Simple services for local businesses

I'm using web design as an entry point and then offering local seo & rep management later. Google web design + "some city". Or local seo + "some city". Maybe do the same w/Rep management. Look at what other people are doing and then come up with a list services that matches your skill set.

A WSO can't tell you what you're good at...

Not a fan of the services. Would definitely recommend something else.

Some of those services were popular back in 2011-2012 but you definitely need to do something that has more value now that business owners are becoming more savvy when it comes to online.

Also... getting "5 star reviews" for businesses is against the ToS for many platforms, and also illegal if you're making up the reviews!

As long as the web exists which should be at least for a few more years, 'web design' will be a needed service.

You're right though, 1998 - wow, what a year.

Being savvy doesn't matter - at all. I've often thought about opening a restaurant. I have years of experience working in and running restaurants. More recently, say the past 10 years, I've been a web developer. If I decided to open a restaurant, I would budget, generously, for a website to be developed. And then allocate more money for online related marketing. Could I do it all myself - yes, but I would have better things to do with my time like buying napkins and finding the best source for produce.

In many cases, people have better things to do than fiddle with a website, local marketing and rep management - even those who have the skills to do so. Just to be clear, in saying 'fiddle' I'm not implying the owner shouldn't do any of those things, only that they don't have the time and understand they're better served elsewhere while hiring someone to take care of their online needs.

Good luck with that!

reboot38 makes a whole lot of sense and I agree 100% as when anyone wants to enquire about a service or Restaurant even you tend to search the Internet for their website for info on them I know I do even say your local bakery.And I feel those who don't have one may be old school and don't realize the value of a website or just don't know where to start that's your job.Like where I am we have lots of international visitors and we as a city need them to survive yet lots of business have no website and go unknown and wonder why they are just getting by.

How do you know they are easy to sell?

Web development is the obvious one.

I'm more in the traffic business however so I'd offer things like:
Adwords account setup
Facebook advertising account setup
Retargeting on both platforms, both of current visitors and lookalike audience and smart lists.
Basic advertising on both of these platforms too 4 ads targeted to their audience for example

Traffic strategy documents
Content audit

All of these things are fairly simple to do, shit Facebook and Google give you step by step instructions for most of them.

Generally to set up these services all I'd do is get them to add a tag manager code to their website and then inject the codes you need into them. Then just do the step by steps provided.

This stuff seems easy to people around here but most business owners either don't care to learn how to do it or are too busy with their own stuff.

You could also create and manage online shops for their products in order to increase their sales.

A big area for me is messaging. Most websites are severely lacking potent messaging. Too much emphasis is given to design, and not enough to messaging. There are a lot of opportunies for marketers who can educate, inform and sell with the written word.

Campaigns and ads management are the best way to get business from local areas