2 Unemployed 22 Year Olds - Offline Journal (Pics)

[Fathom]

If I received a packet like that and I was looking to hire someone to rank my site on Google places I would be thinking the following:

Who is this company?

Do they have clear references such as website, rank, traffic stats, email address such as [email protected]

Is $2000 a month going to be justifiable?

?Pizza in London? receives 260 searches a month. As an estimate lets say 50% of those searches are done by people searching their own listings, that leaves 130 searches and if you manage to get 50% of those searches click onto your clients pizza site then out of those 65 clicks you get 50% ordering a pizza.

So for $2000 a month your client would get 33 orders which would cost him $60 per pizza and if he wants to make 50% profit then that pizza it?s going to cost his customers $120 for a pizza. Have you thought about return on investment? Or is that something you are learning aswell?


London is a big place so realistically someone might search for ?pizza in hackney? which gets 12 searches a month. Most people order online or order from a leaflet that was dropped through the door.

Those other 4 niches that you chose to ?test the water? are a bad return on investment. You need to reprice your plan substantially and first become an expert at local search.

David Mihm is one of the best SEO?s when it comes to local search and has a great blog that you can learn from >>> http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/

You may think i?m hating on you but essentially you are scamming someone without yourself or your client realising it.

 

[bigeazy]

Don't mean to hijack... but David shows exactly how big brother-ish google can be:

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/google/verizon-data/

 

[dantob]

I use broad, the WSO suggest broad because a lot of exacts don't register especially for smaller niches like "dog grooming my city"

I changed very little from the original WSO just a few of the wording choices i didnt like


Have you planned what you are going to say to your customers who don't get any traffic when you've got them in first place on GP? If the exact searches are low you are inviting trouble.

Search Engine Watch did a study that concluded position one gets 36% CTR. Position 2, 12.5%. Bare in mind there are 3 paid ads above this and sites in GP has been reduced from 7 to 3 according to a number of comments on here.

Maybe the business owners won't have a clue what the traffic they are getting. In the end it's all down to ROI. If you're charging x amount and their business as not increased by x amount they'll call it a day anyway.

In Takticals great thread on here he explains that you better be ready for the complaints because irate customers will call if they don't see any improvements. Just something to consider if you plan on going into meetings saying there's 500 a month searches when there's really 50

I know Redhill and others are using broad figures so it would be interesting to hear if they have had issues with this yet?

Search engine watch stats:

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049695/Top-Google-Result-Gets-36.4-of-Clicks-Study

This is why I would rather show them exact (even if the total number of searches is like 400-500 from a total of 5 keywords) because for local businesses if they can get like a handful of new customers each month that is plenty to justify our fees and they will be happy to pay it as well.

Of course you have to adjust your pricing to each niche, but if your targeting say chiropractors or dentists (which have a bigger lifetime value for each new client they get) then even if you can get them 2-3 new clients a month it would a good ROI for them to pay say $300-$500 a month for GPlaces services or SEO.

What do you guys think?

 

[theag]

This is why I would rather show them exact (even if the total number of searches is like 400-500 from a total of 5 keywords) because for local businesses if they can get like a handful of new customers each month that is plenty to justify our fees and they will be happy to pay it as well.

Of course you have to adjust your pricing to each niche, but if your targeting say chiropractors or dentists (which have a bigger lifetime value for each new client they get) then even if you can get them 2-3 new clients a month it would a good ROI for them to pay say $300-$500 a month for GPlaces services or SEO.

What do you guys think?

why not show them both and explain the difference to them? show them the exact searches and tell them those are more "safe" numbers but there is also more upside potential as they can see from the broad searches.

I think the main take-away for pricing is that you cant have a one-fits-it-all price/packet for your clients. Take into consideration the searches, calculate an approx. realistic ROI and price that way. Make them happy and upsell them on more stuff 1-2 months down the road. This should have more potential for your business.

 

[britcpa]

Don't mean to hijack... but David shows exactly how big brother-ish google can be:

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/google/verizon-data/

thats unreal - especially these comments:

Not to beat a dead horse, but I was reading the new Privacy Policies by Google this morning and saw this:


 ?Device information
 We may collect device-specific information (such as your hardware  model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile  network information including phone number). Google may associate your  device identifiers or phone number with your Google Account.?

What seems strange is that a low visibility mobile phone no should over write a well established one, a land line?.
 There seem to be two issues to ponder:
- The strength of a Places entry verification
- The balance between a users view of their own data and some spam threshold.
 Places verification.
 Google now tend to verify by a post card to the business address,  manually where we do not receive mail as well now, so we have a point of  reference on the map.
 As google are cozying up to phone vendors can land line providers not  record the locations GPS/Mobile mast location of the phone  line/broadband termination.   When we buy a mobile phone contract at  least the provider could record the billing location.  Also from data I  presume they scrape they could provide google with our ?favourite?  locations and obviously one should match our Places entry address.
 When we post card verify our Places entry then google know where we  are from our ISP records via phone line/broadband connection and I am  sure a little app, certainly on Android, can securely access our web  enabled phone and verify via its location that we are really sitting in  the business address set in the Places entry and if it is the mobiles  registered address.  A pretty strong method.  Surely there must be a  ?verification quality? ranking and that should score pretty high.
 In the UK when you take out a Yellow Pages contract a rep visits you  so that would be another high scoring input to our verification ranking.

I had a similar situation with one of my customers. He has a claimed  Google places listing with a phone number that originally was a SPRINT  cellphone line and at the time he opened his preschool, he used it as his  main phone number to his business.
So all the NAP information across the web uses that number. For the last  2 or 3 weeks he called me to complain that all the calls were going to  his cellphone and not to his business line (original SPRINT cellphone  line). I edited the information in Google Places but until now, nothing  has been fixed. His account has been under review for more than a month  with no changes.
It sounds to me that Google is picking up information from cellphone  providers, in our case is AT&T, and replacing the original number in  Places.
I am know wondering if more people are going through the same?..

I had something similar happen but after a few weeks Google support  fixed it. Killed my business for a few days. I wish Google had 24 hour  tech support.

this is actually very relevant because if Places is one of the main products being sold by the people reading this thread, you all need to know that in some instances, Places data is being auto overwritten by G based on data theyve collected 'from other, more trusted sources' than either your client or you.

ok, back to the original thread now.....

 

[Www.LystenUp.Com]

Hello... is there a alternate way of contacting you? I don't have enough post to IM u.

 

[infoasian]

Good luck guys but I don't agree on charging the same. Imagine a hedge fund manager and pizza store owner going to the mechanic to fix their car... will they get charged differently?

No.. because work is work.

Trust me, the price will be totally different. Car machanics take advantage of people just like others do. They add an item here and there.

 

[pieking]

Hello... is there a alternate way of contacting you? I don't have enough post to IM u.

Nice website promo.. :y:



I'll continue to watch this thread as I'm also getting ready to get my ass out of the computer chair and out into the offline goldmine.

 

[charlie3]

Any updates from the OP on this? I was interested while it was a journal...

 

[dotcomdesigns]

Hello... is there a alternate way of contacting you? I don't have enough post to IM u.

You forgot this :ban:

 

[skillz]

lol Dotcom. But can somebody explain the broad and exact keywords to me. (ie Dentist mycity vs _________)? And which is exact and which is broad. Thanks in advance.

 

[Wings[SENSE]]

lol Dotcom. But can somebody explain the broad and exact keywords to me. (ie Dentist mycity vs _________)? And which is exact and which is broad. Thanks in advance.

Broad Match: The keywords using the term broad match can be shown in any order with any other words.


For example. The term ?water feature? could be shown with any variation. i.e.: water pump feature, water house feature, feature water house, feature hose water.


Exact Match: Exact match keywords are exactly how they sound, an exact match of the keyword searched for.


For example: The term ?water feature? would only be shown when that term is typed in.


Phrase Match: The keywords are used in the order shown with other words for variation.


For example: The term ?water feature? could be shown with another word accompanying this term. i.e.: gold water feature, water feature blue, bespoke water feature, elegant water feature.

 

[alleballe]

So... How is things going?

 

[Getwhatchuwant]

If I received a packet like that and I was looking to hire someone to rank my site on Google places I would be thinking the following:

Who is this company?

Do they have clear references such as website, rank, traffic stats, email address such as [email protected]

Is $2000 a month going to be justifiable?

?Pizza in London? receives 260 searches a month. As an estimate lets say 50% of those searches are done by people searching their own listings, that leaves 130 searches and if you manage to get 50% of those searches click onto your clients pizza site then out of those 65 clicks you get 50% ordering a pizza.

So for $2000 a month your client would get 33 orders which would cost him $60 per pizza and if he wants to make 50% profit then that pizza it?s going to cost his customers $120 for a pizza. Have you thought about return on investment? Or is that something you are learning aswell?


London is a big place so realistically someone might search for ?pizza in hackney? which gets 12 searches a month. Most people order online or order from a leaflet that was dropped through the door.

Those other 4 niches that you chose to ?test the water? are a bad return on investment. You need to reprice your plan substantially and first become an expert at local search.

David Mihm is one of the best SEO?s when it comes to local search and has a great blog that you can learn from >>> http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/

You may think i?m hating on you but essentially you are scamming someone without yourself or your client realising it.

I understand what you are saying (and maybe $2k p month is high for a pizza joint) but you are assuming that you serve shit pizza and none of the customers you gained in month 1 order in month 2. But lets say you DO only get 33 new orders in month 1 and 11 (1/3) order again in month 2 and you STILL get 33 new orders in month 2 now you have 44 new orders you would not have had. Now assume in month 3 you get 11 of the 33 new orders to order again and 11 more from month 1 and once again 33 new orders now you have 55 orders from the same service.

I know the way I laid it out is very simplistic but its not as simple as saying you are going to get 33 new orders on average, you have to factor in repeat business each month from gaining these new clients you may have not otherwise gained.

 

[stunna]

I understand what you are saying (and maybe $2k p month is high for a pizza joint) but you are assuming that you serve shit pizza and none of the customers you gained in month 1 order in month 2. But lets say you DO only get 33 new orders in month 1 and 11 (1/3) order again in month 2 and you STILL get 33 new orders in month 2 now you have 44 new orders you would not have had. Now assume in month 3 you get 11 of the 33 new orders to order again and 11 more from month 1 and once again 33 new orders now you have 55 orders from the same service.

I know the way I laid it out is very simplistic but its not as simple as saying you are going to get 33 new orders on average, you have to factor in repeat business each month from gaining these new clients you may have not otherwise gained.

This is a great point.

It's important to bring up life-time-value to the business owner, because they may overlook that element when they are considering your pricing proposal.

It's your responsibility as the salesperson to ensure that they are thinking in the life-time-value mindset as opposed to the fixed one-month return mindset.

 

[lanbo]

Did any of them respond yet?

 

[nethead01]

ya any updates man?

 

[theag]

This is a great point.

It's important to bring up life-time-value to the business owner, because they may overlook that element when they are considering your pricing proposal.

It's your responsibility as the salesperson to ensure that they are thinking in the life-time-value mindset as opposed to the fixed one-month return mindset.

This goes hand in hand with explaining to them that it is a long-term process to rank a site/profile but then gives a high ROI. sell it as a long-term investment with secure and high ROI.

 

[norsebastard]

Subscribed. Looking at something similar - hope you hear something back soon!

 

[twmade]

Do you mind sharing what your documents look like when your sending out these packages?