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Having spent so much time over the past year reading about SEO, in an effort to figure out the best-practices of great SEOs; I have found one principle that comes up time and again: Symmetry. I think great SEOs look for single tactics that provide a turn-on for the site’s visitors and the search engines.

The simplest example of this would be… to state what the site is about in clear writing and then highlight it in some fashion, the h tags are mentioned quite a bit. This will help search engines to know what the site is about, while preventing folks from hitting the back button because they weren’t sure they were in the right place. However simple that is… I think that is an SEO best-practice.

But what about link building…? Can I find symmetry for a local service business?

In an article, co-authored by Eric Ward, Robin Nobles and John Alexander titled Over 125 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies, written over 5 years ago (I think), it states:

“Our position is pretty straight forward…it’s not the technique that we are concerned about, it’s the intention.”

What this quote means to me is that I should not try to get links to the site with the sole “intention” of ranking the site. That, I should instead, find some legitimate business reason for that site to link to mine and then my site will naturally move up in the serps. In other words: find symmetry.

The symmetry that I find most referred to in link-building is to find links from topically related authority domains that will provide high quality traffic. It is difficult to argue with this tried and true method from the traditional-link-building-vault: except that it really won’t work for a local service business.

Why? Because the best traffic producing links for a local service business are from Internet Yellow Pages, but they won’t help a website to move up naturally in the serps. (I recently made the mistake of trying to explain to someone that links are an important part of ranking on Google, but IYP links don’t count; I thought their head was going to explode).

Of course, the local service business should still get links from IYPs, paid or otherwise, depending on ROI, traffic needs etc., but where does that leave us with respect to the symmetry we seek.

Are there other sites in such a geographically narrow space that I could rely on for quality traffic? I’m sure there are, but I might need to begin measuring conversion rates in years and decades instead of weeks and months.

What is the very best link building strategy for a local service business?

Here is what I believe to be the answer to that question:

In the same way that the best links for traditional websites are those that help with traffic, the best links for a local service business are those that provide help with conversions.

I have seen empirical evidence that the mention of associations to which the business belongs in print ads can lead to more phone calls from that ad. The Better Business Bureau is the most obvious example of this type of association, others are chambers of commerce etc.. But I think there are even better ones. Most preferably, they would come from organizations that have huge barriers to entry and are topically related to the service provided by the business.

They are the ultimate spamguard for search engines because no spammer is going to study Landscape Architecture for 4 years just so that they could get a link from the American Society of Landscape Architects. So, they should provide an advantage over other types of links in ranking, while at the same time make a visitor more likely to hire such a business when that membership is displayed prominently on the website.

That feels like the link building symmetry for a local service business that I’ve been seeking.

Any membership or association that would help a visitor decide to do business with that business qualifies.

Multiple associations and memberships displayed prominently on the site raises the credibility of the business owner. And this could create a predisposition to hiring the business with less sensitivity to price. Which is the basic symmetry of all advertising.

Miriam Ellis is in the midst of creating an excellent series of interviews with local seo’s over at the SEO Igloo. I was humbled to be part of the group she is interviewing and I really enjoyed doing it. Thanks again for the invite Miriam.

In the introduction to the local seo interview series, Miriam listed a number of things that she felt a good local SEO should be able to do. Among them was to explain the value of the service without first having to turn the client into a local SEO. I thought this was very well put and made me realize that I haven’t really sat down and thought about my presentation as I contemplate opening my own shop.

So, I set down and penned it out. As someone who has done an awful lot of this kind of sales training, I often advise doing this as I believe more can be learned than can be taught.

Thought you might enjoy it… And if you find any pitfalls, I would love the feedback…

Set The Agenda

I would like to begin by giving you an overview of my philosophy on internet advertising, we’ll talk about that for a bit and then I’ll review some of the challenges and limitations that we are likely to face. After that, if it sounds like something you might be interested in… then we can start to talk about price and your budget for the project. Would that be ok?

My Philosphy

When people use the internet they are typically looking at websites… and they are using search engines to find those websites. In fact, people do 90% of their searching on 3 search engines: Google, Yahoo & MSN. (Reminder to self: Let the client hold the stats; they are engaging and can help build rapport).

When they search for a local business like yours that behavior changes just a little bit. According to this study from Comscore there are 6 engines that will bring 90% of the traffic. So, I think our time is best spent targeting these 6 sites, with a majority of that time devoted to Google and Yahoo. Does that make sense?

From there I want to focus on two things:

First, continually increase your visibility on these engines in your target area; this will bring you the most traffic.

And second, monitor and continually improve the cost-effectiveness of acquiring each customer; that will maximize your ROI.

Let’s talk about visibility first. Visibility to me means coming up on the first page of results when someone is searching for your type of business or your business name. And then trying to get closer to the top of the first page. There are 3 areas, each with their own strengths and weaknesses that we will focus on to bring traffic: (Show a page of search results… )Here - PPC, Here - Maps/Local, Here - Organic. Do you agree that if we focus on these 3 areas we can maximize the traffic you will receive?

I’ll talk about the challenges and limitations of these in just a bit… but before I do want to speak for just a minute about how to make this most effective for you in terms of cost.

The way to continually get the most bang for each dollar you spend in advertising is to focus on your conversion rate. The more of your visitors that actually contact you and spend money with you, the more cost effective your program is going to be. There are 3 ways to get an awesome conversion rate:

1. Get really lucky.
2. Understand the most important copy elements of a local ad and get really lucky.
3. Understand the most important copy elements of a local ad and test.

To test the website, we will simply borrow a trick from the direct mail industry. In direct mail, what they do is to create two mailers, shuffle the deck, and mail them out. When you track the results, one will get a better return than the other. So, they kill the loser and try to create a new ad that will beat the previous winner. Then repeat.

With this approach you have the opportunity to continually increase the number of customers who contact you, while at the same time, reduce your cost of acquiring each one. Does that make sense?

The Next Step

Hopefully, I have now earned the right to ask them questions about their business to better understand what they need to accomplish. And then can review the differences in the way organic, ppc and local/maps/iyps can help meet them meet those business objectives given their most important keywords and target geography. And finally to make sure they understand the risk/reward/no guarantee aspects of internet marketing.