about getting the business cards printed up…

They spend 2 weeks writing a mission statement…

They do everything but make money…

Which small business would you rather be?

The one wasting time and money?

Or the one that implements this simple marketing strategy to get in front of your buyers today?

How to implement this marketing strategy for local business…

While this is simple and anybody can do it, it does take a lot of work to get this local business marketing strategy to work…

It’s too much to put into one single article…

Plus, to rank in each spot available on Google, you need a different method…

So here’s what you need to do…

You need to tune back in next week for the next installment of “Google Domination”

Ok, you don’t need to wait a week, it’s already live…

If you want me to help you decide where you should start and which, then enter your email address below and I’ll hook you up…

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Sincerely,

Jason

P.S.  text text text text text text

The post A Simple Marketing Strategy for Local Business Owners… appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.

There’s only 1 thing that matters when you’re looking at local online marketing…

That is to get customers to call you and then trust you enough to pay for your products and services.

All the mission statements, the business plans and the “make believe” customer persona can wait…

Once you get the calls coming in you’ll probably find you don’t need any of that…

The fact that you’re searching for how to do local online marketing, leads me to assume that you have a business and you need more customers and money coming in, so that’s what we’re going to focus on…

The only 3 things you’ll need to start…

It’s actually pretty simple. It only gets hard if you keep yourself busy with the things that make you feel good but don’t actually get the calls coming in…

Don’t wait for the business cards to get printed up…

Don’t wait for your pretty logo…

You don’t need it to make money…

From this point on you’re in client getting mode. 

The only things you’ll need to begin marketing your business are…

1. Something people want to buy. 

2. People searching for it…

3. A way to get in front of these people.

That’s it…

Don’t over complicate it…

Just a side note, I would probably also get insurance.

And 2 bank accounts…

One account for your profits and another account to cover taxes and expenses…

Now you should be good to go…

The truth is, when you’re staring out in business, all of the branding and customer profiling is a waste of time…

I’ve found that you won’t know who your ideal customer is or what they want until you start providing your service…

You think you’re selling to a certain type of person but once you’re in business, you start to realize that it’s a completely different customer than you expected, or worse…

The customer you built your business around sucks…

You hate doing work for these people and now you can’t stand your business…

If you already have a business set up and a customer that you love, then great.

The following marketing methods are still the best place for you to start…

Now I’m going to assume you have the first point covered. That is, you have something that people want to buy…

So, I’m going to go straight to number 2… 

You need to have people searching for your product or service…

Listen and listen good…

The quickest and easiest way to enter any type of business and start making money is to Sell to the buyers…

Buyers are the people who are out there actively searching for your service right now…

A buyer is not any and everyone in your local area…

Don’t worry about who they are just yet. All you need to know is that they want what you’re selling. 

You can easily work out who the buyers are by looking at what they search for online.

We’re not going to do a deep market analysis…

We just want to know what your customers are typing into Google when they need the product or service you offer.

So, what keywords and phrases do they use when they’re searching for your service?

Here’s how you find out:

Head over to Google ads keyword planner and find out what your customers are searching for on Google.

1. Start with a keyword that you think a buyer would use

A great keyword to start with is your service followed by your location.

For example… Plumber Melbourne, or Chiropractor Mentone.

These will be your main service pages. These are your money keywords…

2. Look for long tail keywords.

Think of a list of keyword phrases that your customer would be searching. These are likely to be questions such as… “How to stop my decking boards from cupping”

These phrases will be used for the topics of your blog posts.

These are your expertise and relationship building articles.

You can show up in 3 positions for most of these keywords. You should be trying to claim top spot in Google ads, Google My Business and the SEO results…

This is what it looks like for one of my businesses, Handyman on the Mornington Peninsula:

This one search term is enough to drive my entire business. But this is not me trying to brag. Ok maybe a little, but I worked hard to get all 3 of those positions on Google…

For real though, how many calls do you think you’d get if your business showed up for the top spots in Google…

Your customer would type in your money keywords and there you are. The top spot on the ad listings. 

Ok, but most people hate clicking on the ads and scroll down to the maps listings…

Guess what?

You’re there too and you’ve got a bunch of before and after pics and dozens of happy customers leaving 5 star reviews…

What’s that?

You personally never click on the maps listing. You go straight down to the SEO listings…

Well so do most of your customers. That’s why you take that top spot as well…

I know what you’re thinking…

This takes a lot of time and money. You want something cheap, maybe even free, and something that will get the calls coming in today…

Well let me tell you this…

When I started my business, I put up a single ad on Google and within 30 minutes of going live, I got a call for $1500 worth of work.

Before you say you don’t have money for ads, I also didn’t have the money to pay for ads. You don’t need to pay anything until 30 days after your ads run…

You can set a daily budget $10 and if you think it’s not working you can pause it whenever you like. There’s no upfront payment. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad…

The click that resulted in $1500 worth of work, only cost me $3.50…

You can’t afford to spend $3.50 and get $1500 worth of work?

And the first month of Google ads only cost me $90…

Now, if I only received 1 job from my $90 ad spend I still made $1410 for the month…

So think of this…

I didn’t need to pay any money to start running ads on Google. And I didn’t need to pay any money unless a customer clicked on my ad. And I still didn’t need to pay any money until after 30 days within which time I made more than enough money to pay my bills, feed my family and pay for the $90 ad spend…

The way I look at it…

When you do Google ads right, they’re free…

They didn’t cost me anything out of my pocket. It all came from the profits generated by the ads…

Ok, maybe you’re not convinced or you still want a “Free” way to market your small business…

 

How about Google My Business or GMB?

This is a free advertising platform and if you know what you’re doing, you can show up in the top 3 spots within 2 weeks…

I know, because that’s how quickly I ranked one of my businesses on GMB

It can take longer, but shouldn’t take longer than 4 weeks…

The great thing about GMB is that it automatically shows up above the SEO listing. 

And the qualifying requirement is that you’re local…

You need to have a physical address in the suburb you’re trying to rank in. This is great because it will cut out a lot of the outside competition. And a huge factor in a customer calling a service provider is that they are local.

I get asked all the time, “Are you local?” 

Customers have this hang up about service providers that have to travel to do the work. They think that you’ll charge more if you have to travel or you just won’t show up…

And if you have a local shop where customers come to you, then your customers also prefer local because they don’t want to travel. 

GMB local pack is powerful because your customer can see that you’re local. They can see your previous work, and they can see what past customers have to say about you…

I personally noticed a huge increase of calls coming in the moment I ranked on Google My Business.

So as long as you have a physical address in your service area, you can rank for your money keywords. But don’t worry if it’s your home address. You have the option to hide your address from the public. Google just needs to know you’re in the area…

So head over to GMG and get your business listed. Just fill in your details the best you can. Don’t wait or hesitate on this one. Google needs to send a postcard out to your address so you can confirm you’re in the area. It takes roughly 2 weeks…

So don’t wait till it’s perfect, get your postcard sent out then you can check out my other resources on GMB to help you fill out your listing so it ranks number 1 in the listings…

Here’s the thing, as good as GMB is, I’ve found one thing that’s better…

The top spot in the SEO listings

This is the cream of the crop when it comes to local online marketing.

For whatever reason, over 60% of your customers ignore the ads at the top, they skip straight past the GMB listings and they go straight to the SEO listings…

You can get enough work to run a successful business with just the first 2 methods that I showed you.

And at first, you’ll have no other choice. It can take 6 to 12 months to get to the top of the SEO listings.

No business can wait that long to get the calls coming in so here’s what you should do…

Set up your ads, you’ll get calls coming in within hours…

If you don’t know how to run ads without losing your shirt, then you can follow along with my Google Ads guide…

Then go ahead and claim your GMB listing and use my guide so you can get it set up properly. This will give you a big boost in customers within 2 to 4 weeks…

You’ll be scooping up around 40% of the buyers…

Now you’re getting a steady stream of work coming in, you can focus on the other 60% of the buyers who click on the SEO listings…

Anything you do for your SEO will also drive you Google Maps listing to the top of the rankings…

Do you need some extra help to get this all going?

Like I said before, this is how I do local online marketing for my own local businesses.

So just know, it’s not as hard as it seems…

That’s why I set up this website.

I document everything I do and put it on my website.

Plus, whenever I learn something new I write about it and send it to my list.

If you’d like to see how I do it for my business, and copy it for yourself, you should get on my list.

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Sincerely 

Jason – The Local Online Marketing Specialist

 

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The post 3 Easy Local Online Marketing Techniques To Get The Customers Calling appeared first on The Local Business Lifestyle.