Today I stumbled upon a press release about a local real estate company that hired a lead generation company to help them generate more customers (in theory).  The lead generation company’s website gives four easy steps to generating leads:

How Lead Generation Sites Work

1. Customer searches for your service in Google/Yahoo!/Bing.
2. Customer finds your microsite.
3. Customer learns about your business and decides to buy.
4. Customer contacts you directly and you make the sale!

Well, put bluntly, I have a problem with this formula – in particular step #2.

In theory, the idea is great.  You get a call from a lead generation company like this and they promise great traffic.  They’ll simply send traffic to ‘your’ website and a portion of the visitors will either fill out a form on your site or give you a call.  A decent portion of those leads will turn into customers, and you’ll be happy.

More customers means more revenue, right?  It sure does.  But there’s a problem with the process.

The Trap

One of the things I often preach to my kids is that you need to invest in something today that will make some future day more enjoyable.  Don’t think short term – and that’s what this process does.

When a business owner hires one of these companies, the company purchases a keyword-rich domain name and then creates an exact duplicate of your website on that domain name.  They then purchase your keywords in one of many various PPC websites, sending traffic to your website clone (not your website).

If they’re any good at SEO, they may even rank their clone website above yours in the organic rankings – thus sending more customers to you, but through their system. They may say they are doing SEO, but you are paying them to do it for their site, not yours.

And just like PPC, if you decide to stop paying them, your leads disappear, your traffic disappears, and your revenue dries up.  Yet you’ve given them all of your good converting keyword data, which they can then use to woo in one of your competitors.

The Fix

The fix is easy – don’t do it.  Invest that same amount of money into something long term like a good quality website, a content strategy or SEO, and you won’t be slave to some company’s website clone or short term PPC tactics.  Invest in building your website as the authority for your keywords.  Start writing content on your site and building backlinks.  Months from now you’ll reap from these things and so will your bank account.

But I Need Customers RIGHT NOW

I understand – you are getting ready to close up shop if something doesn’t change today.  You’re not interested in a long term investment for your business – you just need the phone to ring NOW.  Got it.  With that in mind, here are a few questions I recommend you ask the lead gen company.

1. Are you going to duplicate my website, or send traffic directly to my URL?
   If the answer to this question is that they’ll duplicate your site, or a portion of it, or they’ll create a ‘landing page’ on their own URL, I recommend you stop right there.
2. Do you offer any sort of call tracking that will help me differentiate my calls from the ones you’ve generated?
   If they are sending traffic right to your URL, then you’ll want a way to tell which calls are coming from traffic that they’ve generated vs traffic that you’ve acquired ‘naturally’ – through your organic rankings, handing out business cards, etc.
3. Do I have access to your data?
   Will they provide some sort of way to track website visitors that they generate vs those that you’ve acquired naturally?  Will they be able to show where your money is going?
4. Do you offer this same service to my competitors?
   Ethically, how can they help generate you traffic and your competition as well?  They can’t.  Just like I can’t ethically do SEO for two businesses in the same industry.  I couldn’t sleep at night if I knew I was taking money from two businesses while making the exact same promise to both – position #1.

By now you’ve probably lost the salesman or they’ve given up on selling to you.  I recommend you go back and read the part of this article under The Fix and apply it to your business.  You’ll see that the long term approach is the better way to your business’s online success.

What are some lead generation companies?

• ReachLocal
• Prospect Genius
• eLocal
• Service Magic
• Yellow Pages

St Louis isn’t a huge town.  It’s not like New York or LA where limos are seen every day.  If you see one here, chances are it was rented for some sort of event, not because a famous person is cruising by.  And this isn’t Vegas, where they’re waiting by the hundreds at the airport.

I imagine that owning a limo rental company can be a bit stressful.  Those rides aren’t cheap, they have a somewhat high need for maintenance (especially cleaning) and need to be on the road more often than not.  So keeping the limos booked is a huge priority.  The following is a few things I’d do if I owned such a company.

First and foremost, I’d get a website. I’d fill it with pictures of people having fun, enjoying a night on the town.  I’d have a wedding specials section with pictures of brides laughing with their girlfriends, toasting with champagne.  Pricing would be easy to find, and pictures of each limo would be available.  I’d create special pages for certain events.  Weddings is the obvious one, but so are birthdays, bachelor and bachelorette parties, Girl’s Night Out and even Father-Daughter dances.

I’d also make the limo pages easy to share.  When people are thinking about getting one, often they email their friends and tell them to take a look.  Or choose between a few different ones.  “Should we get the Hummer or the Cadillac?”  Share buttons on these pages would be mandatory.  The buttons could be one-click posts.  When they click on the Facebook button, it automatically creates a post to the brides facebook page and has a thumbnail and link back to the site.  A really smart limo company could even build a ‘Help Me Choose’ page that compared two limos on a page, listing all of their benefits, accessories and prices.  Then that page could be shared amongst friends.

A search for limos in St Louis brings back only 5 organic results – and only two of those are actual limo companies in St. Louis.  One is a pagerank 2, the other a 0.  That means a nicely SEO’d website could climb to a page one ranking fairly quickly.

We can’t forget to add the site to the Google LBC, either.  This is pretty crucial nowadays.  Fill in the profile completely and create a few special categories.  Be careful not to put geographic-related words in those categories, though, as it is against Google’s guidelines and will surely get your submission rejected.  Don’t forget to geotag any pictures you upload, and get your listing verified as quickly as possible.

Video is another great tool you could take advantage of.  Make a few video interviews of your (still sober) guests at the end of the night and post them on a ‘memories page’ (at an additional cost, perhaps).  Use some of the good videos on your LBC page as well.

You could also give video tours of each limo, highlighting the special things about each.

A limo driver blog would be a great linkbait and content tool.  Post funny stories about things that you’ve seen as a driver, interesting facts about driving such a long vehicle, and use the blog to post content around the job in general.  A well written and consistent blog specifically about driving a limo would start to get comments from other drivers, thus increasing your overall content.  Be careful of local competitors who’d try to spam comment your blog, but let them comment if they don’t link out in every post.

Lead Generation

Now let’s talk about getting those limos full every night.  Beyond having an SEO’d website, there definitely needs to be plenty of ‘Call to Action’ buttons on the site.  Have them big and obvious.  Reserve this Limo Now or Compare this Limo.

Consider advertising on websites that have your same target audience, for instance St. Louis Weddings.  The rates aren’t that bad and they’ve already got a captive audience.

Team up with local florists and have them give out your cards, perhaps with a $25 discount attached.  Do the same for DJ places and funeral homes.

Target Facebook ads to groups related to brides, grooms and weddings in general.  Offer a Facebook Discount that they can only get by Liking your page.  Have a monthly contest for a free 4 hour limo ride (driver’s tip not included).

Find some local What to Do in St Louis type websites and get a listing there.  See the Arch from a limo might attract some families with an adventurous side (and it’d have your limos running during daytime hours).

The web is ripe in St. Louis for a limo company that’s ready to pounce.  There’s little to no online competition, and a well executed online marketing plan could net some serious money for one that’s willing to jump in headfirst.

There are tons of ideas for an industry like this – what are some I missed?

No matter what people say, “the economy” is still hurting business owners in a big way.  I get calls from business owners all the time wanting to find out about SEO as a way to increase their revenue.  Why? Because they’re hurting for customers.  Some small business owners (and large businesses) are starting to really feel the crunch – and they’re reaching out to friends and clients for help.  Somehow, somewhere, they hear about (or stumble across) SEO and realize that they are nowhere near the top.  They have no idea what SEO is, what it involves, or what the costs are to get there.

And for many it’s too late.  They have little money left in their bank, and they aren’t thinking long term.  They’re thinking ‘get me out of this hole’.  That’s not SEO.  PPC, maybe, yeah.

So what is a small business owner without a lot of money supposed to do?  Well, in my opinion the best thing they can do is buckle down and start learning.  There are a lot of very smart people in every town that are doing some pretty incredible things to help small businesses.  I have the privilege of being a member of several terrific groups here in Saint Louis that focus primarily on helping small businesses grow – both online and off.  (See: Experts 4 Entrepreneurs and Main Street Marketing Community).  There are always seminars and conferences going on around every town that are focused primarily on helping small businesses grow.

Missing the Boat

But even with all of that, some business owners just don’t get it.  Even after they’re exposed to the potential of increased sales and revenue with SEO, many of them still don’t pull the trigger.  Why?

Maybe it’s the cost.  SEO from a professional isn’t going to be cheap.  I’m not cheap.  But I get results.  I’ve talked with three business owners this past week who voiced concerns about the price of my work.  I’ve mentioned to them that they could take my class (it costs $10) or they could do some small link building campaigns.  Most – if not all – will ignore my advice and then wonder why their business continues to tumble to the ground.

Or maybe it’s the time required.  Maybe they just don’t want to take the time to learn what they need to do.  I’ve got a good buddy that owns a business here in town, and he couldn’t care less about computers or the Internet.  He knows that 50% of his leads last year came from his website, but he won’t invest any time into learning how to grow that asset.

Or maybe they’ve been burned.  Here’s another one I get calls about.  “I hired XYZ big SEO company in town and I’m not getting results”.  Then they call me, and already have an opinion formed that I’m just going to take their money, too.  Well, I am going to take their money, but the ROI that they’ll receive will only make them want to give me more.

Or maybe they’ve hired a friend that tells them SEO isn’t that difficult.  I just called a guy yesterday because he wanted me to call him three months after hiring “his friend” to do his SEO.  While I’m dialing, I pull up his website and see the title tag: Welcome to Our Front Page.  Looks like your friend is doing a bang up job.

Or maybe there’s some other reason why business owners aren’t doing SEO.  Is it because they see the immediate short term results of PPC? Did ReachLocal or some other crappy “ad agency” get to them first and convince them that their way was right? It often leaves me wondering why they contacted me in the first place.

But There Are Some…

So the good news here is that 11% more business owners are investing back into their business.  That’s awesome.  It’s smart.  I have the privilege of working with some of the most passionate, excited folks in St Louis and around the country that see the growth potential with their website.  They get it.  And they’re kicking some of the big box chains’ butts.  Now that’s cool.

Two Distinct Markets

In the pool industry, there are two main markets: those that want a cheap above ground pool, and those that want an expensive inground pool.  One is a ‘give the kids something to do’ mentality, the other a long term investment.  So we’re already targeting two markets.  In most cases, however, inground swimming pool installers also sell above ground ‘kits’ which you can set up yourself.  So for purposes of this post, I’m going to go with an inground swimming pool installer.

As you can surmise, the inground pool industry is hurting.  There are plenty of people out there dreaming about a pool, but not so many people acting on getting a pool.  But they are out there.  And they are searching.

Find the Stats

Searches for phrases such as ‘swimming pool installer st louis‘ and ‘inground pool installation saint louis‘ bring back two results over and over: Westport Pools and H2O-Plus.  According to compete.com, Westport Pools gets around 200-300 visits a month, but up to 2000 visitors during the July-August timeframe.  I’m going to assume that this is because of a few things:

1. It’s hot and people are wishing they had a pool.  The kids (or the wife) are complaining and Dad hops online to see some costs.
2. Advertising budgets for most pool companies are spent in this timeframe, which doesn’t make sense to me.  Why not advertise in March & April when people are eagerly awaiting the hot days?
3. It’s hot and people are wishing they had a pool.

Interestingly, H2O-Plus doesn’t show enough visits to register in compete.com’s system.

The data on SEMRush for Westport shows that there is virtually no competition.  They aren’t doing that great with their online strategy, so the field is ripe for picking.

The Strategy

Obviously the first thing I’d do is get an audit of my website done.  This is the foundation of any SEO campaign.  Fixing the things in the audit, I’d move on to some more involved techniques.

Next, I’d make sure I had a gallery on my website.  But more than just a gallery of pretty pools, I’d have a gallery of before and after pictures.  On top of that, I’d have a gallery for each project, even the ongoing projects.  Potential purchasers will really like to see that there really will be tractors in their yard, their fences may come down, and it’s going to be a mess for a while.  Customers that are in the process of getting their pool installed should be able to upload their own pics to your gallery or at least your Facebook fan page/album.

Since an industry like this is a bit competitive, I’d consider joining a lead generation program.  While ServiceMagic is nice for some industries, I don’t think it’s great for this one.  Plus, there are more centralized lead generation sites like SwimSTL.  Sites like SwimSTL gather leads from various means around the internet, and then sell the leads to several contractors.  They also have a Featured Contractor section, which would get you even more warm leads in a certain area.

I’d stay away from pay per click, Yellow Pages and Reach Local.  These are just short term solutions.  What we’re really after is the coveted #1 spot on Google, which (from the looks of the competition) isn’t going to be too difficult.

Prerequisites

There are some assumptions we’ve got to make here.  The dentist should already have:

• An office
• Existing patients
• A website

Step One – Find A Keyword Niche

Currently the search term ‘dentist st louis‘ comes up with just 860,000 results.  While this may seem like a lot, in reality it’s not.  Any result under a million is worth looking in to, and possibly ranking for.  According to the Google Keyword Tool, 4,400 people searched this phrase last month.

Switching the phrase around to ‘st louis dentist‘ results in 1.1 Million results.  Slightly more competition for nearly the same phrase. But check this out – this phrase gets twice as many (9,900) average searches a month!

And thirdly, the phrase ‘dentist saint louis‘ yields an incredible 2.7 Million results, yet only shows around 12,100 per month.  Which is a better deal?

I’m going with number two.  A number one result on Google for ‘st louis dentist’ would be a nice place for any local dentist.  Who wouldn’t want 9,900 potential new clients a month?

Step Two – Analyze the Competition

Now I need to do is see who’s currently ranking, how ‘valuable’ their website is, and how difficult it is going to be to overtake their #1 position.  (I should mention here that #1 position is optimal, but not always attainable. But being on page one definitely is)

There’s some good news here – a search for ‘st louis dentist’ shows me that the first two results are not very relevant. One is a site called Doctor Oogle, a directory-type site, and the second is another listing site of dentists in saint louis county.  Still no actual dentist website.  In fact, you have to scroll two-thirds of the way down the page before you find an actual dentist site -not counting the locally optimized results which we’ll talk about in step five.

At time of this writing it’s Dr. Derek Vadnal in Bridgeton.  His site is a template from ProSites, his call to action is sad, and the entire ‘above the fold’ area of his website is used very inadequately.  He scores a sad 55/100 on website grader. He could easily be overtaken. (Sorry Doctor Vadnal, I hope you aren’t reading this! – Or maybe I hope you are!)

Step Three -Audit My Website

Is my website up to date? What was the purpose of my having this site built in the first place?

1. Because I heard from my customers that I needed one
2. Because my competitors have one
3. Because I needed a way to generate targeted leads (ie new customers)

In most cases it’s not number three, although it should be.  But no matter which it is, we need to dig deeper.  A website SEO audit is a great place to start.  This ten-thousand-foot view of your site will reveal your strengths and weaknesses.  I’d then follow that up with a report from Website Grader. Between these two reports I should know whether or not I need to rebuild my site or just fix a few things and press on.  If a rebuild is recommended, this will need to be completed before going to step four.

While we’re speaking about your website, what is your URL (domain name)? Are there opportunities for you to get something that’s more memorable? Is yours easy to remember? Easy to say, like over a phone, without having to spell it out?

Guess what – dentist-saint-louis.com is available.  But probably not for long.

Step Four – OnPage Changes

There are some quick changes I’d do to my website.  On the home page I’d make sure my title was ‘St Louis Dentist John Doe’.  Not the name of your business, not the name of the dentist, but the number one keyword/keyphrase I want to rank for.

I’d also make sure that my Heading Tag 1 (H1) is very similar.  maybe just ‘St Louis Dentist’ or even ‘Saint Louis Dentist’.

Next, I’d make sure my website’s contact form was very easy to find, that it is short and sweet.  I’d also make sure that my phone number (using call tracking) was at the top of every page on the site and that I either have a 314 and 618 number or a 314 and toll-free number.  There are plenty of people out there that still don’t have long distance.

Next, I’d have my picture and a picture of each of my staff members.  Maybe even their own page.

It goes without saying that I’d have a blog.  If it were my office, and I had a staff, I’d have each one of the staff write at least one post a month.  If I have 4 staff members, that’s one a week plus what I write.  The blog would answer questions about everything related to my business – How do I brush correctly? Can I get cavities from sugar free gum? Do toothpicks really help? What if I don’t floss? etc etc.  Easy stuff to answer.  Answer it and become the expert.

Most importantly, make sure every page has a clear call to action.  Get a free report, first visit is $50 off, multiple family member discounts, whatever it is – make sure it gets your website visitors to give you some sort of contact information.  This is imperative.

Step Five – Getting Local

There’s no doubt that Google is getting more and more local, serving up results that include dentists right in your area, a map with pinpoints and even click-to-call options.  So you’ve gotta be there.

Filling out your profile on Google Places, Yahoo Local and similar sites is imperative.  (If you can’t do this, or don’t have the time to tackle them all, give me a shout. I know a guy who is awesome at local placement).

You have no choice on this one. You’ve gotta do it.

Step Six – Getting Social

Here’s where it gets fun.  I’m not just talking about signing up for twitter – I’m talking about building an online reputation as the dentist of choice for St. Louis folks.  Here are some ideas:

• Read Trust Agents, then sign up and actively use a twitter account.
• Create a Facebook page that tells people about your practice. Have giveaways that are only for your fans.
• Encourage your patients to share their X-rays on Facebook, flickr, twitter, whatever, however
• Encourage patients to write a review of their visit on Yelp, Mixx, Yahoo Local, etc
• Do a monthly newsletter that sells nothing but teaches everything. Use blog post teasers from the past month to get readers back to your site.
• Have a tooth fairy program – online or offline. Encourage kids to bring in their baby teeth for some sort of exchange. Use it as a teachable moment for good hygiene.  Maybe a new toothbrush or something.
• Don’t be the anti-candy guy. Be the better-alternative-to-candy guy or the candy-is-ok-in-small-amounts guy. Promote chocolate chip granola bars, oatmeal with fruit, smoothies, etc.
• Blog about funny things that happen in the office. Become likeable – not just another dentist.
• Partner with Foursquare to encourage check ins.
• Blog about pets and their teeth. Dog and cat lovers will be impressed.

Step Seven – Target Local Keyphrases

Here’s where it all ties together.  Starting an SEO campaign around the keywords you found in step two.  Consistent link building paired with blogging will assure that your site will climb the rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo!.

Since we’re in St. Louis, you’ve got a few different ‘versions’ of keywords that you can target – ie STL, St Louis, Saint Louis.  These will all produce slightly different results in the search engines, so target them all.  Don’t forget zip codes and larger ‘towns’ that people type in often such as St Charles, South County, Florissant, Wildwood, etc.  Obviously not all of them may be your target audience, but if they are don’t forget to build links with those words in them.

If you haven’t already, fix all of your errors that came up in your SEO audit, or if you had a new site built, consider running another audit on the new site. If you use Firefox, check out the plugin called SEO Doctor. Make sure all of your pages are near or at 100%.

Start creating pages (or blog posts) around frequently asked questions.  Then build links to those pages through your Facebook fan page, twitter account, etc.  Become the expert for all things dentist in Saint Louis.

Summary

If I were a dentist, I’d be all over the online space.  There is no clear leader when it comes to searching for a dentist in St Louis, and sooner or later someone will step up and become that authority.

Yesterday I heard a commercial for a small steel company in town and found myself wondering why they’d spend a few thousands on a radio campaign.  I think it’s simply that they don’t know.  They’re feeling the crunch just like the rest of us, and probably listen to that particular station.  So they put together an ad about how great they are, and paid the radio sales piper.

Reactive instead of proactive.

Reactive advertising (“sales are way down, we’d better advertise!”) rarely works well.  It’s done in haste, usually without really focusing on the target audience.  Reactive ads are easy to find – they mention ‘what they do’ and ‘heres our sale’.  They beg for immediate response and most often miss the target.  Wasted money.

And now they’re even further in the hole – no customers and their marketing budget is shot.

And it’s not just radio.  Other examples of what I term ‘shotgun advertising’ include billboards, newspaper ads and TV spots (especially these new local spots on shows like ‘Show Me St. Louis – very expensive and provide real short term results).  And I won’t even mention PPC (whoops).

Being Proactive in Good Times and Bad

Proactive advertising should actually be considered an investment instead of an expense.  Putting money and time into building your Facebook Business page is a good example.  Building a following on twitter will help you build your brand – if you do it right (consistently).

SEO falls in this bucket too – it’s a long term investment that doles out great benefits over a long period of time.  A smart SEO campaign will have a very nice ROI which only compounds over time.  Imagine if you ranked for ten great phrases this month. Then next month you ranked for twenty. Then thirty. The first ten are still bringing you customers, and now so are the others.  Keep your foot on the SEO gas and you’ll dominate the web.  And domination means revenue.  Your proactive investment is producing lots of fruit over several seasons.

If you’re business is in trouble now, or you’re starting to feel the economic crunch, do something proactive today that helps you climb out of that hole. Start blogging. Create content.  Read some blogs that give great advice. Attend meetups from business leaders in your community. Invest something and reap the benefits.  Then do another.

There are businesses that have seen record years in 2009 and 2010 because they invested in a long term approach back in 2008.  Had they put that money into a radio ad or TV spot back in 2008, would it still be producing results (and driving sales) today?