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How to Close 5 NEW Local Clients in 14 Days

Hey there!

Great businesses know how to sell. Driving revenue through customers helps your business grow, and is the best way to bring money into your company. Because of this, it's essential that you know how to close clients when you have the chance.

If you’re struggling to close enough clients for your business, you might want to rethink your approach.

As we all know, small business owners assume that their site is the best and that they should always rank at the top of searches. The simple math is great for a “why you need to do SEO” demonstration, but if you want to sell them on your services, what’s next?

Once you have a potential client understanding the general need for local SEO, you’ve got to show them how the services you provide will improve their local visibility. Depending on how and how many prospects you have in your funnel, you might not have the time to jump in and do an in-depth local SEO audit for every sales call you make.

Down below, we’ll uncover our “Secret Audit” technique that will allow you to spot major local optimization issues with only a few minutes of effort.

Because this process was so quick, you can perform this audit with every client that you approach.

If you stick to these following points with every prospect that you want to sign in the next 14, I’m willing to bet you’ll close at least 5 NEW clients.

You Up for a challenge?

Here’s what you need to do:

Use one of our lead-finding tools (LocalProfits360, Mapify360, LeadFlow360) or do the prospecting yourself to find 50 new leads daily.

Then, contact each lead you generate with your own script or with our battle-tested email swipes.

Whenever you get a reply, perform the steps below so you make a website audit of the interested lead.

As soon as you know what you’re dealing with, it will be a whole lot easier to convince and close the sale.

Once you get used to this process, it should not take you more than 10 minutes.

1. Start With On-Page Elements (1-2 Minutes)

Start with a quick look at the home page of the site — remember, this isn’t an in-depth audit. (In most cases, the errors or omissions are very obvious and easy to spot.) Check for the following local optimization elements:

  • ●  Title Tag.​ Does it include City, ST? Is the business name at the end of the title tag?

  • ●  H1 Heading​. Is there an H1 heading on the page? Does it include City, ST?

  • ●  Content.​ Does the site have enough content? Does it include City, ST in the

    content? Does it include NAP (name, address, phone number) in the

    content?

  • ●  Alt Text.​ Do the image embeds include alt text? Does the alt text include

    City, ST?

  • ●  NAP. Is the NAP​ (name, address, phone number) present on the page?

    Does the NAP have schema markup? Is the phone number a local number?

    For the on-site, spend most of your time on the home page. If there are problems on the home page, the site will likely have the same issues on internal pages. After you’re done with the home page, spot check a few other internal pages and look at the same elements.

    2. Spot Check Citations (1-2 Minutes)

    There are several citation tools out there, but we like to use Moz Local (formerly GetListed) for a quick spot check of the major citations.

    Enter the business name and zip code, wait a few seconds, and check out how many listings show up for the business. If the site has its citations in order, you should only see one listing. If it has problems, you’ll see multiple listings.

You’ll also want to click into the site’s “primary” listing, typically the listing that shows as its verified Google My Business listing. Check the visibility score, and take note of the percentage of incomplete, inconsistent and duplicate listings.

3. Check Inbound Link Profile (1-2 Minutes)

Since Pigeon rolled out this summer, “traditional web ranking signals” have much more weight in local search results. That’s a fancy way of saying: (a) you have to do more than citations, and (b) you have to have a good link profile.

Use your link tool of choice — I suggest Open Site Explorer, Majestic, or Ahrefs. Check the overall Domain Authority (or whatever metric your tool uses), the total number of inbound links and the total number of linking root domains.

4. Check Google My Business (1-2 Minutes)

Most businesses don’t have an optimized GMB page, so it’s easy to find ammunition for your sales process on this step. Check the following:

  • ●  Is the GMB listing claimed/verified?

  • ●  Are the proper categories selected?

  • ●  Is there a well-written description? (Remember, with the new GMB

    dashboard, you can write long descriptions with formatting and links.)

  • ●  Does the NAP exactly match the NAP on the website?.

  • ●  What is the overall review score? Did they reply to negative reviews?

  • ●  Did the site upload a user image and an effective cover image?

  • ●  Did it upload multiple photos?

  • ●  Is it posting to Google+?

    5. Check Social Media (1-2 Minutes)

    Again, we’re not looking for in-depth info here. You don’t need to download an Insights report to be able to tell if a business has an effective social strategy. If it has problems, you’ll see them quickly.

Start with Facebook:

  • ●  Does the site have a link to its profile from the website? Is the link clearly visible on every page?

  • ●  How many fans does it have?

  • ●  How frequently is the site posting?

  • ●  What is it posting? Are the posts all sales-related “buy from me” posts? Is

    there any engagement from fans?

  • ●  Does the site have an effective cover image?

    Then move on to Twitter:

  • ●  Does the site have a link to their profile from their website? Is the link clearly visible on every page?

  • ●  How many followers does it have?

  • ●  How frequently does it post?

  • ●  What is the site posting? Is it all sales-related “buy from me” posts? Is there

    any engagement from fans?

  • ●  Does the site have its Facebook account tethered to Twitter so it only has

    to post in one place? (This is far too common and results in an awful user experience for Twitter users, since all images and links take users back to Facebook)

  • ●  Don't tether Facebook to Twitter and cross-post 6. Check Yelp (1 Minute)

    Even though most businesses aren’t frequently (if ever) reviewed on Yelp, it can’t be ignored — remember, the review stars on Apple Maps are powered by Yelp.

    Do a quick search and find the business on Yelp. Check its overall rating, and see if a representative of the business is replying to reviews.

    And In 6-10 Minutes, You’re Done!

    The more you work through the process, the faster the process becomes. You’ll be able to pull up your tools on the fly, as you’re talking to potential clients. With 10 minutes of work or less, you’ll find the majority of any major problems or issues with Local Optimization.

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