Local Search Optimization Case Study

Local search is an easy way to boost revenue. In this case study I did 1 day of work for a small accounting business, in that day I made a website for them and did some basic local search optimization.
Here’s the results of the first 5 months -

  • Local search has brought 188 leads
  • 45% of visitors converted into leads
  • We estimate that the leads convert between 50% and 90%.
  • Additional revenue of $20,000-$30,000
That is an additional 38 leads and $5000 revenue every month!

The results are clearly significant for a small business and considering that I charged just ~$1000 for the day of work plus 20% commission for leads, their ROI is high.

The business ranks highly for many terms such as “Suburb Accountant”, “Tax Agent City” and this is all from local search optimization. The website is just 5 months old and has about 3 backlinks…yet it ranks highly for many local search phrases. You don’t need many backlinks to dominate local search since it’s not competitive if you target the suburb, or even the city. Now I’ll explain what I did to optimize like this, and it’s easy.

The website in question is a simple 1 page website, so there’s nothing special about it. The trick is targeting local search phrases on-page and creating a listing in Google Places (Google Maps). An optimized Google Places listing will get you many Places rankings in Google search results like so –
It’s as simple as that. Local search is very easy to bring in $1000s of extra revenue with minimal effort.
Now go and do it.

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Javier // Nov 20, 2010 at 9:44 am

    This is a nice strategy. I have a doubt though. What if I’m trying to rank for local search but have no physicall company to list in Google Places?

    And the leads you got, did you get them through the google places results or from the SERP below?

  • 2 admin // Nov 20, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    If you don’t have a physical address you’ll have a harder time getting into Google Places. The main thing that Google cares about though is a dedicated phone number that’s for your business.

    If you had a business phone number then I expect you could use your home address as the business address.

    Many local search leads though would like to visit you at your physical location.

    Maybe half of the search leads are from maps listings, and half are from normal search listings.

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