Possibilities vs Limitations of SEO for a Local Business

SEO is an excellent channel for home services to generate more leads, but it comes with some limitations. In this video, we’re aiming to paint a realistic picture of what you should expect with a local SEO campaign.

One of the first questions a business owner asked me when they figure out that we are search engine optimization specialists is, will this channel work for my business? And there are some incredible things that can be done with search engine optimization when it’s done right, but there’s also some limitations to this marketing channel.

And what I want to share with you in this video and demonstrate is that search engine optimization is not the end all be. For every single service-based business, but it is an important part of your marketing mix. So I wanna break that down here. Today I want to explain the difference between search engine optimization and other types of marketing.

Understanding that distinction will help you in tremendous ways. The second piece is really the ultimate limitation to being able to use search engine optimization effect. Especially if your business is a little bit more obscure. We’ll talk about that in a moment. And the third thing, we’re gonna actually break down what I think are the most important things to understand about what’s possible with seo.

Really gonna share you some case study information that’s gonna blow your mind. And then the second piece, share with you the downsides and things that you should expect before. You know, starting this journey on your own or hiring an agency yourself, you have to understand the limitations to this channel so that you can have a reasonable expectation of what you’re getting into.

So let’s talk about P versus P. I’ll fill this in for you. Let’s talk about it. So it’s, thanks for push versus poll. You think about watching, uh, tv. Just watched the Super Bowl recently. There are a lot of commercial. That’s push marketing. It’s interrupted. It’s in your face. You scroll your Facebook, Instagram newsfeed.

Now what do you see? Every fourth, fifth post is an ad that’s push marketing. You’re, you’re taking your message and you’re just putting it in front of people and hoping that enough folks see it. They will reach out, contact you for services. Search engine optimization is poll marketing, so it’s only talking to and bringing in prospects that are already looking for and thinking about your services, finding the right vendor, all these different things, and so it’s a very different group of people.

And what you’ll also note and we’ll talk about a bit more is that with push marketing, you can definitely reach more people, but less of them will be qualified. And with pool marketing, you’re gonna reach the most hot and warm leads that you could possibly find, but there will be less of them. Okay. Big, big important distinction because if somebody’s not looking for the service, actively looking.

There’s no amount of search engine optimization that’ll help you reach that person. So remember that. The second piece I wanna talk about before we break down the rest of this diagram is the education component. Spoke of the business owner that has this. Uh, contraption that can help you DIY some of your background.

Zero escaping. So you can take the rocks that are in your backyard and you can put them through this machine. It’ll sift it all, take off all of the dirt and extra things so that you can use that rock somewhere else and just really beautify your backyard. And she was like, well, can we use search engine optimization to help that business?

I said, well, I didn’t even know this thing exists. I bet you there’s a lot of other people that didn’t know that it. How would they even know what to type into Google in order to find that service? They, they wouldn’t. Right? So if there’s a lot of education that needs to be done around the product of service, and it’s not really obvious what somebody would type into Google or if they would even think about it without some education, SEO is not gonna work for that business.

But if you think about those standard local home service, Uh, companies, you think about your roofers, your plumbers, your H V A C, your pest control, you know, locksmithing. All of those people know exactly what to search when the, when the pipes burst. Plumber near me. Snow no secret. Education is a big piece and a lot of folks don’t understand this.

Think that SEO’s gonna help them. It’s really not the best first place to go, uh, for a lot of reasons, like I just discussed. Let’s talk about now the possibilities versus the limitations of this actual channel. You’ll see some numbers and things that I put here. Let me tell you a story share with you, a case study.

We’ve been working with a local HVAC contractor here in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the past three years. So now we’ve seen all the different seasons, we’ve seen them multiple different times. We’ve been able to track the. Of these campaigns over the last few years, and one thing that we were able to deduce and figure out is that during the peak season, this last heating season that we went through, where people’s furnaces are breaking down, need repair, they’re making all these service calls in the city of Albuquerque.

During these peak times around 1600 service calls are being made a day up to a day busiest times of the year for furnace. Average ticket’s gonna be like $800. Do the math. We found $1.28 million, right? Million dollars a day in revenue. That’s up for grabs for the businesses that are appearing on Google search.

That’s what’s possible for a business in a large metropolitan area. Albuquerque is like small potatoes versus Houston, Phoenix, some of these bigger cities around the. That’s what’s possible with search engine optimization, though in a category where it makes total sense, 1.28 million a day. Crazy. So even just a small part of that can make a big difference for a company.

You’ll see I put a star here and that stands for predictable.

With search engine optimization, it’s pretty predictable what is possible. With the right analysis done, we can examine trends, we can examine past data, and really figure out what’s possible for a business at its website in generating new leads for the business. So you think about a business that’s wanting to grow and scale and, and predictably hire people.

Well, you need to know that the business is going to come in and you need to come to expect what’s possible in the future seasons if we keep growing 10%, 20. Whatever that number might be. Predictable is a big reason that folks choose search engine optimization, and it’s one of the things that’s made possible by this particular channel.

Now, let’s talk about the limitations, just as important as what’s possible. Two things. Supply and demand. You heard about this from your standard economics classes or things that you’ve heard about supply and demand. . If there’s not much demand for something, people just aren’t gonna really pay for it. If there’s a lot of demand, but there’s not very much of it.

It’s a, it’s rare to find prices go up. Uh, right now in the US there’s a shortage on eggs, and the price of eggs has literally doubled over the last year. That’s probably gonna change. Who knows? Doesn’t matter. But that’s supply and demand in effect. A lot of businesses that we work with experience some level of seasonality.

So, for example, the HVAC company, when it’s the dead of winter and everybody has already gotten their stuff changed over and fixed, there’s a period of time where there’s not many phone calls coming in. Other industries see this as well, landscaping, um, tree care, uh, I mean basically any industry roofing in certain parts of the country, pressure washing, all these things.

Search engine optimization is not going to solve the problem of creating demand for what you have. Okay? So in the case of the H V A C company, if your furnace isn’t busted, why would you call them? You probably wouldn’t. So search engine optimization is not going to overcome the law of supply and demand.

If people simply don’t need your service right now and they’re not looking for it, you can’t solve that problem. Right? You’ll see I put a plus sign here, right? Plus sign.

Plus sign stands for other channels. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. There are certain industries I’ve run into, such as pressure washing, where search ended optimization, especially in smaller, more rural areas or sub-suburbs, there’s not a ton of search volume or people looking for it. So it is important to combine search engine optimize.

with some push marketing. So create some awareness for it, demonstrate it. People will see it. Then they’ll what to call, right? Capture as many people as you can through pool marketing, search engine optimization. That’s like a winning combination, okay? Understanding what’s possible versus what is impossible and a limitation for this particular channel will help you have really great expectations before you embark on the journey, which is a long one.

That is search engine optimization for your local. I hope you found this video helpful. If you got questions, leave ’em in the comments below. Give this video a thumbs up. And hey, if you need some extra help, you want a third-party perspective on maybe what some other agency is doing for your business, give us a shout, schedule a call with us.

All of our information is on our website in the description below. Love to help you out in the future if we can. And uh, that’s it for now. Catch you on the next one.