Small Local Service Businesses Can Compete with Joshua Latimer
Kris Reid joins Joshua Latimer for podcast #23 of The Quick Talk Podcast to discuss how small local service businesses can compete in the big leagues and get their share of the market through SEO and other tricks that drive website ranking.
The episode tackles some very useful and insightful information that makes SEO less complex and alien to an ordinary individual.
Do stick around until the end of the show for an interesting raffle promo that every online business would want to get their hands on.
Who is Kris Reid?
Founder of Ardor SEO and the self-proclaimed Coolest Guy In SEO, Kris started out as a software engineer in the financial industry before finding his way into the world of digital marketing.
What prompted him to venture into SEO is the video game he developed. It led him to ask how he can prompt people to play the game or to discover it in the first place. He started out with backlinking until he started providing full-SEO services to clients through Ardor SEO.
Who is Joshua Latimer?
With a goal to help struggling businesses find success, Joshua Latimer hosts The Quick Talk Podcast regularly and runs an online small business boot camp located at www.AutomateGrowSell.com.
He started a cleaning business from scratch and struggled to make it a success while trying to achieve family-work balance. Generating cash flow was one of the biggest challenges he encountered. But when he started making money, he ended up trapped doing all the jobs in the business.
To set himself free, he embraced the concept of implementing simple systems into his business, allowing him to work only 4 hours per week.
How SEO can help small local businesses
Josh and Kris agree that everything is digital and most consumers are more inclined to go to Google to look for products and services rather than leaf through a phone book and make a call.
Any business who fails to see this trend is losing big time. As what Josh said, “If you’re a small local company and you’re not noticing that that’s moving in that direction (going digital), you’re just really setting yourself up for pain and suffering.”
What can a small local company do then?
Use interactive tools
Kris recommends using tools that can help a company achieve what they want out of their website. If they want to interact with their clients and visitors, they can use live web chat support to accommodate people who prefer to chat rather than talk on the phone.
Look into visitors
Through your website, you can get an idea of what your visitors are doing, what they are browsing, and why they keep leaving your site without liking or buying anything. Based on this, you can then make improvements.
Use Google Maps listing
For companies that lack the resources or the bandwidth, they can take advantage of Google Maps to rank better organically in their local area. To optimise it, Kris recommends:
- Ensuring the listing is correct, especially the business details
- Using the nicest images that show customers what they are looking for
- Presenting images and information in a way that customers want to see them
It is important to get to know your target market to optimise Google Maps.
Based on Kris’s personal experience, when he was searching for local cafés, he realised that most of them show only the coffee and food. For someone looking to sit down and work, he was particularly interested in what the tables and chairs looked like. This little difference can make a huge impact.
Use your website as a tool
As what Josh points us, using a website as a brochure is the opposite of what service businesses should do. Instead, they should use it as a tool to engage customers and potential clients.
A common mistake that Josh noticed among local businesses is that they spend little effort and time in building their website. This is something that should be avoided.
One solution Kris recommends is to add testimonials that will add authority and authenticity to a website.
Think long-term with your website
Kris likens a website to a fruit tree, where you grow it once and harvest fruits from it repeatedly. Done right, a website will keep paying and paying. So spend a little time making nice content or improving Google listing.
A decent website will leave an impression that the company is decent. And no one wants to work with a “broke-ass” company, according to Kris.
What can Ardor SEO do to help?
Ardor SEO combines backlinking and on-site SEO to help clients get results and rank in search engines. The first step of the process involves getting a better understanding of what a client wants from their website.
- What are you trying to achieve?
- Do you want your website to capture leads?
- Where do you want to be in 6 months or 12 months?
- Who’s your ideal customer?
- How do customers contact you?
This is then followed by an audit to determine how far you are in achieving a high ranking, and then put out a plan to help you get there and achieve your goals.
One thing that Ardor SEO guarantees is for clients to get a positive ROI as quickly as possible.
Kris also warns against working with cheap SEO companies. Due to low barriers to entry, anyone can start an SEO business and call themselves SEO specialists. The ones who promise to do it for less are the ones who usually fail to do anything.
Listen to the full episode of Podcast#23 to get the exact information and tips shared during the show. Don’t miss out on some amazing insights that can help your local business grow and make a name online.
You also get a chance to win a website audit, courtesy of Ardor SEO. Just go to the link provided.
You can also listen to other podcasts on iTunes.
