SEO can be an intimidating service to sell due to how quickly the industry and trends change, how often algorithms get released, and you need a lot of expertise and resources to execute it well. And not all SEO is equal. There are different types of campaigns that serve different purposes. Before you go any further, ask yourself, what kind of SEO reseller services do you want to provide to your clients? A specific niche website hoping to compete nationally is far different than a local construction company trying to gain more business from the local community.
In this article, we are going to cover local SEO and how to effectively sell it to local businesses by providing genuine value and better understanding your audience to ultimately meet their goals.
Table of Contents
Local SEO Reseller: 7 Steps to Become a Successful Reseller
1. Find your niche
Any business needs to understand their client base and really their target audience. As a local SEO reseller, you want to find your niche and really understand the prospects you’re going to sell local SEO services to. SEO can benefit any website, but think of those who you already serve. Are a lot of your clients already in a similar niche or industry? That means your business already services that particular group well, so you can focus more attention on marketing to that group.
But if you’re not sure, do some research into who can most benefit from local SEO. Becoming a local SEO reseller requires knowing your audience and who you can best help to succeed so you can focus your efforts on them rather than an audience that ultimately will not convert.
2. Recognize that every SEO campaign is different
While the tasks that go into an SEO campaign are relatively similar across the board, the ultimate goal of each campaign is different. For local campaigns, you want to focus on local keywords that mention the location, local map packs, and business directories. Local SEO services focus on bringing in the attention of people in their own communities.
Before ever explaining one thing about SEO, you first want to understand your potential customer and what they want to accomplish through SEO. Do they want more leads? More visibility? Better in store traffic? Find out what makes a business tick and what they want to accomplish through a local SEO campaign.
If you overload them with technical SEO information before even really getting to know them, they’re going to feel overwhelmed and frustrated. Customers, no matter who they are, want you to know that you hear them, understand their problem and why they’re coming to you in the first place, and that you’re not going to waste their time.
I’m not saying a lot of small talk, but get them to tell you about their business, their customers, their competition, and their goals. Then you can better tailor your pitch to them. Just as every business is unique in its own way, local SEO resellers must recognize that every SEO campaign also has its own level of uniqueness. Therefore, the campaign must match up with the local business’s needs.
3. Use case studies and statistics
Very few things can tell a business you can help them like a case study and data specific to their industry or niche. Especially when you’re selling SEO services to local businesses, they want to know that your methodology helps businesses and websites just like theirs. Do you have success with construction or contractors? Dental offices? HVAC companies? Car repair shops? The list goes on. Be prepared with success stories of your clients to help you earn more business when you’re talking with new potential customers.
Statistics from reliable sources can also be a strong selling point. If you can show how local SEO has helped other companies and provide solid numbers, like ROI or percent increase in number of leads or traffic, that’s also a strong consideration. Customers like to know that you’re not just pandering to them trying to make another sale. If they see that your methodology can get results, they’re more likely to sign up for your services as well.
While showcasing your own case studies or original research is the preferred option, we know that it’s not always feasible. Even if it’s not your own work, find strong SEO statistics online that help these customers understand the importance of being found online.
4. Perform a website audit
To feed off the previous point, it’s also helpful for website owners to see exactly where their site lacks. Offering a free website audit is a good way to capture leads and incentivize businesses into working with you. It will reflect well on you and your abilities by offering this to a local business at no cost to them.
Boostability provides all of our local SEO reseller partners with a free SEO analysis for websites so they can plug in a potential client’s website, run the report, and tell them exactly where their website needs help. This SEO analysis is filled with information and can really help a local business understand where their site falls short and how it can be improved with the help of some quality SEO.
5. Explain the difference between local SEO and other SEO campaigns
SEO is the overarching service, but it can be divided into specific types depending on what the overall goal is. For example, there is eCommerce SEO, technical SEO, local SEO, national SEO, franchise SEO, YouTube SEO, and more.
If you focus on local SEO as a reseller, you will need to clearly explain how local SEO differs from the other types of campaigns mentioned above. Of course the goal of a local SEO campaign in particular is to get found by more local customers. You want to make sure that your client’s website shows up by those searching in a nearby geographic location.
This means searches that mention a specific city, or “near me” in the query or voice search. Certain tasks can help improve local positioning on the SERP to get your client in front of the right kind of customer. You need to remember this kind of information when it comes to selling SEO services to local businesses.
- Local Pack – It starts with ranking well in the local pack and local maps. When someone types in a query that appears to be a search for a local business, Google and other directories will pull up the “Local Pack” that shows the answers that best serve your query in a local area.
This is in the form of business listings, a map with certain highlighted business, and basic business information like hours of operation and NAP (name, address, phone number). Ranking in the local pack can help bring in more traffic for a local business than a lot of other digital marketing campaigns combined.
- Google My Business & Local Directories – Along the same lines, Google will pull up local search listings for businesses with Google My Business (GMB) profiles. But that doesn’t mean you can stop there. GMB is very helpful, but there are dozens of other directories out there.
Every directory can be helpful for those searching for your specific business. It’s not just Google that matters. For niche industries, they might consider directories like Thumbtack, FindLaw, or TripAdvisor that people would use in a very specific search. Business directories are a crucial step for a local SEO campaign.
- Create website pages with location keywords – If your client wants to increase business in a specific area, their website has to mention the specific location(s) somewhere! Creating pages dedicated to location-specific keywords is key to achieving this goal. It’s not just a matter of mentioning specific service-centered keywords, it’s an additional focus on those services a business does, and where they do it.
If you choose to partner with Boostability as a local SEO reseller, we will support you by optimizing content on a website to target specific keywords that are designed to help your client rank for local terms and reach their local community.
- Local Reviews – Reviews are becoming more important every day for local businesses. Before someone ever picks up the phone or drives to a store, they want to see that other customers in their area have had a good experience with a particular local business. And local business reviews actually impact SEO.
Not in a matter of how many positive or negative reviews a business has, but rather how many genuine reviews are generated, what are people saying, how the business responds back to reviews and engaging with the community, and much more. This is an additional reason why business directories are important, because that’s where customers can post reviews as well.
6. Compare with local competitors
Auditing competitor websites to see what they are doing well, what to steer clear from, and identifying opportunities for your prospective client is an essential tactic as a local SEO reseller. This is a strong selling point for prospective clients because it shows them how they compare with the competition which many local business owners are not aware of. They are busy enough as it is and rarely have the time to analyze what their competitors are doing in-depth.
By providing them with this information, it shows that you’re willing to go the extra mile to help their business stay ahead of the game. It can be just as simple as performing a Google search and spending a few minutes reviewing what information, offers, and pricing options they have on their site.
For instance, let’s say you’re talking to a carpet cleaner in Austin, Texas. Just go to Google and search for that exact phrase. See who comes up ahead of your prospective client. Use the same free website analysis tool we mentioned earlier to show where their website sits in the SERPs compared to their competition. It will also provide you with additional suggestions for how the SEO can be improved, which can be used during your sales pitch. Competition is a tremendous motivator. Use that to your advantage.
7. Be proactive and anticipate questions
The perks of running a small business is that you get to focus on your passion and what you love to do every single day. That means you focus on one thing and you’re really good at it. But that also likely means that your small business clients don’t know everything about digital marketing, or why SEO is so important for them. They’ve likely heard the term SEO or even know a little about it. But it’s up to you to help them understand the need for local SEO if they want to succeed in this digital age.
This is where many local SEO resellers get scared. You don’t have to know everything about local SEO in order to sell it! You just need to know the benefits and be able to help them understand the need for it, especially as digital presences become more and more important every single day. You need to help your prospects understand the importance of SEO for their business. When you understand it’s true value, you can convey that to your customers.
How Does Boostability Help Local SEO Resellers?
As the globally leading provider of white label SEO services, Boostability has numerous resources to support you through the process of selling SEO services to local businesses. We don’t leave our partners behind. Our Sales Support team is an excellent resource for local SEO reseller partners to connect with directly regarding client questions, understanding how to effectively communicate the value of SEO in a way your clients will actually understand, and much more.
We will provide you with strategies and tactics on how to find leads and close deals, quality deliverables crafted by our team of SEO experts that will help your clients rank high on SERPs, and detailed reports to showcase the progress of the SEO campaign. And all of this will be delivered under your brand name, not Boostability’s.
Restore Your Confidence in Selling SEO to Local Businesses
The main thing to remember is that you don’t need to be an expert in local SEO to be able to sell it. What you need is the ability to sell the benefits of white label local SEO services to your prospective clients and why it’s practically essential in our society where the answers to our questions are just a quick Google search away. Your SEO partner will do the heavy lifting for you!
As you’re selling SEO services to local businesses, remember those key steps we outlined above to help you confidently close the deal. For details about what our partner program entails and how we can better serve you, visit our White Label SEO Partner Program page to learn more and also get connected with a partnership success team member for all your questions.
