This month we spoke with Matt Shoup the President of M & E Painting, based on Northern Colorado. Here’s a little about Matt, and his answers to our questions on SEO, and advertising.

Matt Shoup Founded M & E Painting with only $100 to his name in 2005 after being laid off from the corporate world.  This event only reignited Matt’s true passion for entrepreneurship, and he has never looked back. Since then, M & E Painting has grown to a multi-million-dollar, award winning company and Northern Colorado’s largest and most recognized painting contractor.  From 2005 to 2010, the company grew 500%!  Since inception, M & E Painting has served over 3,400 clients and maintains a 98.6% customer satisfaction rating.  In 2009, Matt founded his second company Shoup Consulting.  Matt’s mission is to inspire entrepreneurs around the world.  He does this by speaking, writing, and coaching. You can see one of Matt’s companies at www.mandepainting.com

Here is the Interview on what works for Matt and his company.

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What forms of advertising and promotion does your company use now?

PR (awards, press and media hits), direct mail, Send Out Cards, referrals from customers, outdoor branding, sign spinners, internet

What have you found to be the best advertising or promotion programs?

Doing a great job for people and getting them to talk about you.  Retention of clients has been by far Send Out Cards, and branding and awareness has been sign spinning.

What advertising or promotion have you used in the past that you no longer utilize and why?

Some of the cheaper low quality direct mail has not worked well.  We swear by Val Pak and have loved their service and ROI

How do you track the effectiveness of your advertising?

We track where every single lead comes from when they call.

Do you find certain types of advertising have a better closing percentage?

Referrals

Do you have a certain percentage of gross sales you use for an advertising budget?

6 to 7%

Do you have a formal referral process for customers to utilize?

Yes, we send customers to dinner when they refer us new work.

What’s the easiest lead generation source you utilize?

referrals

What’s the best Lead generation source for your company?

Direct mail

What are the best long term return on investment advertising programs you use?

Direct mail and outdoor branding

Any comments on the following type of advertising?

TV- no thanks

Radio- no thanks

Print magazines- some are okay, but do not use too many ourselves

Print Coupons- people love them, generates lots of calls

Direct mail (individual to homes or Businesses)- very awesome as well

Door Hangers/fliers- very low ROI

Pay per click advertising- people are figuring out you pay for this, go organic

Search Engine Optimization- works great for us.

Social Media- too much to get confused on, focus on one like Facebook, Twitter, etc and master it.

Telemarketing- can’t stand to get the calls so would never make them

Trade Shows- not great ROI, lots of looky loos

Referral programs- people love a little incentive

Lead groups- no thanks

BBB  Membership- these guys are the necessary evil.  Don’t really like the way they do things

Sales People  – gotta have them to leverage your self

Business Development programs

Canvassers – no thanks,

Internet lead services like Service Magic, Angie’s List, Dave Logan, Tom Martino.

( A certain co-op lead service branded by a local personality)  is a crook and a huge hypocrite, I was called by one of his scummy sales guys.  Talk about say one thing and do the other.  No thanks.  Angies List seems to be a great truthful source for both company and contractors

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It’s always interesting to hear what a company is getting great value from. In M&E’s case they do well in some very none traditional areas. Sign Spinners, Send out Cards, and customer referral programs.  They also give Val Pak a big thumbs up as well as organic search (SEO).

SO far in our most recent round of interviews there are a few surprises.  Trade shows are not doing as well in the thumbs up category as they once were, and we see formal referral programs gaining a lot of traction. If you are a home Improvement company interested in seeing the full report, it’s available for members of the 24-7 Home Show group. You can see info here   (Full disclosure , Mike Bayes is a partner in Bayes Squared llc the operating company for 24-7 home Show).

We will be publishing these results as often as we can. Your company is welcome to add to the discussion here (in the comments) or if you would like an individual interview, please contact us at info@myonecall.com to arrange.

Google filed a patient in 2003 describing how they might handle the issue of exact match domains getting better rankings in the search engine results compared to other sites. That patient was just approved.

Here is a great article about it by  Bill Slawski of SEO By the Sea http://www.seobythesea.com/ 2011/10/googles-exact-match- domain-name-patent-detecting- commercial-queries/

There appears to be some strong evidence (at least at the local organic level) that Google has already started making changes in the SER based on discounting the value of a domain with an exact match domain name.  We have several sites that have exact match keywords in the domain that we built more than 6 years ago. In the last few days, one fell from the first position for its exact match keyword, to the 11^th position. This is a local site. None of our customer domains are using this strategy, just sites we built throughout the years for one reason or another.

We also have seen our non domain exact match sites move up, and in some cases significantly. This blog is a great example, as two days ago it was ranked number 11 under SEO in Denver, and today it is third. It should be noted we don’t do any specific SEO program to our site; we are just active on the Internet in natural places. No one spends 8 hours a week or month or year doing SEO work for the site.

I would love to hear if you are seeing a change in your site based on exact match domain names.  The fact that Google has made two major changes in the last two weeks that have also had a large effect on many local rankings will make this a little more difficult to figure out the old causation versus correlation of a change.

It also appears that this change has had no effect on the Google Maps results. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see the Maps rankings change some based on this as well, but the Google Maps listings have a tendency to follow organic changes after a period of time.

Mike

http://www.salesjumpstart.net

303 500 3053

I was interested in what page and domain authority the top three search engine optimization sites have for the largest cities in the United States. You can take a look at the numbers and see how your site currently ranks compared to the top SEO sites in major US cities.

I am using the free SEOmoz browser tools, so any one can duplicate this test, in what ever niche you like.

I’ll be looking at each city leaders individually later, to see if we can find some commonalities in how they achieve these rankings. Hint, many do web design as well as SEO and have the normal “web design by” link on the home page of the sites they have built, giving them a huge advantage over search engine optimization companies that do not   provide web design services.

The good news is I don’t see much black hat or at least questionable linking or on site tactics, and that does seem to confirm that the tricky SEO’s, using what could be called black hat tactics, don’t do well when it comes down to competitive rankings. I mean “search engine optimization ” should be a pretty competitive term right?

Chicago:  Search Tern “Chicago Search Engine Optimization”

Top 3 sites

PA: 59, 64,59

DA: 51, 65, 64

Houston: Search Term “Houston Search Engine Optimization”

Top 3 sites

PA: 52, 64, 61

DA: 42, 58, 54

Los Angeles: Search Term ” Los Angeles Search Engine Optimization”

Top 3 sites

PA: 65, 60, 63

A: 57, 58, 55

How About Phoenix ( Yes it is one of the top 5 populated cities you east coast snobs )

Top 3 Phoenix SEO Sites
PA: 44, 57, 62
DA: 32, 48, 54

Guess we better do New York ( I didn’t put them first because they are always first)
Top 3 New York Search Engine Optimization sites
PA: 64, 78, 70
DA: 56, 75, 100 <<< That 100 is a youtube video. hmm…

So how do these compare to the mid market cities? Lets look at Jacksonville Florida, 11th in US population (Who knew?)

Top 3 Jacksonville Florida Search Engine Optimization sites.

PA: 51, 46, 55
DA: 41, 36, 57

Let’s take the 17th largest city ( I picked this number randomly before I looked at the list)
Charlotte North Carolina (A pleasant surprised, as I have spent time in Charlotte, and always enjoyed it’s splendid hospitality.)

Top 3 Sites:
PA: 39, 59, 38
DA: 27, 56, 64

And just for comparison lets do Cheyenne Wyoming, only because I know it’s small. I mean really small.

Top 3 Sites Cheyenne search engine optimization. (I actually give you 4 because I thought number 4 was funny)

PA: 47, 23, 37, 01
DA: 65,11,25, 04

Yes friends, the 4th ranked site has a 01 page authority and a 04 domain authority according to SEOmoz. The third ranked site is in Atlanta (I think) and its site appears to be down currently.

Now don’t go rushing off to expand your SEO company into Cheyenne. You don’t belong there son.  Trust me, I played in a Country and western band and toured in Wyoming.

And the summary:

No surprises that I can see, but it does give you a pretty good idea what your site PA  and DA would need to be to compete for the coveted first page top 3 rankings for”your City search engine optimization”.

I hope to get a little deeper into assessing the commonalities of these sites over the next month.  I’ll look at where the links come from. on site factors, and all the stuff you would look at if you were doing it. Let me know what you think I should be looking at, or do your own and let me know if you find any thing interesting. You can subscribe to our newsletter >>>>>>>>  over there in the right column,  if you want to see more detailed things on how to SEO, or tips and such.

Until then, I’ll see you in Cheyenne!

Here is a good article on how we sell  Search Engine optimization services click here  ( Don’t laugh at click here, it’s good anchor text!)

And in the spirit of helping our friends doing SEO in Cheyenne I give you some juice love. SEO in Cheyenne

Any of you who do SEO should do the same… lets help out this cowboy!

I run into so many small and medium businesses that are taking on their own local Search engine optimization programs these days. Generally the strategy is to list their site in as many directories as possible, and hope for the best.  That strategy wasn’t all that terrible 4 years ago, but today there is a good chance that they will be competing against other web sites that have hired a professional web optimization company.

Ensure Website Visibility With Search Engine Optimization Slide9 (Photo credit: hongxing128)

Since I want to give some unique ideas here I am not going to cover in any detail the basics that are published in a billion other places.  I do want to give you a quick list of those just in case you don’t have them, and you can find a good how to SEO for local video and transcript at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-basics-of-local-seo-whiteboard-friday.  I would also suggest you start at www.getlisted.org  a wonderful free resource for local business owners and managers.

Great, now you have the basics just like the 10 or 50 other competitors for your key words. What next? To be really successful in the Local SEO field, you really need to become unique. You need to stand out both with your on site content and your “link profile”.   So here are my top tips for doing just that.

• Write a blog every week (or more). Google likes fresh content. Make sure it’s related to your service/ product, and don’t worry about being a “great writer”. Just do it.  Make sure this blog is part of your domain! There are so many businesses who just can not write blogs, that I would suggest you hire a writer to do it. It can be that important. You can find them at our local college, and all over the Internet. Just Google it. And don’t be afraid to hire an editor for your blogs. It’s about the same cost, but will sound far more authentic.

• Write a testimonial for a local company every week. Send it to them in a digital format. And let them know its fine to post it on line. Make sure you have a small paragraph of about you on the blog, with your web site.  Give the business instructions on how to use it…Dear vendor,  Feel free to have your web master post this on your testimonial pages… or use the first paragraph on the first page of your site.

• Get involved in local forums on your topic, even if that topic is generic business. Participate weekly. Make sure you fill out the profile and include your web site.  You can find them by doing a Google search like this, “Business Forum + Your City.

• Post your blogs on your companies Facebook.  Most business face book pages have a life span of 4-6 months before the owners give up. This gives you new content to post weekly. Search engines like you to have social sites, and they like your stuff to be shared.  Posting your blogs takes 1 minute.

• Comment on the respected Local blogs once a week. Make sure you are interested in the topic, and that the blog is well respected. News Media blogs are always good for this.  Stay away from the controversies… your prospects don’t need to know your politics. Just sayin…

• Have an SEO do a one time on site assessment of your home page and site structure. This will cost you, but I have seen more good done in this one move than all of the linking you can do in a year. You may already have a bunch of quality links, and it’s just your title tags are messed up, or you have duplicate descriptions on some pages, or a friend who knows SEO told you to use your keyword a lot and now your page looks spammy, or they told you to hide some keywords or cities on your home page through font color.  Who knows?  I would just suggest that SEO has changed a lot in the last year, and if you do not have the on site stuff, you can waste a lot of time on every thing else.

So start with:

A blog (30 minutes a week)

A testimonial written and sent (25 minutes a week)

Join and participate in a few local forums. (15 minutes a week)

Post your new Blog on your face book, Twitter and Linked In. (5 minutes)

Comment on Local respected Blogs (10 minutes a week)

And have a trusted SEO do a one time on Site assessment (Do this every 12 to 18 months)

There you have it. 90 minutes a week to build your web sites popularity. Will this get you to the top of the search results? Maybe, but it will make you more visible every week. And that’s what you want, more visibility and traffic to your web page.

If we can help you feel free to call us at 303 500 3053 ext 1.

Why do so many small SEO companies struggle with selling their services?  Many reasons, as you will see below. SEO and Internet marketing services are, in the universal world of all type sales, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being really hard, and 1 being simple, about a 7.  Here’s why.

1.) You are generally selling to a small business owner or manager.Small business owners really hate spending money on anything they can not see a very quick and tangible result from, and they have very good reason to feel this way. You must understand that most small businesses operate on a very slim margin of error when it comes to advertising and promoting their business. Unlike the fortune 500, where a $100,000 campaign is small fry, a few thousand dollars to a small business can be a big investment.  A $10,000 investment may be one of the largest advertising investments they make.

2.) They don’t understand the process and experience needed to do SEO.

It’s far easier to buy a T.V. or radio campaign than SEO. You can see or hear what you are paying for. It’s an easy decision (in comparison) to purchase a new server, computer, or furniture.  SEO is a promise, an “IOU” if you will.

Many small business owners I have worked with just think it’s some sort of I.T., PR, Web based thing we do.

3.) Most local SEO providers don’t have sales experience and rely on word of mouth.  This in itself isn’t a bad thing. If you have to rely on referrals and word of mouth you are going to have to be very good at what you do to keep the existing customers happy enough to refer you, so if this is your number one (and possible only) sales strategy, you are probably doing pretty good work for your clients! (That assumes you are getting referrals)

4.)  Most Local SEO providers don’t really try to sell. This goes with number 3. Because they do not have the experience or training, they just don’t try. Can’t blame them really, if someone asked me to rebuild my cars engine, and just handed me a book with “how to rebuild your cars engine”, the job would most likely, never be done. Or if it was, the car would not run, or be so rusty due to the passage of time, that it would be worthless.  Does that sound like the state of your sales process?

5.) Many businesses in some markets have had a bad experience with SEO  or Internet marketing.

This is the old one bad apple syndrome. 

So what are the solutions?  If you look at all the reasons there is one very large commonality.  They are all fear based both on the prospect side and on the sellers side.  A SEO service has to reduce and eliminate the fear of buying and the fear of selling.

How do you reduce the fear in buying?  You replace it with confidence by identifying what the fear is, and addressing it.  Let’s look at the first fear:

1.)    I am afraid I will waste my money. How do you replace this with confidence?  First acknowledge the concern (fear).  Let them know you understand that many companies have a natural fear that SEO won’t work, and it will be a waste of money. And of course ask them if they feel this way.

2.)    How do you answer that or address it?  Actual current examples of SEO clients that are similar to their business with a full explanation of their success. Don’t go summary version with this. Have all the facts and details ready. Where they where ranked, what their traffic was and how much revenue increase they have seen. Have 4 pages of explanation, and the last page being the reference letter from that client. Three of these type examples, and a phone call from the prospects office to one of your current clients, on speaker phone,  to let your current client tell your prospect how great your service is, and that fear as significantly put to rest.

All the buying and selling fears above can be addresses with logical, honest tactics, and having trained over 1000 sales professionals,  hundreds of sales managers and business owners, I know that any company that makes a commitment to the sells process will see results.

Let me know if you would like a free consultation on how to grow your revenue.  You can reach me at mike@myonecall.com

Oh… and if your challenge is just not seeing enough new prospects, we have proven systems that can jump start your sales with lead generation.

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Had an interesting discussion with a business owner this week that I have known for over 15 years. He recently invested a bunch of energy and money into a new data center and is putting together his marketing/sales strategies. Having been in the industry for 20 years, it was a logical move, and he wanted to discuss SEO and other search engine marketing systems.

As with any new prospect I wanted to see how he was selling his services today, and to whom. During that piece of the discussion, he asked me is outside sales and cold calling, dead. (For some history… my sales experience started in outside sales, after a few months as a telemarketer, and at one point I managed a sales force of over 650 sales professional, and a few amateurs, and today my company manages outside sales programs for several businesses, so the question caught me a little off guard.

I can completely understand the question. Everything you hear today is about Inbound Marketing, Social Media, SEO, and anything Internet related.  Tom Hopkins and the gang of “sales trainers” that use to dominate the sales scene are either retired or selling books on the Internet.  Internet type marketing now dominates the small business thought process.

Inbound Marketing works!

But I am here to tell you, outside sales is alive and well, and very large successful companies still use out side sales as the foundation of the revenue generating process, but the out side sales process has changed in a few decades. Buyers are far more educated because of the internet, and in many cases more price aware because of the economy.

That’s why Inbound marketing can make a lot of sense. If your prospects are looking for your service on line, then … YES be an inbound marketing fanatic.

Inbound Marketing Doesn’t work!

There are many type companies that their sales are relationship, and referral based, and their customers do not use the internet to find and purchase their offering. The fact that only about 5-7 companies per service type in a local area are really going to generate significant traffic from an Internet marketing program also is pretty much no brainier when it comes to how much revenue is actually provided by In bound marketing in an industry type. Inbound marketing is a very limited crowded over financed space.

Cold calling and out side sales does work!

Let me give you an example. A commercial contractor does not find customers on the Internet. They find new customers through face to face contact. We did research of buyers in the commercial construction industry and found the largest commonality for making a purchase from a new vendor (and we spoke to over 100 buyers in the market) was…. they had looked the company they bought from in the eye, and had a face to face meeting of one sort or another to start the process. Read that statement again, a face to face encounter to START the sales process.

Companies that had made a phone call to get on a bid list, or sent information had almost no chance. Companies that actively worked on getting in front of new prospects were the winners. That contact was overwhelmingly through an outside sales type tactic.

One of our clients is positioned number 1 – 3 for just about every keyword you can imagine a prospect would use in their city for commercial construction.  They bill over 4 million dollars a year. How much from the Internet in 2011? Nothing. Did they get bids from the Internet, yes, a few, did any close? No.

Second example.

We did sales coaching and  SEO for one of the largest residential paint contractors in the state. They have incredible rankings throughout the metro area for most house painting terms.  They do as much business through leads on the internet as many paint contractors do in 5 years. Is this their number one source of sales? Nope. There number one source of sales is the 50 outside direct door to door sales people they put on the street every year for 5 months or so.

The fact is Inbound marketing should be a piece of your marketing strategy, and maybe a large piece, if you have a service your prospects look for on the Internet. But out side sales and business development still may be the number one tactic your company should use. That’s why we provide both Inbound Marketing and Business development, because every business is different.

Call me if you want to discuss which is the better option for your marketing. http:www.salesjumpstart.net

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In Search, Location and Local Intent Matter

I was just reviewing another SEO’s report to a client. Wow. Looking at the report you would think that they were dominating the local search for their keywords.  But, and here we go again, they are only tracking one of the four type search queries a prospect might use to find their type company when it comes to a local intent search.

The report notes rankings for the following queries:

Suburb of city plus Keyword.

Example, if you were a plumber in Kansas City would be

Riverside MO. Plumber.

But the reality is, that prospect might use any of the following queries, and depending on where (the location) that Google thinks they are in, the results will be different.

They are just as likely to use

“Plumber” with no local intent.

In this case Google is going to serve the results based on their information as to where the search is being conducted.  Most likely you will see a Map’s listings.  Very different than the search the SEO is tracking.

Or, they may use the main city in the search

Plumber Kansas City.

This can bring up blended results, with possible Map’s listings and organic.

Or, they may use a zip code (Less likely, but it happens more than you may think) Plumber 90123

blended and different results.

So the reality of the SEO ranking report is they are only viewing a minority of search queries for this customer. Frankly, intentionally or not, they are putting the best foot forward, and hiding the other foot.

Local search engine optimization is a different process than national or generic optimization. In each keyword, a good local SEO knows to focus on having the client rank in all 4 of these type queries.  That’s great SEO.

If we can help you with your local SEO  or Internet marketing, give me a call for a free assessment of what it might take.

Mike Bayes, 303 500 3053 ext 1

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In the continuing series of how to sell SEO services, and based on our premise that relationships are what really sell, I wanted to give you a great tool and process to sell more SEO services (or any business service for that matter).

Linked In is the world’s largest business social network. Chances are the vast majority of your clients have a Linked In profile. On that profile is a list of their connections.  Doesn’t it make sense to take a look at all of your clients connections, making a note of the industry and position each connected person is in, and then ask your client for an introduction?

Step One

The first step is to request to be added to each of your clients linked in account.  All you need to do is search Linked In for their names, and then request they add you as a connection.

We encourage our sales coaching clients and any businesses that sell b2b, to actively, and prolifically ask for referrals from clients.  The big challenge most of your clients/customers will have giving you a referral (and I find this true time after time) is trying to figure out who to refer you to.  The process of knowing who their connections are on Linked In, and asking directly for a referral to that very person, will increase your referrals a ton.

Give it a few weeks if needed

You may need to give it a few weeks before many of your clients respond to your request to be connected, as they may not check their account all that often.  For those you don’t hear back from, send them an email and ask that they add you to their Linked In connections.

Search their connections

Now that you are connected… go search those clients’ connections!  Make a note of the people you think will benefit from your service, and then …   write a template email that you can give to your client that recommends a business speak to you about your service.

Send a request for an introduction

Send your client a request for a referral to the identified prospect, and add the email template to the bottom of your email.   End your email with something like….

Mike, I wanted to make this as easy as possible for you so I have included a brief introduction of my company for_____________ (Name of prospect) below. Please feel free to just copy and paste it into an email to _______.

You have now eliminated almost all the reasons you don’t get referrals from Clients.  You have identified the person(s) they can refer, you have written the copy they need to send.  You will be surprised how many of your clients will happily refer you to non competing businesses.

Click on the link see more tips on How to Sell SEO Services?

We have been helping businesses grow revenues through proven systems for 13 years. Our process and systems have developed over 100 million dollars in sales, and our average Small business client will increase sales over $500.000  a year. Call us for a free consultation and discussion on how to jump start your business sales.

303 500 3053 Ext 1

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The page has a P.R. of 2 from Google, and a PA of 48.  These are all natural ratings.  When I share a comment from someone…  and there is a link in that comment, it shows as a follow link.

So there you have it. Get your face book comments shared and nothing but good things can come from it!  If you want to understand how to promote your facebook page and use comments in the right way with the right content to get shares feel free to contact me.

303 500 3053 ext 1  ( Mike)

For every keyword you are looking at you need to run four different queries, because Google will serve the results in three different ways with different results for each. Local searches may use one of the following type searches. Let’s use Basement Finishing as an example.

1.)  Just the term Basement Finishing

This will bring up results Google thinks are relevant to what location you are searching from. I assume they use the IP from your Internet provider, which may or may not be in the actual town/city/zip you are sitting in as you search. This result (and I will add pictures later) will have the strongest organic listings for the major metro area you are (of you are ) part of.  Followed by the Maps listings.(Generally)

2.) You may search with your city name in the query, like “basement Finishing Broomfield”

This brings up the Maps first.  A big difference than a search with no city.

3.) You may use the zip code, like “basement Finishing 80020″

This brings up different organic results in the first two positions than the non city term search and then the maps.

4.) You may just use the generic metro city name, like “Basement Finishing Denver”.

Completely different results from all of the above.

Four commonly used search structures for local, one keyword. This is one reason that using a non local SEO for a local business can be a mistake. Few understand, or work on the entire set of query types, and may be sending you reports with just one type query, when you are missing 75%  of the opportunities.

Here is a quick copy of examples:

Basement Finishing Browser set to 80020

Basement Finishing:

Basement Finishing Broomfield

How about using the zip in the search? Basement Finishing 80020

And then the generic metro Area. Basement Finishing Denver

Your results may vary of course, but what you will find consistent is that all 4 different queries will bring different results.  If you are a local company looking for great Internet Marketing you need a company that understands all of this and a lot more. Local Search focused SEO’s rarely get the credit they should when they are doing the job correctly. It’s a related but different process and understanding than “organic” SEO.

Give us a call any time for a free assessment of how your site ranks in all of these local query types. 303 500 3053 ext 1.

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