Hello there now for many of you reading this you may well be offering out your internet marketing skills and services to local companies to help with their own on and off line marketing. But the bottom line is that you’ll only be able to charge for those services if you can demonstrate that your skills are driving customers to their businesses.

So I thought today I’d just cover some tips to sell your services but also enable you to max out on promoting yourself as well, so here goes…..

SEO is SEO and the same rules apply, whether you’re optimizing a law firm or a pizza place. But when you’re doing SEO for offline businesses, there are some key differences in how it works. Since everybody’s getting online to find local services, it’s more important than ever to optimize effectively. Here are 6 basic tips to help you get started.

Use Lots Of Pictures

Websites that list local services always like lots of pictures. These don’t have to be professional-quality but they just have to show your business in a good light. Aside from branding your company, they also show your and your clients human, personal side, and that’s even more important when offline businesses are doing local SEO. That’s what people want to see when they visit a local business.

List Your Address And Phone Number

Displaying their address and phone number add to your local image and also build trust, and trust is really important. Make sure that their address and number are listed on every page of your website. If they have more than one location, create a different page for each, or have one page that lists them all.

List Their Web Address

The same goes for your Web address. Make sure that it’s displayed everywhere – in their brick-and-mortar store, on your cards and brochures, in television commercials. Get as many offline eyeballs to see it as possible and give them a little nudge, telling them to check you out on the Web. Web-only promotions or special offers are also great for getting offline customers to visit.

Choose Their Keywords

In addition to the basic rules of SEO (knowing your target audience and what terms they’re looking for), target geographical location keywords as well. For example, target ‘plumber in Phoenix’ rather than just ‘plumber.’ These will have less competition. Get as location specific as possible and test out a few different variations, like ‘plumber in Central Arizona’ or ‘Phoenix plumber.’

Claim And Monitor Their Listings

Find all sites that list their business and claim them. Look on Yelp, Bing Maps, Google Places, Yahoo Local, Trip Advisor, and any other sites where your business might appear. Do some searching and sign up with Google Alerts so you’ll find out when a new listing appears.

You can ‘claim’ each of these listings by visiting the site and verifying your contact information. For example, Google Places has a link at the top that says ‘Business Owner?’ When you click there, it takes you to the verification page. You can then edit and control the information in the listing.

Once you know where they are listed, keep an eye on the listings. Reputation is everything in local SEO, so reply to comments or reviews that appear there. If they get a negative review, respond professionally and thank them for the feedback. Show other visitors that your client listens to its customers and improve the business accordingly.

Seek Positive Reviews

It also helps to downplay negative reviews when you’ve got lots of positive reviews. A simple way to do this is to ask. Most happy customers would love to get onto a review site and say something nice about the business. If you have trouble getting reviews, offer some kind of incentive like a coupon for a discount or a raffle to win a prize.

So there you have it, you can now easily demonstrate to a prospective client what you can do for them ad their business, and believe me for many local businesses armed with the knowledge you already hold and what’s identified above – you can quickly be considered quite an expert.

Till the next time

Tony