Selling SEO Services: Local Lead Generation

Many SEO experts ironically find it easier to get work from contacts that they make online even though there are numerous organizations in their own areas that need their services. Selling SEO services to local businesses requires good lead generation tactics and following through with the leads that you have.

Use Your Business Contacts to Generate Leads

Just because you sell SEO services today doesn’t mean you should ignore your past work experience in other industries. These business contacts are great to start building your client list.

Make a list of the companies that you have worked with and contact them to discuss the advantages that your SEO services could offer. Assuming that you left the organization in good standing, you will have a solid reputation that encourages them to use your services instead of someone else.

Use Your Personal Contacts to Generate Leads

You should also use your personal contacts to generate leads.

Many small business owners today recognize that it is important for them to maintain a presence on the Web, but few of them really know how to use their company’s site or that blog they had installed once to generate business.

Contact friends who manage or own small businesses, home businesses, and part time operations that could use your help and tell them you’re focusing on local businesses.

Cold Calling to Generate Local Leads

There are two basic approaches to cold calling. You can either pick up the phone and call local businesses, or you can walk into their stores and ask to speak to someone who makes financial decisions. I’ve found that you almost always get better leads by visiting the business in person.

Most small business owners are busy people, and they don’t have a lot of time to chat on the phone to people that they don’t know.

When you visit in person, though, you show that you are willing to dedicate your personal time to form a mutually beneficial relationship. It is also much easier for busy people to focus on what you say when you are sitting right in front of them.

You can even bring information sheets that they can read when they have free time.  That’s almost the offline equivalent of getting a whitepaper download, with the difference that online, whitepapers are usually requested, rather than thrust on people.

Don’t Quit

Finally, don’t give up on your local business lead generation attempts.

Sometimes months will go by without your hearing a single word from all of the people that you visited and talked to! This is a frustrating experience, but you should remember that it’s the nature of the business.

Some leads will close faster than others, so if you keep plugging away, the faster closes will sustain you in the short term while the long-term leads are simmering.

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SEO_Services4u
SEO_Services4u
14 years ago

Great Post! Very well written up. This is a fantastic method of showing that how being more “social” with your marketing and a less sales approach can generate some real traffic and ultimately leads.

I indeed find that the perspective you gave can be a great resource of information

blackhat seo
14 years ago

seems this days is easier to get companys to work with without leaving office/home than visit somebody on near street

Gerard Sullivan
Gerard Sullivan
13 years ago

Most telemarketers get discouraged when it comes to cold calling because the prospective client to be called mostly wouldn't want to listen and, worse, slam the phone on the agent's ear. But it isn't all that bad because cold calling if successful can close a sales deal. Just don't quit, have patience and perseverance to get SEO leads.

website builder
13 years ago

SEO is more on patience and dedication. The harder you work the more leads and sales you could get.

Naples web design
13 years ago

There are lot of companies already offers SEO services but be careful on choosing the right one because some of the SEO services really don't know what they are doing in terms of SEO, you as a client will only spend a penny without getting the results that you want. It's better to learn also SEO from yourself, just spend time in learning a lot of things regarding the SEO stuff. Just make sure you love what you are doing in terms of SEO so that the SEO work will love you too 🙂

SEOP.com
13 years ago

this is a well written article. honestly that's true. maybe some of them experience bad thing on such and so they just want to work within their contacts but there are more around who needs them

Indianapolis seo
13 years ago

Thanks so much for posting. Many people in the industry have no idea what they are doing just that want to do it.

used forklifts
13 years ago

That is so true, most SMB owner or director have no idea of their presence online and if it's generating leads or not. My boss discovered google analytics last week.

SEO reseller
13 years ago

There are some websites that share free lead generation techniques to be able to find prospect clients easily.

affordable seo service
12 years ago

Link Popularity is simply the number of links pointing TO your site FROM other sites on the Web. The idea behind this is that the more links a site has the more valuable it must be. Different search engines use different link analysis algorithm to evaluate rink popularity and to rank web pages.

Microsulat
Microsulat
12 years ago

Great post, although in other industries, word of mouth is still the best way to generate leads and eventually sales. For example, a website designing and developing company does a swell job for a local business, it can ripple to various types of exposure (on and offline) for the company and in the long run, clients will be the ones who'll approach the service provider.

Jack
12 years ago

This is a great article to get started with, we try cold calling customers which is a bit daunting to start with but as your profile picks up you will find more and more people will be approaching you!

appointment setting
12 years ago

Social marketing and SEO is help to generate good amount of leads. Social marketing is one of the best tool to generate good amount of sales.

seo for home builders
14 years ago

Discussion of online lead generation with an emphasis on search engine … Lately I’ve had more success selling our SEO services

small business seo
11 years ago

SEO services is distribution of press announcements, articles and weblogs to various article submission sites. This SEO activity improves the exposure of a website on google and helps in enhancing its position. The type of articles presented to these internet directories should be original. Submission of repeat articles restrictions further distribution of articles in future. 

SEO Services
11 years ago

A good SEO service provider will talk to you directly and will give you tips, advices, and recommendations on the things that you need to do. They are after the results that you will gain from their service, and not with the money that you will be spending on them.

seoanalysts
seoanalysts
11 years ago

 Ip based marketing is also one of the best trick to catch your customer although iplayer and Hulu restrict content in specific countries. Benefit is that the user can read that site in their own languages. For making website that shows content as per location one can use geolocation software.