{"id":8555,"date":"2022-06-26T13:12:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T18:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sourcelinemedia.com\/?p=8555"},"modified":"2023-05-31T15:02:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T20:02:26","slug":"should-my-business-use-a-local-seo-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sourcelinemedia.com\/should-my-business-use-a-local-seo-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Should My Business Use a Local SEO Service?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know. I know.\u00a0 This article is on a website that provides a Local SEO service so you think that I’m just going to promote our service.\u00a0 Well, you are right of course.\u00a0 But don’t stop reading. I also will give you an honest answer – here it is >><\/p>\n

In most cases, a Local SEO service can provide a positive return on investment, but in some cases, it is not feasible, affordable or ideal for a company to pay for a search engine optimization marketing service.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And the good news… it is absolutely possible to see great results doing it yourself aka \u201cDIY Local SEO.<\/a>\u201d Whether you are a good candidate depends on a number of factors.\u00a0 Let’s start by talking about who should NOT use an SEO service<\/a> and then we’ll explain what it takes to do your own SEO work.<\/p>\n

The Obvious Disqualification<\/h2>\n

\"\" If you are running a small, single owner business with low revenue, then you are not going to have the budget for a marketing service. This type of business owner has no real choice but to learn about SEO and execute strategies themselves. This is actually a great place to start if you open a new business. Otherwise, if you are low on capital but you want to get started, its better to begin with the basics of local search optimization vs. doing nothing.<\/p>\n

Here’s a good example. My neighbor knew I was in marketing and his 17-year-old son started a mowing business with nothing but 1 mower, a weed wacker, an old truck, and a beat up trailer.\u00a0 He didn’t know how to get business, so he asked for some advice.<\/p>\n

I told him to build a free website, make his own logo, research keywords, and write out descriptions of his service using the highest searched terms. I told him to incorporate the terms “service” and “company” in multiple spots and focus on the words mowing and home vs. residential and landscaping.\u00a0 Of course, ranking in alternative terms is a goal, but you don’t want to start out trying to rank #1 in every term.\u00a0 You get spread too thin.<\/p>\n

He completed a Google My Business profile, published everything and created accounts on the 10 biggest local business directories.\u00a0 I also told him to make some flyers and post them around town.\u00a0 I advised him to go old school and go knock on doors. Finally, I hired him to mow my lawn… I mean, why not support a new local business?<\/p>\n

The last thing that I stressed was to stay consistent with SEO, set goals, and take time every month to work on it.<\/p>\n

I ran into him about a year later.\u00a0 He told me had 2 employees, 4 mowers, another truck and a new trailer. He had added new pages to his website, hired someone to do a professional logo and now had 24 Google reviews. All of his reviews were\u00a0 5-star and all came by asking his customers. And most importantly, he consistently gets new business from Google.<\/p>\n

It still surprises me to see business owners completely avoid doing any SEO work. I’m talking about multi-million dollar businesses with 20+ employees. They won\u2019t even spend a single second to improve their presence on Google. Mind boggling.<\/p>\n

Doing DIY Anything<\/h2>\n

\"\"When I was in college, I worked for an HVAC and plumbing company for 3 years and learned quite a bit about the trade. Never an expert, but I was skilled enough to do basic to intermediate tasks.<\/p>\n

So about a year ago, I noticed my water bill was high. So, I jumped down into the crawl space and found a water line leaking that lead to an outside spigot. I said to myself, \u201cAha! I’ve done this before and I know how to fix this!\u201d<\/p>\n

So I made my list of supplies, ran up to Home Depot, put on some old clothes and commenced with what would surely only be a 15-minute repair. But that’s not how this went down.<\/p>\n

I realized that I forgot most of what I thought I knew. I made several mistakes that resulted in 4 trips out of my crawl space to get tools I forget, a failed repair, 2 more trips to Home Depot. 7 hour later, I completed my task but I was exhausted and absolutely soaked.\u00a0 It was so dumb, its easy to laugh about it.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, you need to do stupid things to teach yourself a lesson. I told my buddy, who owns an HVAC company. Talk about taking a lot of crap.\u00a0 He said, \u201cwhy didn\u2019t you call me? I could have come over and fixed that in 5 minutes and only would have asked for a beer.\u201d Ughh..not my brightest moment.<\/p>\n

The morale of the story is that we can all do a lot of DIY projects.\u00a0 Most people like to do be self sufficient.\u00a0 Its human nature. Whether you should<\/strong> <\/em>do anything yourself depends on the following:<\/p>\n