What is the monthly maintenance for Google+ Local Listings?

Hi BJ,

A good monthly maintenance package should include the following:

- hunting down bad citations and fixing them
- creating new citations -> both structured and unstructured
- quality link building to the site

The above is bare minimum and should be done only after a thorough analysis of the competition and of the existing citations floating around the net.

I also want to say that link building does not mean what it usually means here on the forum or on Fiverr (ie: mass-sold packages). If you want great schooling on quality link building, you need to check out source-wave.com. Becker has a monthly thing called infinitum, and offers excellent education on the subject. I know first hand that what he teaches is legit, and serves as an awesome base for professional link building.

I dare say that you will not find a good monthly service for cheap. If you do, it likely covers a minimal amount of work, and then your results will vary. The service may work great on easy stuff, but you'll be disappointed as soon as you start tackling more competitive stuff.

Depending on the business, you could be investing hours into fixing bad citations alone (Whitespark offers the service and it is $2,400 (https://www.whitespark.ca/citation-a...ervice#sign-up) - that ought to tell you something).

Quality links don't come cheap, either. To really do well, you'll need them on high PR sites, and that does not mean sites in these blog networks that are available to anyone with the money. In all seriousness, for best control over your business, you'll want to build your own network.

My advice is to research this site, consider building your own portfolio of high PR sites and train the right staff to do the citation work. You can find some stellar workers that will cover multiple clients for less than $300 / month. Do that and you'll be building a real sustainable business.

How to Start Today?

Of course, none of this helps you if you just need to get started, right? So here's my advice to just get something going quickly:

1. Grab a subscription to something like Whitespark or Brightlocal.com.
2. Research your client's citations - both good and bad - start fixing the bad ones yourself, documenting the process for each site (this will be for your staff training manual later).
3. Research the local sphere to see where you can easily drop links (classified ads, local newspaper directories, etc.)
4. Grab a Fiverr gig for web 2.0s and start getting some content on them. Here's a hint - hire a local student to write some stuff and encourage this student to link to the content with an online resume or something.
5. Research existing blogs in the niche and see which ones allow you to drop comments on blog posts.

Avoid avoid avoid buying any link packages for your money site. Avoiding a penalty is 80% of the game. If you must buy links, buy smaller packages for your web 2.0s or something. Do not let the web 2.0s get spammy, you don't want these accounts closed on you. Cultivating nice web 2.0 blogs, etc. will be a temporary alternative to buying your own high pr domains.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Patrick,

Do you offer ongoing monthly maintenance packages? I did not see them on your website.

BJ

Unfortunately, no.

There is a chance I may offer some of those services in the future, but I have no plans for it now.

The tricky part is coming up with a pricing model that is easy for customers and allows me to do the right kind of work for each client. Every business is different, requiring a different effort to clean up citations, etc. I still haven't figured out how to offer this service on the WF in a way that doesn't involve custom quotes and hourly rates

Alternatively, I have been thinking of ways I can support customers by creating some sort of customized infrastructure that can be used for their SEO efforts. But this is still in the planning stages. We'll see

I see. So what do you recommend to your customers as a solution for ongoing maintenance after you complete the setup work for them?

Nearly everyone who orders from me have their link building processes in place, so this issue doesn't come up too often. But I would recommend what I stated above

Where are you with your business at this time? Are you bootstrapping it, or are you prepared to hire and train staff? If you share a bit more of your concerns, maybe I can think of some other stuff that may help you.

Awesome points, IAN. And I'm interested in learning some details regarding your "Brand Properties." Have you posted info on this elsewhere?

On-page SEO is a must and crucial to setting up a proper foundation to ensure any monthly efforts have their full effect.

Bump on the YouTube suggestion - video citations carry a lot of weight, too.

If you ever want a Whitespark Local Citation Finder report but don't want to subscribe monthly, I have a Fiverr gig and can run one for you. You can find the gig by searching for Whitespark on Fiverr.