At My Wits End...SEO/Offline Marketing Problem

You could also set up your own lead gen site, send all the traffic to yourself, and then just sell them leads.

I also think you're charging too little, but that's hardly the point. If you're charging $100 and your client is not getting any return on their investment then you're charging too much. So get better, BE better.

Don't pigeon hole yourself as an SEO guy, instead put your marketing consultant hat on. What else can you do to get feet in the door, and money in the pocket for your client?

First off, I would mystery shop them. Have some of your friends call the business. Do they answer the phone in less than three rings? How do they handle the inquiry? Do they do a good job of closing on the phone?

This is one of the biggest things I've done for most of my clients is to help them to get better on the phone. It's not that difficult, but most service businesses are horrible at it. If you ask them they think they are closing most of the business who rings them that actually need them. But when you meticulously track things, they are converting perhaps 10-20% of the incoming phone calls(sometimes much worse). There is a complete disconnect between what they THINK is happening and what is actually happening.

I found the same thing in one of our offline businesses. I thought we were in the 70-80% conversion rate, only to find out when we were meticulous about tracking that we were closer to 25%.

So find out how they do on the phone. See if you can help them. So many companies are so bad at it that you can generate 20 phone calls a month and they will find a way to turn away even the ones who are salivating to give them money.

Second, I'd look at the conversions of my website. What have you done to improve conversions? What's the bounce rate? Most websites have a 1-3% action ratio. Meaning if you drive 100 people to the website only 1-3 of them will pick up the phone and call. If you work hard on your conversion rate you can get it to 10-20%. Highest we've ever gotten was around 30% from a site that was close to 2%.

The site conversion goes hand in hand with the phone training. If you increase the conversions of the site, but the phone service sucks it won't do you any good. But when you have awesome conversions on the website and multiply that by awesome phone presence you can completely transform a business.

Once you've worked on the conversions on the phone and on the website it's now time to look at traffic. Where is the traffic you should be getting? Get the client to spend a few hundred dollars on PPC. That way you can be sure of what keywords are being used to search by their clients. And which ones are more likely to lead to a conversion/phone call. And now you know what to do SEO on.

I agree with what others have recommended. Use Craigslist, Backpage, banner ads, etc. Do banner ad exchanges with other clients in non-competing fields(i.e. I'll put an ad on my painting site if you put one on your electrician site).
　
HTH

I will be blunt. Because blunt is what I am.

We can't walk you through and tell you what to do with YOUR client. YOU positioned yourself as the 'expert' and sold them a service in which they assumed you would in one way or another, make them more money.

Business owners look at ROI and ROI only. Anyone who tells you other is a liar. No one gives a shit about how much online presence they have, how big their facebook page is, or how many subscribers they have. They care about how much money their business will make and that's it.

That being said...

It sounds like you need to do some more keyword research. You should have known that these search terms were not getting any searches BEFORE you even sold them the package. That's bad business on your part and it's your fault. But it's ok, mistakes are good, you will never get better by being perfect.

If there ARE low/no searches for the desired keywords, then go G+. Get them listed, optimize them, and get some reviews on the listing. Get them to the top.

Get them on ALL of the review websites (they have been listed in previous posts) Get positive reviews flowing by designing postcards for them to give to their customers prompting them to go to a splash page and select the review site they would like to post their review on. EVERY customer should get a card...

Be sure to link to the review sites on their website on the testimonials page. Make it appealing to the eye and easy to follow.

Craigslist is another option and probably a great one. look into it.

EDDM is another GREAT option. look into it.

Make sure their website has an email opt-in form and offer a discount for opting in. (check with owner first)

Create a video with still images and rank it for the main keywords. Takes 10 minutes.

NOW you should start seeing activity. At this point you can look into ranking them to drive more traffic to your newly created "network". If organic is not working than try PPC. That way they only pay when someone visits the website.

As I said, we don't know the details but it sounds like the website sucks AND/OR they can't complete the sales on their end.

Optimize the website and test the results. (you should never be satisfied)

Get a number and forward it to their phone. Track ALL calls on your end. That way you can see the true conversions. Don't go off what they say...they are not the 'expert'.

Draw all of this up into a proposal and charge based on your calculations. It shouldn't be cheap, definitely not $100/mo. You can't honestly say that you can show real results at $100/mo...

Too many people think that offering SEO will turn a business three fold..and that's exactly why real consultants get dogged all the time by the industry..

There, I told you what I can based on what you provided me. Now go do it

Ok, I admit that all of my statements are "I hope you are not doing X". That is because you said "I have other clients on SEO services who are doing very well" which clearly means to me that you are selling Search Engine Optimization Services to these Painters. All the statements that I made were directed to the fact that if you are doing them, then you are confused as to the difference between SEO services and Internet Marketing/Lead Gen services. So I will word this post differently so that I may attempt to help you out in your situation because until it is understood what you are actually trying to do for your clients, then it is hard to specifically help you with your problems.

In the contract that they signed with you, what do you agree to provide them for their $100 a month?

Search Engine Ranking Increase
More Traffic
More Customers
More Leads
A certain amount of hours worked a month doing X
etc etc etc

From what I can tell, you are doing Search Engine Ranking Increase and More Traffic because you stated that one painter is fine with your work because he is on page 1. I am guessing that is the service you sold him, rankings which lead if done on the the right keywords leads to more traffic. The other painter is not happy because he has not gotten a single job from your services. Well if your services are to provide better rankings and more traffic, then him getting more jobs is not your problem and that client needs to be set straight with the actual services that you are providing him. To me, if the client is being a hassle, complaining, not understanding what you are providing him....then it is time to drop the client for one that will be happy with your services.

If you are just having trouble sending more traffic to the clients page because of lower search volume, then there are a ton of things that you can do to up that traffic volume.

If you are looking to move from SEO services into Internet Marketing/Lead Gen services, then there is alot people on this forum can help you with.

Since you have only been doing this for a year, some of the problem with people answering you properly might be the way you are coming across with the words you are using, since as I mentioned...your first post seemed confusing between SEO services and Marketing Services.

No one is attacking you. What I see is a group of knowledgeable individuals that are simply being forward with you. If you ask me a question, I give you an answer. I could care less if you like that answer or not. I feel like that's what is happening here in this thread. There is a lot of good information in this thread that can help you pull yourself out of the water with this client. I suggest you take any advice given and run with it.

Regarding this;

Notice the two bolded phrases. There is your answer. Two completely different phrases with two completely different meanings.

You will soon learn that the heart of marketing is all about testing. It's just too hard to tell you exactly what will work and what will not. We don't know the details. There is help all over this forum. You're a big boy now, you don't need to be spoonfed. If you get stuck, find a way out. There is a way out you just have to test until you find the way.

TRUST ME you will learn so much more if you teach yourself. You will be a much better marketer.

It's because most of the people around here don't and can't do what you're trying to do...they only sell info products or complimentary services that "teach" you god knows what.

To get to the bottom of this, you need to spend some money, plain and simple.

First, fire up an Adwords campaign. Google the details on what I'm about to brief you on: use tight keywords, both non local and local (geo modifier included ie- dentist Houston tx), search betwork only, no mobile devices unless youre ina niche like locksmiths, radius targetted for whatever would be an acceptable service area (typically 25-50 mi radius from central zip code) bid high cpc, let it run for a week if there isn't much traffic, write horrible ads if you wanna save money. Monitor the impressions, and sort greatest to least when finished. Those are your primary seo targets, the others will become secondaries.

You need to get your on page right... None of this on page SEO plugin bullshit. They'll have you over optimizing by adding naked long tail keywords as H tags sprinkled in the content. Keyword in the title, keyword in the meta desc. (Twice if workable), and content for humans that converts. Emd's still get the boost if you're careful with them.

Phone number, phone number, phone number in the title tags. Can't stress this enough. Ou can get calls without someone even opening the damn site. Use a call tracking number to monitor leads during testing. Call fire is cheap. Ifbyphone is a more advanced option.

Finally, build the site to sell. Compelling content, good offers (free loss leaders, estimates, whatever), and even better CTA's. give reasons why they should call for an estimate, everyone says that. Stand out. Then refine that some more, you'll be able to do more with less... Leads that is.

Once you get some results, multiply your exposure for more leverage. Build another site in the same niche with different branding. Repeat the same steps that worked before. (This has a saturation point, but when people call around for estimates and they get the same service provider multiple times, psychologically this normally has a positive connotation)

There's all kinds of local SEO things you branch out on- citations, ranking parasites to push competitors out of the SERPS, rich snippets and authorship (these will increase ctr btw if no other competitors have it synced), and on and on. There plenty of good information out there on local SEO stuff.

Honestly, I never post info like this because most of these threads are keyboard jockeys dicking each other around. I'm only doing it because I've seen some of your threads in the past and you seem vigilant. At one point inspirational with the cold calling, as I'm great at doing client work but suck at consistently prospecting.

If you need more help let me know.