AMA: Client SEO -

Where do you get mostly your clients?

SEOMemj said:

I've always been pretty focused on client work but my business partner and I are starting to get into affiliate stuff while we increase the client minimum pricing significantly over the next few months.

I've had 1 BST before and am gearing up for a second (not a plug) but client SEO has always accounted for at least 95% of income.

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timothyc3r said:

Where do you get mostly your clients?

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Lately, inbound. Leads that have been finding me.

Going to be doing a lot more outbound through cold email, FB ads, and retargeting. Trying to get a lot more clients who are local to me.

I'm only on page 4 but I'll ask this as it popped into my head. I have one client right now, been my only client for the last 5 years. Not really doing complete SEO, mainly on-site and scouting links by sponsoring local clubs, gatherings, kids sports, etc. That being said......

I do PPC with call tracking/recording. I am able to quantify the number of booked clients through PPC. Obviously if someone doesnt close on that call and calls back using the actual business phone, its a lead but I cant count it.

How are you tracking leads to your clients? Obviously you know all the different avenues a lead can come in from. So how are you keeping tabs on it to show their ROI?

udt89 said:

I'm only on page 4 but I'll ask this as it popped into my head. I have one client right now, been my only client for the last 5 years. Not really doing complete SEO, mainly on-site and scouting links by sponsoring local clubs, gatherings, kids sports, etc. That being said......

I do PPC with call tracking/recording. I am able to quantify the number of booked clients through PPC. Obviously if someone doesnt close on that call and calls back using the actual business phone, its a lead but I cant count it.

How are you tracking leads to your clients? Obviously you know all the different avenues a lead can come in from. So how are you keeping tabs on it to show their ROI?

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Great question!

Tracking leads is always going to be a difficult task. Someone could see the ad, land on your landing page, and then drive down to the business (obviously, this varies by niche). That lead is "yours" but both you and the business will never know that.

>Obviously if someone doesnt close on that call and calls back using the actual business phone, its a lead but I cant count it

If they called the tracking number, they're a lead. Most consumers don't end their buyers journey on the first touch. They may click a PPC ad, call to find out more info, look up company reviews from organic, and then from organic call again and convert.

They don't have to close, that's not your job. It's not our fault if we generate 3000000000000 leads a month and they get 0 customers because they're shitty sales people.

The most important thing is to understand consumer education within the technical and digital world. People don't know jack about online marketing.

I make it my mission to make sure clients understand things like:

I can't track all the leads I gain for you

I can't control your lead conversion rate (Joe Troyer actually teaches his clients how to close more sales)

Acquisition models aren't the most accurate. Someone could land on a PPC ad, go to the homepage, and call a different number.

In 201(4?) GroupOn discovered that ~60% of direct traffic is really organic, etc.

Being 100% transparent upfront not only helps me close deals, but when clients ask later on and then I explain this - that seems like an excuse more than consumer education into the product/service they're about to purchase.

To finally get to your question -

form tracking and call tracking.

Forms are always destination goals with a page set to noindex (thank you page)

EVERY number on the site should be a call tracking number. Using DNI (Dynamic Number Incersion) you can swap out the call tracking number using a script depending on the acquisition method.

Meaning if it's organic tracking it'll show number 555-555-5551, social? 555-555-5552, etc. That way you can account for most calls.

When setting up directories (Yelp, GMB) and such, you can also use call tracking numbers

****IF YOU DO THIS MAKE SURE THE CLIENT OWNS THE NUMBERS. BIG FUCK UP ON YOUR PART IF YOU PART WAYS AND NO ONE CAN CALL THEM****

Now, I'm sure the question is: what about citation consistency? If I have 20 different numbers on the web, won't that hurt my citations?

There may be some trade off, yes (I haven't really seen much harm) . However, for most established businesses, there's not just a single main number. Consider a large law firm. There may be a front desk number, numbers for different practices (family, divorce, personal injury, etc), as well as numbers for specific partners of the firm. All of which would be visable on the web in one-way-or-another

If you are afraid of this, then I believe some services will actually help you turn the current number into a trackable number.

I would track everything and anything you can.

Do you rank CTA YT videos? Display a call tracking number in them.

Do you help them create billboards? Use a call tracking number on it.

SEOMemj said:

Hello everyone,

You may know me from my Journey to $100,000 thread, or not, that's cool too

Basically, I've been doing client SEO for over 4 years. I make a good living based on my age. Most people I know are struggling to make 25k/year and pay their rent, car, and student loans. I'm lucky enough to not have to worry about money, will be buying a house next year, and waiters/waitresses love me because I always tip 60%+.

That wasn't to brag, just to showcase that I'm doing well for myself.

I've worked with over 200 business. Some small businesses, some multi-million dollar companies. I've been fired, I've made mistakes, I've made great results, I've gotten piss poor results.

There are still aspects of client SEO that I struggle with and am always trying to improve on but I've come a long way and want to share my knowledge and possibly convince some people to give client SEO a try.

I have no problem with keeping this thread active for years if people are interested for that long

A couple quick facts about my work:

• I consider myself a gray hat SEO. Most of my career was white hat but for the past 8 months I've been using some black hat tactics.
• Before client SEO I had a history of marketing. As explained in the journey post I have a degree in marketing and used to work in Corporate America.
• I've worked for too many industries to count but I try to specialize in Real Estate and Law Firm SEO as often as possible.
• Client SEO is my main source of income but I do have a few side projects. Client SEO has been, by far, the most profitable but also the most time consuming.

So guys, ask me anything.

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Are you expert too at facebook?

I use callrail and the script changes the numbers depending on the source. I'm not aware of a company that offers numbers the client owns. Plus for the amount of traffic I need 4 numbers per location and there's 6 numbers.

Oh and if you deal with the medical field, which I do, you better be hipaa compliant. Aka, the more expensive unlisted plan.

As for forms, I bypassed the thank you page method and setup events using tag manager. Same difference as goals

I can go on and on about this stuff. I love it.

Syrus Enriquez said:

Are you expert too at facebook?

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I'm in a couple FB courses right now but I've never really done much but looked at a few campaigns that were in progress.

My business partner is more interested in FB ads so he's gonna lead that while I focus what I like.

udt89 said:

I use callrail and the script changes the numbers depending on the source. I'm not aware of a company that offers numbers the client owns. Plus for the amount of traffic I need 4 numbers per location and there's 6 numbers.

Oh and if you deal with the medical field, which I do, you better be hipaa compliant. Aka, the more expensive unlisted plan.

As for forms, I bypassed the thank you page method and setup events using tag manager. Same difference as goals

I can go on and on about this stuff. I love it.

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I think CallRail does it: https://www.callrail.com/blog/porting-phone-numbers-into-callrail/

I don't do too much with medical. I'm mostly in the law field, so it's mostly state BAR regulations that I have to abide by.

Do you set up a click event? If so, that'll send a conversion even if the form fill validation fails.

Very interesting thread, thanks for all the info

My question to you is about PBN's

Do you host all your PBN websites in same hosting account ? or you buy different hosting for each site ?What about Google analytics ? have you added all your websites in same Google analytics account ? If yes , isn't its risky to do so ? Google can track back to you.

No I didn't do it as a click event. It was for a form submission. It's been pretty accurate.

I still flirt with going back to the thank you page method. Liked it better.

Thanks for that link. I think the problem arises when a client stops call tracking. Right now there's 24 numbers out there for my client that one day may not be used by them. You can say that anyone that has that number wouldn't have become a patient without it and after they visit the office all the paperwork has the landlines.

Either way, it's a solid tool and I won't do PPC management for a new client, if I ever land one, without it.

Also one tip I have is I noticed my PPC traffic was 65% mobile. No surprise there. I split tested my landing page with and without a click to call button. Conversions increased over 40%; conversions meaning calls.

Has tipping a waitress 60% ever lead to you getting lucky?

rideronjourney said:

Very interesting thread, thanks for all the info

My question to you is about PBN's

Do you host all your PBN websites in same hosting account ? or you buy different hosting for each site ?What about Google analytics ? have you added all your websites in same Google analytics account ? If yes , isn't its risky to do so ? Google can track back to you.

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First, PBN 101 is that no, you don't host everything on one hosting account. If you're clustering, you can have 1 domain from each cluster on that hosting account but make sure you understand any patterns or footprints you're creating.

The GA thing is absurd. But this is like the 3rd time I've been asked, so there must be some blog post out there on this, huh? You're giving too much credit about Google caring about you. Large agencies can have hundreds of properties on the same account. It's about as realistic as Google trying to find SEOs by using Chrome to track them. May as well not use a Android phone either, right?

You're fine.

IAMAZEME said:

Has tipping a waitress 60% ever lead to you getting lucky?

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Nope, I've been engaged since High School. Though, she's not opposed to finding a lovely lady to stay the night

I don't link them seeing the tip until I leave. Makes me uncomfortable for some reason.

What would you say is the most effective link building strategy for local businesses?

DankHorse said:

What would you say is the most effective link building strategy for local businesses?

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Depends on the niche.

If you're looking for 1 strategy that will work with all niches then i'd go with PBNs.

SEOMemj said:

Depends on the niche.

If you're looking for 1 strategy that will work with all niches then i'd go with PBNs.

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What if you wanted to not use pbns

udt89 said:

What if you wanted to not use pbns

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Then I'd say it depends on the niche.

Directories and web 2.0's are crap. For some niches things like broken link building, guest posting, etc. Will take you more time to find opportunities than you have a budget for.

For example, I work with someone that's in the firearms industry. I'm getting them 10-20 links a month with outreach with a 15% placement rate.

I also work with a divorce lawyer where the placement rate is 0.5% and I'm getting 1-3 links a month for him. It would be much cheaper to buy links or go after guest posts.

To give a more step-based answer:

Use something like Ahrefs and pull the link profiles of everyone who is ranking (this is all assuming everyone has good onsite, including you). Organize each site's links:

Directories
Web 2.0's
Citation
Spam
etc

That'll give you an idea of what others are using to rank. Sometimes all it takes is 2-3 good links to beat the site with the 75 web 2.0 links.

SEOMemj said:

For example, I work with someone that's in the firearms industry. I'm getting them 10-20 links a month with outreach with a 15% placement rate.

I also work with a divorce lawyer where the placement rate is 0.5% and I'm getting 1-3 links a month for him. It would be much cheaper to buy links or go after guest posts.

To give a more step-based answer:

Use something like Ahrefs and pull the link profiles of everyone who is ranking (this is all assuming everyone has good onsite, including you). Organize each site's links:

Directories
Web 2.0's
Citation
Spam
etc

That'll give you an idea of what others are using to rank. Sometimes all it takes is 2-3 good links to beat the site with the 75 web 2.0 links.

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What have you found to be the most successful strategy for securing a link placement? Is it a matter of letting the web master know that their readers might enjoy your content?

Also, are you a fan of building backlinks to citations? (ex, building backlinks to a company Yelp page)

Also want to thank you again for your responses, this is definitely one of the most helpful threads on BHW.

DankHorse said:

What have you found to be the most successful strategy for securing a link placement? Is it a matter of letting the web master know that their readers might enjoy your content?

Also, are you a fan of building backlinks to citations? (ex, building backlinks to a company Yelp page)

Also want to thank you again for your responses, this is definitely one of the most helpful threads on BHW.

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I recommend following Dan Ray (Dan, if you read this, I want $5 for the plug ) for outreach based stuff.

For link placement, guest posts are always going to have a high success rate as those are websites who are looking for people to write for them and know that people want attribution for their work.

Broken link building can be great for blast campaigns. If you find 1 broken link, that link may have 200 backlinks. That's 200 prospects.

I think the key to success is showing, in a sincere way, how your content will help them and why a link to your website will benefit them.

For example, if they're a real estate agent who writes about things like why you may want various features (attached vs detached garage, pool, double vanity, etc) as a roofer, a piece of content about the pros and cons of an asphalt vs shingle roof in terms of aesthetics, longevity, cost, etc. Could be very relevant and something the realtor may not be able to speak to very well.

Tier 2 to citations? Nope. I'm as gray as the next guy, but I look at everything from a logical stand point. Why would someone link to a business's Yelp page? Does it happen naturally, yes. But it's a rare case (not including something like the business linking to it on their own website).

I like tier building on outreach links.

You mentioned that you calculate the ROI for your clients and provide them with reports. How do you track conversions and publish your reports?

NYC SEO said:

You mentioned that you calculate the ROI for your clients and provide them with reports. How do you track conversions and publish your reports?

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Call rail for phone calls.

Google Analytics for form fills.

Reporting is done via Google Data Studio.

I know it's been almost a year since the last post, but since you said you might keep this thread active for years, I thought I'd give it a try.

First, a fantastic thread, thank you for all the answers.

As someone who has never done client SEO, but is thinking of it, my main worry is potential clients asking for previous successes / portfolio etc. Obviously you're not in that position anymore, but what would you recommend for somebody in this situation?

Thanks!