So should you go after any local business owner? To be honest when you start out I would work with any local business owner that wants your service. When you get the experience to work with local businesses then you can start being a little bit more selective. There are certain factors that you can look at and keep in mind when you look for your local clients though.

The two things that I look at is:
1. Search volume
2. Client value

Search Volume

I use the Google keyword tool to check the search volume for local clients. The great thing is that when you work with local businesses it is not necessary to get a huge amount of traffic but you want to make sure that there are some searches for the keyword that you want to rank for. I try to go with keywords that have at least 350+ monthly local searches. A lot of times 1 or 2 new clients per month will make a difference for a local small business.

When you do your keyword research for local businesses type in the niche and the location, for example dentist Columbus Ohio, and it will give you an idea of keywords to rank for.

This is what I look for with the Google keyword tool.


Client Value


When I look at the client value I look at the average initial sale, how much will your local business make from a new client, but also at the lifet ime value of a client. Is the investment that they do with you going to take 1, 2 or 5 new clients to break even? Calculate the ROI for your potential client.
Will 2 new clients monthly break even and will 4 new clients monthly make them a nice profit? Here you also have to consider if you charge a one time fee for your job or if it is a recurring monthly investment for your local business client. You want to go after local businesses with high client value.

A pizza shop might have a lot of search volume but the client value is not that high, I would not go after that. A better option would be a restaurant that caters weddings, they might have a smaller search volume than the pizza shop but the client value is going to be a lot higher and if the searches are still decent I would go after that restaurant.

The ultimate situation is a high search volume + high client value.

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Kyle Premium Plus
Local is not going anywhere and the number of potential clients out there is continuing to grow as the more conventional businesses are starting to see more and more potential in the Internet. People aren't looking in the phonebook anymore to find a local service, they are using some sort of digital device and that represents a massive opportunity for everyone here!

Great training piece!
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veronica.l Premium
Thank you, l like that digital device it can help us do lots of things :)
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the filbert Premium
excellent tutorial. thanks a bunch!... going to look into the "pointofmail". I had heard of something like that before I became interested in local marketing, but didnt see the need, I do now!
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veronica.l Premium
I am glad you liked it Phil. Yes pointofmail is really helpful. I didn`t think I needed it either when I started, but it is kind of frustrating not knowing if the email is read or not, pretty cool that you can see for how long and how many times too :)
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klrrider Premium
Really nice... especially the tip about email tracking... thanx for taking the time to create this resource!
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veronica.l Premium
Yes the email tracking tool is really helpful, you do not have to work in the dark when using that.
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Amy Farr Premium
Wow Veronica! Great stuff! Seems so obvious after I read it but it certainly isn't because I was clueless before I read your tutorial.
I may not be working on my website yet, but this research is vital to my progress. THANK YOU for creating it!
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veronica.l Premium
You are welcome, I am glad you liked it.
Let me know if you have any questions I will be happy to help you out.
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slayton1s Premium
Good stuff. My dad actually owns a Bait & Tackle shop so this local marketing stuff is useful. --> https://www.facebook.com/charlestonian.fishnhut. I'm honestly more into the online affiliate marketing end of it though right now.
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veronica.l Premium
Thank you. Maybe you can get some ideas to get new local clients for your dad`s shop. :)
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slayton1s Premium
Yeah perhaps, hah. Wal-Mart's about the only competing place with my dad, even though my dad easily sells better equipment and more cared for live bait (crickets & worms). Wal-Mart sells a lot of fishing poles from Chinese areas (where they have people put in labor jobs creating not very good poles - you get the ideal) and my dad will only sell fishing poles from the U.S. area because he knows those are the good fishing poles to use. & then of course Bass Pro Shop is probably one of the best places to go, but a lot of there prices are off the charts especially with really good fishing poles (there's not a Bass Pro Shop around here anyway).

The place I live in really isn't very big & a lot of people already know that my dad is the only business to go to if anybody wants to fish. But given there's at least 30,000 people in the immediate area, I'm sure I can do at least a little good with online sites for the local area anyway for him. On top of that, I could add in some affiliate type of guides on an online site & make some extra revenue like that along with giving important information people need to know for the immediate area (along with putting Google Adsense on some of the info pages. You know. ;) There's a lot I could do.

Thanks again for the guide.
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