Many small businesses intend on staying small.  They are run by one or two individuals whom are more than happy to simply increase their customer base and revenue to a particular point, but no more.  They aren’t interested in growing beyond their means.

It’s not that they aren’t interested in growing - quite the contrary.  But many Mom & Pop businesses want to simply earn a nice living off their business and go home at the end of the day.  They are interested in growth, but not to the point of them turning into full-time managers.  They prefer to get their hands dirty.  They don’t want to manage people.

I have several clients like this.  Some have services that requires them to physically visit a property to perform, and others have a local business that requires the customer to actually visit their location in order to complete the transaction.

So when these types of clients hire an SEO, they will naturally start to see nationwide traffic, whether they like it or not.

I recently started doing SEO for a company that provides bounce-houses and other inflatable items for birthday rentals, etc.  This client is already ranking nicely for her related terms in the Saint Louis area.  But over time she is also getting more and more traffic (and requests) from other parts of the country.  She’s starting to rank nationally when, in reality, she doesn’t want to.

So, is this a problem?  Perhaps.  It depends on how/if the small business owner is interested in expanding.  Does she want to start another office in Chicago? Grand Rapids?  Does she have the financing to buy another entire set of equipment for another location?

Most likely not.

So then the question becomes simply: Do you ignore these requests, or is there a way to profit from them?

Ignoring them would be a bad idea, even if you’ll never make a dime off the contact.  Heck, they’ve already been exposed to your brand name once, you should at least reply with some sort of ’sorry we can’t help you’ message.  Get your brand in front of them one last time.

And if you start getting more and more of these requests, what can you do?  Do you start an anti-SEO campaign?  No way!

You could start a website similar to Service Magic and get people in your industry to sign up and pay you commissions whenever you send them an out-of-town lead, but do you want to be burdened with yet another part of something that isn’t part of your main business plan? Again, probably not.

Now, if your company provides products, and you start ranking nationally, all you have to do is start contacting your vendors about drop shipping, etc.  You’re in a good position.

Ranking nationally, especially at this time, when SEO is really still not very well-known, can be a good thing.  It (hopefully) opens your eyes to the global potential that the Internet can provide for your small business.  It may even change the way you look at your small little shop - going from local to national - but is that what you want?