HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR LOCAL SEO AGENCY FROM OTHERS
Know more how to differentiate your agency with other by using this guide
Acquire more clients for your agency
Introduction
SEO has become the mainstay of big brands and local businesses. If businesses want to be found by their target audience, they need to have a significant online presence and SEO allows them to enjoy that visibility. This is the reason local SEO agencies have become highly sought-after.
Importance of Local SEO
Local SEO allows businesses to market themselves online. This is because many local consumers are now using their smartphones and computers to conduct local searches. Here are some statistics that are worth taking a note of:
- 50 per cent of people conducting local search visit the physical store the same day
- Nearly 50 per cent of people performing local search through their mobile phones look for information about businesses
- Nearly 78 per cent of local searches done through mobile phones result in a purchase in the physical store
- 64 per cent local consumers use search engines and directories to locate local businesses
This is the reason why local SEO agencies should be able to cater to their clients and ensure they offer exceptional services. However, with so many local SEO agencies, it can be overwhelming for businesses to select one agency. However, if an agency is able to prove to prospects that it is different other similar agencies, chances are high that the agency will get selected over its competition. So, how can you make your local SEO agency stand out in a crowd?
1. Find Your Niche:
Instead of being a generalist SEO agency, focus on a niche. This allows you to cater specifically to clients from a specific industry and allows you to speak to them in their own language. It also gives clients peace of mind as they know you understand their industry, the challenges in the industry and what they are specifically looking for. It makes you a specialist local SEO agency which will be valued by prospective customers. You can share your expertise with your target audience via webinars, blogs and white paper reports. This, in turn, will further cement your expertise in the mind of your prospects and existing clients.
This approach allows you to be different from other local SEO agencies and you can depend on referrals and word-of-mouth advertising from your clients. You can incentivize this by offering them a discount for their next project. It also allows you to build a community within the industry that you can funnel to your other services and products.
2. Choose Your Clients Prudently:
You should be very clear about the types of clients your agency is willing to take on. This means sitting down and defining your persona. Remember, there are many different types of clients and all may not be the right fit for your local SEO agency. So, keeping this in mind, it is perfectly alright to turn away a prospect if you think that the partnership will not work out for either stakeholder.
In a local market, there is no dearth of prospects and you should be willing to spend time to find the right ones. If you accept any and every client, you are no different from the hundreds of local agencies operating in your town or city!
Decide whether you want to cater to small businesses or large businesses. Does your target audience have knowledge of local SEO and what goes into it? Do your prospective clients have clear cut goals and objectives related to their online presence and visibility? What are you looking for – collaborative relationship or complete control of local SEO? If you answer these questions honestly, you will be able to define the type of clients you want to work with, and it will make it easy for you to tailor your services to meet their SEO requirements.
3. Showcase Your Unique Value Proposition:
Every agency has some expertise. It can be the skills and knowledge or your team; the tangible results you offer clients; or the culture of your agency. Figure out what is unique about your local SEO agency and showcase this to prospective clients through your website, blog and social media posts.
The idea is to leverage your expertise to benefit your clients. What is that you have that no other local SEO agency has? In order to decipher this, you need to be certain about your agency’s identity and vision. These two will make you different other agencies and help you garner clients of your choice. It will also allow you to collaborate with likeminded clients, who believe in the same values. This will set stage for mutual success and ensure optimal trust between you and your clients.
4. Tom-Tom Your Success:
While your social media presence, and website and blog content will present the value you offer, but you should also be able to demonstrate your expertise and successes to get the required leads. Then you can use your knowledge and expertise to convert these leads to paying customers.
The way to go about promoting your success is by posting case studies and examples of the work that you have done before. Make sure you put in figures and tangible information that your target audience finds useful. This way, you will be in a position to show your audience that you offer genuine results that you have no qualms about revealing to the rest of the world. The tangible results will give more impetus to your efforts to win over clients and convert leads.
5. Build Relationships in the Digital World:
Previously, agencies had face-to-face meetings with clients. This helped in creating a relationship over several meetings. However, now things are different. Most contact and communication take place over telephone, emails, and messaging apps. This has proven to be beneficial for local SEO agencies as they can expand their reach beyond their local area. However, it has hampered relationship building.
You can make your agency stand out by laying emphasis on relationships with your clients. They should feel that you are a support service provider who helps them meet their business objectives. So, when a client has a choice between two agencies, they will prefer to go with the agency that they have a rapport with rather than a profit-driven agency.
6. Be Creative with Your Services:
As stated earlier, there are many local SEO agencies out there that offer the same set of services. So, rather than pitching cookie cutter services that every other agency offers, give your clients something different and unique that will truly help them beat their competition.
Take a good look at your competition to determine what they offering. Compare it to the services that you offer. Now, see how you can improve your offerings to make them unique and different. Whether it is pricing, local SEO methods or contract length – look for unique ways to pitch your services that interest your prospects and help you stand out from your competition. Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate why you are the perfect choice for companies and local businesses.
7. Focus on Working with Clients Rather Than for Them:
Clients like to work with service providers who they feel comfortable with. This comfort comes from knowing that the service provider is always available to address their concerns and answer their questions. In the world of SEO, many agencies present themselves as SEO specialists, but when clients ask questions, they use jargon and complex data to answer that clients don’t understand.
Remember, you need to forge relationship with your clients, and you are there to help them conquer the digital realm. Hence, you need to position your local SEO agency as a partner who has their best interests at heart rather than a mere service provider who will work for them in a clinical manner.
8. Concentrate on Creating Value Instead of KPIs:
The unfortunate truth is that too many SEO agencies are key performance indicator-drive. They weigh success based on the numerical goals they achieve. While KPIs are important, it is prudent to remember that clients are more concerned about what value you can add to their business besides helping them reach the first page of search engine results if not at the very top.
It is about return on investment. If you can deliver value by making meaningful contribution to your clients, you will automatically stand out from the competition. This means focusing on making clients, both existing and prospective, understand your unique value and how in the past you have used your expertise, knowledge and skills to win accolades and deliver successful projects. Let your work speak for you and don’t get swayed by numbers.
9. Practice What You Offer:
As a local SEO agency, if you cannot be found by search engines, how can you guarantee the same results to your clients? So, it is important that you focus on your agency’s SEO. This begins with getting the right tools that will help you work smarter and not harder.
Opt for TribeLocal, which is a web-based platform that helps agencies improve their personal SEO and that of their clients. Here are some of the things that you can do with TribeLocal:
10. Citations in Business Directories:
You can get access to 100+ business directories. These directories are local, niche and national directories. The platform allows you to create citations across all directories through a single dashboard. You can also use it to track and update citations. It ensures consistency and accuracy across all directories to ensure your local SEO can be found by search engine spiders without getting confused over inconsistent NAP.
11. Claim Your Google My Business Listing:
TribeLocal lets you claim your Google My Business listing, and for any local business, this listing is a boon. It functions as a mini-website, ensuring your prospective clients can find you when they conduct a search for the keywords that you have used. You can optimize your GMB profile with keywords and also get clients to post reviews. TribeLocal can be integrated with GMB so that you get key metrics and data about your target audience and visitors to your profile.
12. SEO Analytics:
TribeLocal has a built-in SEO analytics tool that offers access to all the important SEO metrics. This helps you figure out your site performance and track the traffic and site ranking. You will be able to improve campaigns that are not performing optimally and pinpoint campaigns that are working to your advance.
13. Review and Online Reputation Management:
You can also use the tool to respond to online reviews. The beauty of TribeLocal is that you can respond to any review, regardless of the publisher. This means there is no need to log onto individual review sites and respond to each review. Instead, you can use the dashboard to manage the reviews and engage your target audience with ease.
In fact, TribeLocal is an all-in-one local SEO tool designed to help agencies manage not just their client portfolio, but also their local SEO needs. So, if you are not using this tool, you are not making use of that one weapon that you differentiate your agency from the competition.
The Bottom Line
Local SEO has transformed the world of digital marketing, and local SEO agencies that can prove their value and uniqueness to their clients and prospects are the ones who will be successful. So, use these tips to make your agency different from the other agencies and you will immediately become a more valuable partner for your clients. This will help you boost revenues and ensure client loyalty and retention.
