Local Business in Tampa

Find a local SEO whiz who is great at the technical side. Partner with him and share the profits. You leverage your relationships and sales skills while leveraging his tech skills.

Win-win.

Dave -

Keep in mind that you will know far more than your three prospective clients about how to get their businesses ranking well. Take stock of where you might need some help, and rather than totally outsource, think about bringing in a joint venture partner to handle the things that you don't have experience with. If you find the right partners, with your connections, you can build a local practice pretty quickly.

Sign these people up and then work like crazy to service the business. Over deliver on what you commit to and you'll never have an unhappy client! Go for it!

Cindy

Dave,

Getting results at a local level is no where near as hard as doing SEO for a site you want to rank nationally, however. It is important to know yourself how to rank sites coupled with Places before you hire ANYONE to do it for you, otherwise your setting yourself up to fail if you hire the wrong person.

If you firstly know ways to get them new customers from other online sources start there first. This way they see results for the money they spent and in the mean time you can learn and work on their sites SEO.

Hey Dave,

I take it you do have some experience with SEO?

So what I would suggest if you are thinking about Outsourcing is taking a look over a few of these sites...
- ODesk (this is usually the first place I look for my outsourcing needs)
- Craiglist (I am serial craiglist stalker so I'm always on there and you can always find some surprises on there)
- OnlineJobs.ph (now, this site is secretly my favourite - it's an outsourcing company based in the Philippines - where you can hire very affordable Virtual Assistants)

On all of these sites, you can find someone who will assist you with the SEO and Link Building for your clients - while you just sit back and manage the VA to make sure business is running smoothly.

NOTE: I would only choose this route if you are confident that you know what to expect of the VA, in terms of what duties you want them to do and you screen them carefully only ever hiring someone because you feel they are perfect for your business.

So back to the GOOD stuff... you can get a VA for SEO purposes from as low as $250 per month full-time (40 hours a week). Also, they can be very knowledgeable so if they think something is better done a certain way then they will share their opinion.

Well, hope this helps and all the best with the business...

Colin

Great info, thanks all.

If you were looking for a local guru to "partner" with, what would your approach be? An interesting thing... you'd think the people at the top of the list for "Tampa SEO" have the best skills... would you make this assumption?

The outsourcing info is great- I do have some SEO experience, and have had some success, but to stay on top of things it's a constant education. Would be great to have someone talented and trustworthy to split the pie with.

Any Tampa folks out there?

I can appreciate your apprehension but the only way to go in my book is pull the trigger, and jump in. You already know enough to be an expert, it's a matter of doing.

Look at each individual company, assess where they are, their goals and the competition and outline at a glance where you would start. You don't have to be master of everything, few of us actually are.

Use this forum for help, advice, best WSOs. People of all levels come here to give and receive information, and help and support one another.

And outsourcing is easier than you think but it may turn you into a project manager, if you're not cut out for that then rethink it. Easiest way to find good workers using odesk is to search jobs like you would post and hire. It's a free education on both fronts. Look at the applicant list and look at who gets the jobs, their ratings and how much work they get. It's trial and error sometimes but so is hiring locally.

What is that you're not 100% confident in be able to come thru with results on?

I think the partnering with another local SEO company is good advice - especially if they will show you the ropes.

If you don't want to take on a partner, then take on a single client get all of your infrastructures 'stuff' worked out (how to do the work, reports, invoices, contracts, etc.). Over deliver and add clients as your infrastructure can support them. You don't want a bad 'local' reputation