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Questions For LOCAL SEO Consultants who outsource

by osail
3 replies
Hello everyone!

I am in a beginning phase of business marketing consulting.

I am confident in all my other services except one. SEO.
I am currently working finding clients and will maybe do SEO myself in the future for clients.

So I am going to be going the outsourcing route.

It's mostly a concern so some advice from a follow person would be appreciated.

I would like to charge $500 a month with my package.

Package will include:
Website Onsite SEO (if they have one) (Mobile Website)
SEO
Search Engine Listing Claims (google places, bing, yahoo)
Branded Video(s) (up to two)
Reputation Management System
Viral Integration
Followings are bonuses if they want or need them:
Facebook (creation/graphics)
Twitter (creation/graphics)
Mobile Marketing
Email Marketing

I know that the most beneficial thing on this list is (often) SEO. As a consultant I want to make sure that my client is getting the best deal. That they are going to make far more than what they are putting in. I know that the average cost per customer comes into account. Along with how well that business converts customers into sales.

I live in a town of about 200,000 people.

My concern is that rankings are going to be more difficult because of how big the town is. (aka, there is more competition out there) I would like to rank each business for about 6 keywords each trying to reach the first page for each keyword.

In SEO terms of difficulty. Would this be a medium or hard thing to do? Or just plain easy?

My clients will range from hair salons to lawyers. All walks of life i guess.

So if i get a hair salon client. And i get good SEO for him/her and the average cpc is around 12-20$ optimizing their site for 6 keywords. would this end up being a good return? (i know this is hard to gauge since you don't have any stats on competition of the keywords or how much searches each keyword gets)


Also if anyone else is an experienced local consultant and knows a good outsourcer for seo to outsource to. Recommendations are appreciated!
#consultants #local #outsource #questions #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    1. $500 = 5 or less hours of work based on the industry average of $100 to $150 per hour for web service professionals.
    Package will include:
    Website Onsite SEO (if they have one) (Mobile Website)
    SEO
    Search Engine Listing Claims (google places, bing, yahoo)
    Branded Video(s) (up to two)
    Reputation Management System
    Viral Integration
    For 6 keywords equals less than 5 hours of work?

    2. What you "know" can hurt you.
    I know that the most beneficial thing on this list is (often) SEO.
    You don't know any such thing! You have no clue what will be beneficial to each business till you talk to them. SEO gets a lot of hype but it's not the end all be all. Ask yourself the following to get an idea of value for SEO.
    • You live in this town so how often have you googled for any of their services?
    • How often have your friends?
    • What did you google for?
    • What did they find/click on?
    3. 200,000 is not a big city

    I live in a metro area slightly bigger than that. It has more in common with small towns than big cities. I suspect yours does as well.

    4. Why do people continue to try and offer services they don't know how to perform to clients?

    Seriously people (including the OP) when you are first starting a business it means you are often a one man show. So why offer a service you can't perform. Even if you outsource it how can you judge the quality of the outsourcer if you don't know how to do it yourself? I'm not saying you can't hire someone better at it then yourself. But in the beginning whatever you are selling you should be able to do yourself.

    I think too many people read books like the 4 Hour Work Week and fall in love with the outsource idea but never really see the true point of it. In each case study including his own the people didn't pick something randomly out of a hat to outsource. They picked things they knew which could be done better, faster, and cheaper by others.

    When you attempt to sell services for which you are not an expert you just make it impossible for yourself to make a sale and harder for every marketing consultant that comes after you.
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    Aaron Doud - Sales & Success
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    • Profile picture of the author osail
      Little aggressive their bud. And you jumped the gun on a few things.

      First of all, I said often. And in often cases it is so. Didn't say always. I know perfectly well that not everyone is going to need SEO. It was just one component i wasn't 100% sure of and is the ONLYcomponent that i wouldn't be doing myself.

      I do the interview method and find what people are looking for. Everything else is a bonus.

      I have done my research and I have been threw many pages of SEO. I can give you a good scope of what you need to run a successful campaign. I know all that. I have yet to see it in live action on hand. Since i haven't seen that in action for myself i see google as a tricky bitch. I Have gone threw the pigeon courses by Chris Munch. Often referred to many people as the "Godfather of seo" other pages such as SEOmoz and so on.

      You don't know any such thing! You have no clue what will be beneficial to each business till you talk to them. SEO gets a lot of hype but it's not the end all be all. Ask yourself the following to get an idea of value for SEO.
      You live in this town so how often have you googled for any of their services?
      How often have your friends?
      What did you google for?
      What did they find/click on?
      So standard SEO research? And the interview method.

      4. Why do people continue to try and offer services they don't know how to perform to clients?
      On behalf of people I would like to say that we are all not the same. Just because I want to outsource a single component of my business doesn't mean I don't care about my future clients or jeopardizing their money with a weak product(and that is what I was concerned about).


      Seriously people (including the OP) when you are first starting a business it means you are often a one man show. So why offer a service you can't perform. Even if you outsource it how can you judge the quality of the outsourcer if you don't know how to do it yourself? I'm not saying you can't hire someone better at it then yourself. But in the beginning whatever you are selling you should be able to do yourself.
      But maybe I am more of a people person than I am a tech person. So I don't want to spend hours honing in my skills at Graphic design and google places and videography and ECT and become a mediocre jack of all trades. Seriously, you don't tell a football lineman that he needs to improve his golf swing because it will help him be better at football.

      Is this really any different from building a company and working with someone side by side? Where you are management and they are different departments? And other people will agree with me. Is that if you take care of your outsources they will take care of you.
      And that doesn't have to apply to just outsourcing that applies to any walk of life.

      I didn't say I didn't know how to do it. I asked for other peoples opinions. Granted to you that I have never run a campaign myself to rank a website so I am inexperienced as far hands on ranking. I'd rather not test my skills on a customers website and have them sandboxed by google. If I had ranked 100 websites before hand then I would probably have the confidence to do so on my own. Since consulting is what I would like to do I would prefer to do that then spending 100% of my time doing something else.

      And you have to give it that there is no such thing as guaranteed rankings. Everyone has a different method on how to rank sites. Poking threw them all and testing them all is one of the few things that you can do. But we don't have 96 hours in a day to run them all. So we ask others for their advice. Although Advice is a form of nostalgia. It is pickup from the past wiped off and rehashed. There is Good and bad advice. So choosing it is something you yourself decide.

      What happens because of places like the warrior forum is that there is so much stuff out there it is hard to balance out what is a good product to tell you how to do something. And everybody and their cousin have decided that they want to sell their goldmine for $20 on the net. And i can't blame the warrior forum because the same tactics were going on even before the internet existed. hence when the "Ben Franklin" method came about way back when. And yeah, there are a lot of wrong ways taught which turn consultants into "salesman" and sometimes the wrong ways work and sometimes they are not the "wrong way." Any person that is a business owner in a physical place has seen some scope of it. You of all people should know that if you show genuine interest in anyone and show that you care. You are not a salesman. You are a friend who is looking for the best thing to help people. Sometimes they might not even need your service. If thats the case then you just made a new friend. Its still a win. That my friend, is a consultant.

      I think too many people read books like the 4 Hour Work Week and fall in love with the outsource idea but never really see the true point of it. In each case study including his own the people didn't pick something randomly out of a hat to outsource. They picked things they knew which could be done better, faster, and cheaper by others.

      When you attempt to sell services for which you are not an expert you just make it impossible for yourself to make a sale and harder for every marketing consultant that comes after you
      Thanks again for the bias. Not everyone is the same. And some people are "hard sales". There isn't anything you can do to change that. What we can change. Albeit small but something is how we help others live in this world.

      So instead of hijacking my thread, wasting mine and your time and assuming I was a salesman and discouraging me, you could have said something along the lines of. "I live in a town about the same size. Everything works out okay here. Though you will find seo trends of difficulty in any town you go." Or suggested an outsourcer that you go to. Or a program that you used to get good at seo and saying "here is what i used to get good at seo. I still use it today and have success with it." Based on your Facebook. You are a success coach. In which you look to build up people and their spirits. Nice job
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      • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
        Little aggressive their bud. And you jumped the gun on a few things.
        Sorry if I came off a bit aggressive. I just get a bit sick of people who want to outsource their whole damn business from day one. I would have replied a bit differently if you said you had a successful marketing firm and wanted to add SEO to your offerings. But based on your package and you saying SEO would "often" be the main value point I took it to mean you were leading with SEO.

        You likely don't know me but I am one of those here on the other side aka in house internet marketing. I'm getting pitched multiple times per week by people who seem to know less than I do for services I would never personally attempt to sell. So it gets annoying and I will freely admit your thread became a moment for me to add things in general. Business owners and managers, including people like me, want to know we are in the hands of experts. You don't have to offer everything (especially when starting off) but what you do offer should be top notch.

        First of all, I said often. And in often cases it is so. Didn't say always. I know perfectly well that not everyone is going to need SEO. It was just one component i wasn't 100% sure of and is the ONLYcomponent that i wouldn't be doing myself.
        If you know not everyone will want it why offer it at all? Especially when you are not 100% sure of it. For the first few clients you should be focusing on what you are good at and getting results. Then once established you decide rather you need to add other offerings. That was my part of my point.
        I do the interview method and find what people are looking for. Everything else is a bonus.
        The fact you know how to sell will be a big bonus for you vs. most. BTW the interview method? Do you mean the old jobless dad style or just a normal interview in selling aka the "Ask" phase of selling?

        I have done my research and I have been threw many pages of SEO. I can give you a good scope of what you need to run a successful campaign. I know all that. I have yet to see it in live action on hand. Since i haven't seen that in action for myself i see google as a tricky bitch. I Have gone threw the pigeon courses by Chris Munch. Often referred to many people as the "Godfather of seo" other pages such as SEOmoz and so on.
        Sounds like you have a good foundation. Why not SEO a few sites of your own to test. Honestly in most environments SEO for online businesses is harder than any local SEO you do. Now national SEO could be more complicated but I would suspect most (all?) of the businesses who would be clients would be after local customers.

        So standard SEO research? And the interview method.
        Actually those questions had nothing to do with SEO research or interviewing the business. I was talking about how real world people find local businesses. What they are looking for when they search online and how normal SEO fits (and often doesn't fit) into this. It wasn't SEO research it was customer pattern research.

        On behalf of people I would like to say that we are all not the same. Just because I want to outsource a single component of my business doesn't mean I don't care about my future clients or jeopardizing their money with a weak product(and that is what I was concerned about).
        I said people not "everyone". I in no way meant to say everyone is the same. And as I said above it sounded like it was a major component of your package and business plan. Of course as I also said before if you are worried about a weak product(service) why offer it at all? You don't need to offer everything and when starting out it's honestly a recipe for failure to offer too much. Focus on what you are best at and dial in the results.

        But maybe I am more of a people person than I am a tech person. So I don't want to spend hours honing in my skills at Graphic design and google places and videography and ECT and become a mediocre jack of all trades.
        I agree completely but I wouldn't start a "graphic design" business if I wasn't good with graphics. Now I might down the line add that as a service we handle by hiring someone (W2 or 1099) to handle it. Like I said before this would be a different talk if you were not just starting out.

        And being a people person is more valuable than the tech skills if you can sell which you appear to be able to do based on what you said.

        Seriously, you don't tell a football lineman that he needs to improve his golf swing because it will help him be better at football.
        No but you damn well tell him to focus on Football vs. Golf. Just want to point out this line supports my point and not yours. It is basically what I told you. Focus on your strengths. Don't be a Football player trying to sell himself as a Professional Golfer. Don't be Michael Jordan.

        Is this really any different from building a company and working with someone side by side? Where you are management and they are different departments? And other people will agree with me. Is that if you take care of your outsources they will take care of you.
        And that doesn't have to apply to just outsourcing that applies to any walk of life.
        Yes you do need to take care of your customers (once again my point). But you are starting out. Once again if you had a successful firm and you had clients asking for SEO I would have treated this thread 100% different.

        I didn't say I didn't know how to do it. I asked for other peoples opinions. Granted to you that I have never run a campaign myself to rank a website so I am inexperienced as far hands on ranking. I'd rather not test my skills on a customers website and have them sandboxed by google. If I had ranked 100 websites before hand then I would probably have the confidence to do so on my own. Since consulting is what I would like to do I would prefer to do that then spending 100% of my time doing something else.
        Great I think that sounds great. So once again why offer SEO as a service? What kind of consultant do you want to be? If not an SEO Consultant why even bring it up in a conversation with a prospect?

        If a client brings it up and it's a serious objection? "I'm not an SEO expert but I have people on my team who are. Let's meet next week after they have time to take a look at the situation. How does that sound?"

        Or you could let the client go because they were not a good fit for you firm.

        Beyond this thread I don't know what you are offering. But the package you mentioned showed, in my eyes at least, that SEO would be a major component of it. And my point is you don't have to offer SEO if you are not an SEO expert. Hell the businesses will likely love you because we get sick of being pitched for SEO.

        And you have to give it that there is no such thing as guaranteed rankings. Everyone has a different method on how to rank sites. Poking threw them all and testing them all is one of the few things that you can do. But we don't have 96 hours in a day to run them all. So we ask others for their advice. Although Advice is a form of nostalgia. It is pickup from the past wiped off and rehashed. There is Good and bad advice. So choosing it is something you yourself decide.
        Just got to say I loved the way you described advice here.

        What happens because of places like the warrior forum is that there is so much stuff out there it is hard to balance out what is a good product to tell you how to do something. And everybody and their cousin have decided that they want to sell their goldmine for $20 on the net. And i can't blame the warrior forum because the same tactics were going on even before the internet existed. hence when the "Ben Franklin" method came about way back when. And yeah, there are a lot of wrong ways taught which turn consultants into "salesman" and sometimes the wrong ways work and sometimes they are not the "wrong way." Any person that is a business owner in a physical place has seen some scope of it. You of all people should know that if you show genuine interest in anyone and show that you care. You are not a salesman. You are a friend who is looking for the best thing to help people. Sometimes they might not even need your service. If thats the case then you just made a new friend. Its still a win. That my friend, is a consultant.
        First I will say this to you and everyone. If a product is $20 it is likely not a goldmine. Not saying it doesn't have value but it would be selling for a lot more if it was a goldmine.

        I would say that Sales Professionals have been turned into Consultants. And you are correct in your point that they are separate professions and skill sets. One can be both of course and many one man consulting companies have to be.

        I'm not sure I would call it a win to not make the sale. During that part of your business relationship you were, or at least should have been, a Sales Professional. You can do unpaid consulting but it is better to be paid for it.

        Also your OP made it seem like you would be a service provider not a consultant. Once again you can be both but a consultant is paid for his knowledge not necessarily the implementation of it. But at a certain point we are just getting into semantics as the word consultant is used in a lot of fashions not all of which are truly consulting in the pure form.

        Thanks again for the bias. Not everyone is the same. And some people are "hard sales". There isn't anything you can do to change that. What we can change. Albeit small but something is how we help others live in this world.
        Never said everyone was the same, in fact "too many people" would clearly be less than everyone. Also not sure what bias I have other than helping people be successful. And to me you don't start a successful business by offering services for which you are not an expert (at least relative) on.

        Also not sure what "hard sales" has to do with anything.

        Rather you think I helped you or not (think clearly on the not side) I agree completely with helping others. My posting here shows that much. And my post was meant to help you.
        • I pointed out I thought you were charging too little. A problem many new businesses face.
        • I pointed out that SEO wasn't needed and in fact may have no value for your prospects.
        • I pointed out that 200k wasn't that large of a city aka "Do sweat it, you will be fine".
        • Finally I tried to help you and others by pointing out that offering a service you are not an expert in takes away from your ability to sell and service clients.
        So instead of hijacking my thread
        Didn't mean to hijack it. I was merely offering advice the vast majority of which was based on SEO. Yes that advice was basically don't offer it since you are not an expert but I stand by that advice based on the OP. Rather you choose to offer SEO as one (even the main) service you provide is up to you.

        Also I really can't hijack a thread when I am the only one that replied. Of course asking your competition (other SEO consultants) for good SEO outsourcers often doesn't get many replies. Simple reason is they want to hold onto that outsourcer. They don't want anyone else taking up that persons time. And I understand that. Now there are some fine companies that offer SEO services at a wholesale price that do get recommended and I hope someone will point them out to you. If they don't a bit of searching on the site will find them for you.

        wasting mine and your time
        I'm sorry if you feel I wasted your time. I meant to add value to the thread not waste your time. As for my time even this reply wasn't wasted time. I enjoy talking about business.

        and assuming I was a salesman and discouraging me
        I never assumed you were a salesman till this post. But I hope you are because selling is how you will make money as a one man show. Selling isn't bad though it seems you may have a negative outlook on it.

        As for discouraging you I only meant to help you be successful. Offering too many or the wrong services is why many businesses fail. Charging too little also leads to business failure. I addressed both in my original reply.
        you could have said something along the lines of. "I live in a town about the same size. Everything works out okay here. Though you will find seo trends of difficulty in any town you go."
        But other than living in a similar sized city none of that is what I was trying to say. My points on SEO were you don't need to and shouldn't offer it if you are not an expert and that SEO may be pointless for many businesses (your prospects) because of how customers find them.

        Or suggested an outsourcer that you go to. Or a program that you used to get good at seo and saying "here is what i used to get good at seo. I still use it today and have success with it."
        I don't do SEO because I am not an expert in it and even if I was I am not sure I would as that niche is over saturated IMO.

        Based on your Facebook. You are a success coach. In which you look to build up people and their spirits. Nice job
        People often need to know what not to do to be successful as well. This thread made me believe you were heading down a path that would lead to failure. I tried to offer advice to point the ship away from the rocks. I was being a lighthouse in the storm that is starting a business.

        Clearly you didn't agree with my advice and I have no problem with that. Personally I am still unsure how much of your business model and service offerings are based around SEO. And I personally don't think you need to or should offer SEO.

        But none of that matters because I am not you. Nor are you paying me for my advice. Rather you succeed or not does not effect me in any way. But I offered you the same advice I would offer you a friend, family member or client who asked me personally what your thread asked the board. I meant no disrespect. I didn't mean to "hijack" your thread or waste your time. All I attempted to do was offer you advice that I personally think was valuable based on what I knew of the situation.
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        Aaron Doud - Sales & Success
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