How Much Does Local SEO Cost?

There’s a common misconception that search engine traffic (aka SEO traffic) is free.  That’s primarily due to the logical comparison against search engine advertising, which is obviously not free.  With search engine advertising, you’ll pay for every click on your ad.  With organic SEO traffic there is no cost for clicks to your website.  Hence the conclusion that SEO traffic is free.

 
But is it really free?  Is it possible to invest zero time and money and still generate traffic from SEO?
 
Of course not.  Just because you built a beautiful website does not mean you’re going to rank high enough in Google to drive any meaningful traffic.  As I explained in this article, to rank high in Google, you’ll need a relevant webpage and an authoritative domain.
 
You may be wondering, how relevant and how authoritative does your website really need to be?  That question leads us to the #1 factor that will determine how much local SEO will cost.
 

      

#1 Factor That Determines the Cost of SEO

Ever hear the joke about outrunning a bear?  I’m no comedian so I’m sure I’ll butcher this, but it’s an important lesson so here we go… If you’re in the woods with your friends and an adult black bear starts chasing you, then how fast do you need to run?
 
Do you know the answer?  If you’ve never heard this before then you’re probably trying to figure out how fast an adult black bear can run.  Hint: It doesn’t matter how fast the black bear can run.  What matters is how fast your slowest friend can run, and whether you can outrun him! :)
 
OK, I know that’s not a great joke, but it’ll get your brain warmed up and you may have already guessed the #1 factor that determines the cost of SEO.
 
The #1 factor is your competition.
 
If you’re in a more competitive industry, then unfortunately, you’ll have to invest more in your SEO.  You’ll have to work harder to create a more relevant webpage (e.g. create better content) and to build up your domain authority (e.g. build more links) than a business in a less competitive industry.
 
In other words, to rank high you just need to outrun your “friends.”  The first step is to review the websites that are ranking high in Google for your target keywords.  An easy and fast tool to complete this analysis is Moz’s Open Site Explorer.
 
Head over to Open Site Explorer and simply copy/paste your competitor domains into the tool.  You’ll instantly see their domain authority score and their total number of backlinks.  The higher the authority score and the more backlinks your competitors have, the more you’ll have to invest in SEO to outrank them.
 

Do You Have Multiple Office Locations?

With local SEO, the number of office locations will also play role in determining how much you need to invest.  This is pretty straight forward.  Ranking each location in Google requires more resources than ranking just one.
 
At a minimum, each additional location will require you to build additional citations.  Citations are mentions of your name, address, and phone number on another website.  Think of citations like reference checks for job candidates.  Search engines need to confirm your business information is accurate and up-to-date and they do this by reviewing all the citations on different websites. If all your information checks out, then you have a better shot at ranking on the first page.
 
Creating citations for one location can be tedious enough.  Each additional location multiplies the workload.
 

Do You Have Multiple Products or Services?

The third consideration is how many products or services you’re trying to promote via SEO.  Again, this is straight forward.  As you try to expand your reach by targeting more and more product or service keywords, then you’ll need to invest more in your SEO. At minimum, you’ll want to build separate webpages for each of the products or services you’re promoting.
 
Remember, each additional product or service comes with a new set a competitors already ranking high in Google.  So make sure you analyze the competition using Open Site Explorer before diving in too deep.
 

No One-Size-Fits-All Solution

I hope at this point it’s clear that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for SEO. That’s why if you’ve done your homework, then you’ve noticed the range in fees is quite wide.
 
For businesses in less competitive industries, with one location, targeting just one product or service, the investment could be $500 or $1,000 per month. For businesses in more competitive industries, targeting multiple locations and multiple products and services, the investment could be $2,000 or more per month.  It just depends on your unique situation.
   

[Local SEO] The 3 C's to Rank #1

What are the 3 most important factors in real estate?

 

The answer is location, location, and location.  Every real estate agent knows that location is far and away the biggest selling point for a home.  A crappy studio apartment in Chelsea can sell for more than a fully renovated 2-bedroom in Harlem.

 

And if you own a business that depends on local customers, then you know location is also a critical factor.  Clearly, businesses near Super Bowl Boulevard are going to attract more customers simply because of their proximity to the Super Bowl festivities on weekend.
 
The same is even true with local SEO.  A business located near the industry hub within a city has a greater likelihood of ranking high in the local Google results (aka the Google+ Local results).  This is known as the “centroid bias.”  So if your office or store is located too far away from where Google thinks is the hub of your industry, then you’re going to have a harder time ranking in the local results.
 
 

Location Is Not Enough

Take a minute and re-read what I just said above about the centroid bias.  It’s a bit technical so make sure you fully understand it before moving on.
 
Now blink your eyes twice.
 
OK, the online marketing landscape has just changed in the time it took you to read this far!  I know, it’s frustrating.  As soon as you think you’ve figured it all out, Google goes and changes everything!
 
Location is not enough to rank high in the local results.  Sorry, it’s going to take a little bit more work.
 

The 3 C’s of Local Search Engine Optimization

Google changed the rules of local SEO when they decided to migrate Google Places to their social media platform, Google+.  Google Places was fairly straight forward because there simply wasn’t much you could do.  It was a static business page with contact information and customer reviews.
 
Now, take a look at the new Google+ Local pages and you’ll see text updates, pictures, videos, reviews, and even conversations between the business and their customers and prospects.  The businesses ranking and getting the most out of their local SEO investments use what I call the 3 C’s:

1. Citations
2. Community
3. Content

 

1. Citations

Citations are mentions of your name, address, and phone number on other websites.  Citations have always been important for local SEO because search engines use them to verify the accuracy of your business information.  Generally speaking, the more citations you can get for your business, then higher you’ll rank in Google because Google will have more confidence in the accuracy of your business information.
 

2. Community

As I mentioned above, Google Places was migrated over to be part of Google’s social media platform, Google+.  Google is still ironing out all the kinks of this overhaul, but we can see that local SEO is clearly merging with social media.  Community is now a factor in how your business is going to rank in the local results.
 
By community, I mean your Google+ Local followers, shares, +1′s, and reviews.  The stronger the community, and the more activity on your business page, the better.
 

3. Content

The new kid on the local SEO block is content.  This is good news to anyone already using content marketing for non-local search engine optimization. For traditional, non-local SEO, content has always been king.  Now it’s even a factor in your local SEO rankings. Great content will get you more high quality links from other websites, it’ll help you build community on your Google+ Local page, and it’ll improve your Author Rank.  All of this will in turn help you rank higher in the local results.

   

5 Ways to Energize Your Content Marketing

In our last article, I explained why content marketing is extremely valuable to use for your business.
 
But, just because you realize using content marketing to engage your audience is important, that doesn’t mean you know how to create that content.
 
This article focuses on how to create content that hooks your audience in and keeps your company top of mind.
 

     

1. Establish a Voice That Speaks to Your Audience.

Creating the “voice” of your company helps to connect to potential clients and customers that are ideal for your brand.  Whether you’re the person doing all of the content creation for your business, or you have a team that works on that, it’s imperative that you’re very clear about the voice of your content, and consistent about using that same voice across all channels.

To start, it’s helpful to identify who your ideal audience is. One way to do this is by creating a customer avatar, which is the person who represents those in your target market. To create a customer avatar, you should answer as many identifying questions about your ideal client as possible. 

Once you’ve established your customer avatar, you need to understand how they speak and what they connect to. What other websites are they reading? If your ideal customer is a single mom who works from home, take a look at blogs she may read and start to understand the terminology and writing structure those sites use.

Another way to research this is to look at forums that your ideal customer would post in. Do they write very formally with technical language, or is it a bit more casual?

Based on this research you can begin to create your voice. Here are a few things to consider when establishing your voice:

• Do you write in first person or third person?
• Does your content include personal stories, or is it strictly professional?
• What vocabulary are you going to use when referring to things in your business? Are there some things that the terminology can differ on?
• What will your format be? Do you use bold, italics, or both to stress a point?
• How do you break up your blog content?
• What kind of images will you use?
• Do you use any slang, or is all of your writing more formal?
• What is the format of your social media posts?

 

2. Create Really Really Ridiculously Good Content

Derek Zoolander may not have understood how to create a center for kids who can’t read good, but he knew how to be a male model.

The same goes for content. You may not know everything about marketing and conversion, but you understand your product or service and when it comes to creating content about it, your content needs to be really good.

Make sure the articles, videos, and images you create have a clear purpose every single time. Ask yourself, “Why am I creating this?” If it doesn’t educate, entertain, or engage your audience you should probably rethink it.

 

3. Write Catchy Headlines

One my favorite movies growing up was the Disney musical film Newsies, starring a very young, pre-Batman, Christian Bale. The movie was all about the days of William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer and the use of yellow journalism. Basically, the newspapers of the time would put out papers with extremely catchy headlines, even if they had nothing to do with the truth behind the article.

While I definitely don’t recommend going to the extreme of yellow journalism, there’s no question that writing catchy headlines is key to producing good content. Your headlines should absolutely reflect what is actually in your article, but should do so in a way that makes the content sound enticing and lets your audience know that your article is worth taking the time to read.

Headlines that include numbers, address the reader directly (i.e. use “you”), and contain active word choices do really well.

For example, for the headline of this article I started with the title “Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing”. While this would have been a fair representation of what this article is about, it’s not very exciting.

Instead, I answer the question “how many ways” and use active verbs so readers understand exactly what the goal of this article is. “5 Ways to Energize Your Content Marketing” is a much catchier headline than the original, but still delivers on the promise of what’s included in the article.

 

4. Add Videos & Images

“A picture says a thousand words” might be one of the most cliché sayings out there, but there’s a reason it has hung around this long.

Photos and videos are hugely engaging when it comes to content, which is why platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have become so successful. It’s also the reason you can play videos directly from your Facebook feed.

Images can be created as standalone content or as a way to enhance a blog post or article you’ve written. According to Hubspot.com, not only does content that contains relevant images get 94% more views than content without images, but people also remember the content for longer. In fact, when people hear information they are only likely to remember 10% of that information 3 days later. But, if that information is paired with a relevant image, they’re likely to remember 65% of the information.

If you’re taking the time to create important content, you want to make sure that people read it and remember it. Adding images helps to make that happen.

The same type of statistics hold true for video content. An article from Insivia.com presents 50 stats about using video marketing. And one stat, from Unbounce, says that including a video on your landing page can increase conversion by 80%.

When it comes to livening up your content marketing, including photos and video is a no-brainer.

 

5. Switch Up Your Format

Nobody wants to read the same article, or type of article, over and over again. It just gets flat-out boring. That’s why varying the format of your blog content is extremely important for increasing and maintaining engagement.

Here are a few article formats that can help you change it up:

• Listicles – You’ve seen these. These are lists that are used to engage or educate your audience. 
• Resource Roundups – These articles put together a bunch of resources in one place. Audiences love these because it saves them time on research. 
• Stat Roundups – People love when ideas are backed up by numbers and that’s why stats roundups are so great– you’re able to back up why people should use your product or services.
• How-To Articles – Remember, a key goal of content marketing is to educate your audience with valuable information. How-To articles offer the perfect opportunity to do that.
• Quote Roundups – The goal of these types of articles is mostly to entertain your audience, but depending on the quotes you pick, you can also educate them as well.