Over the last year there has been a rise in Sacramento freelancers and advertisers hitting the the pavement to round up any local business they could to sell them SEO services and you may have noticed the rise in companies doing Sacramento SEO. Facebook is flooded with so called “experts” who took a 4 week course on selling SEO to Sacramento businesses, many of whom have never ranked a site or generated traffic before.

To help you navigate the spam emails and phone calls your getting daily as a local business owner, I put together some marketing tips to help you hire the right Sacramento SEO specialist to help you increase your organic traffic and rankings.

Trends change, search engine algorithms change, the way consumers use the internet change, it is important to keep up with this in order to stay ahead of the game and be able to deliver great results.

When searching for a Sacramento SEO how do you choose the right company?

So here we are going to get to the meat and potatoes and how to weed through the companies offering SEO services. Some of these may or may not be important to you. Like having the company be Local is pretty big to some business owners I have spoken with and if you think of one that is important to you and its not here, feel free to leave a comment and I will add it.

#1 Results

Q: Is there company ranking for their own market or service?
When you Google the service your looking for (sacramento seo company, internet marketing sacramento, etc) does that company appear in the top 10?
Q: Are their clients on Page 1?
Where are their clients ranking and ask to see proof. Some agencies don’t like to expose their clients rankings especially if you’re a competitor to their client, but any reputable SEO marketing agency should be able to provide you with case studies, verifiable results, and references.

#2 Customer Service and Communication

Q: How big is there company?
You may or may not want to work with a very large SEO company. Many business owners I have spoken with have had terrible experiences working with large companies, because they treat you like a number.
There is no personalization and you more than likely will have an intern or at best customer service account manager that has no clue what is actually being done on your campaign.

Another very common story I hear is that there SEO/web designer/PPC expert/brochure designer disappeared and took weeks to reply to their support questions. So, how responsive is that company?

When you requested a consultation how long did it take for them to respond? You want to make sure that the communication is very high and fast.

#3 Are they Interested in YOU

Q: What questions are they asking you?
Are they trying to learn about your current Sacramento business status, future goals, and current marketing performance or
are they just trying to sell you a package?

A professional consultant will take time to interview you, to get in-depth details about your business, services, and target customers. They will be interviewing you just as much as you are interviewing them.
A professional SEO consultant will want to make sure you’re going to be a fit for them just as much as you want to make sure they will be a fit for you.

They are going to be interested in increasing your revenue and not just selling you a program.

#4 Location

Q: Is the company even located in the US?
This may or may not be important to you but I think it is important to most local businesses. I have spoken to many business owners who are giving me time just because I am here in Sac. They are getting hit with many calls a day from companies not in California and some not even in the U.S.

It is also very nice to meet someone you’re going to be working with, shake their hand, and speak face to face if at all possible.

#5 References

Q: Do they have a few clients past or present that you can speak to?
You don’t need 100 names but a few people to confirm they’re delivering real results and people are happy with them is always nice. Case studies can also fulfill this requirement.

#6 Cost

Q: Are there services really cheap?
SEO companies that offer really cheap pricing you should proceed with caution. By cheap pricing I would say anything under the $500 per month mark. Depending on the geographical region and number of keywords of course, but that is a pretty good benchmark.

Legitimate SEO services are not cheap and behind the scenes the service will have a lot of moving parts. There is content writing, outreach, back linking, research, strategy, management, just name a few.

An analogy I heard from a fellow SEO was that a full-time Starbucks employee has a salary of about $1,500 per month, to make coffee. It is not very real that you can pay someone less than a Starbucks employee to grow your business. SEO is a specialized field.

An exceptional winning service that delivers the best results will cost money and there is no way around that. In the end, it’s the results that matter.

Let me guess: You are looking for that one silver bullet that will get your Google Places page to rank number one in the Google Maps listing, aren’t you?

I don’t blame you.

After all, for a lot of local business owners, ranking number one in the Google Maps listing is the next best thing since sliced bread. Not only can ranking lead to bajillions of sales, but the business owners can also benefit from generating truckloads of leads and brand recognition — all of which are crucial to a business’ success.

And so the question becomes, what are the crucial things that you need to do that will help you improve your Google Maps listing?

I’m glad you asked.

I’m going to share with you 5 tips that will help you with just that.

Let’s hop right in.

1. Add your business in several business directory sites.

Improving your local business’ ranking boils down to Google verifying that your business is legitimate. The more your business name, address, and phone number is listed (or mentioned) in other sites, the more Google will see your business as legit — which ultimately helps you with ranking.

There are several ways that you can go about getting the citations (you can check your citations using Onpoint citations scan) . For one thing, you can look for business directory websites where you can add your business information.

If you aren’t familiar with how to find business directory websites, then you can use these advanced Google search queries:

Business Directory inurl:”About us”

Business Listings inurl:”About us”

2. Be consistent with your NAP.

NAP stands for name, address, and phone number.

While adding your business details on several directory sites is crucial, if you aren’t doing things right, the chances are good that your marketing efforts will end up going to waste.

What do I mean by “aren’t doing things right,” you might want to ask?

Well, for starters, if you aren’t writing your NAP the same exact way on each site that you’re adding your business details to, then you won’t get much out of your marketing endeavor.

If you’ll miss adding your street address (among other details), you will most likely confuse Google. After all, if the business you listed in business directory site #1 is the same as the business that you listed in business directory site #2, then both should have the same business details, right?

If the details aren’t identical, Google might see both businesses as different entities, when in reality, they’re just one and the same business.

3. Use a local telephone number.

Instead of using a toll-free number, you’d be better off using a local number for your Google listing instead. This helps Google verify all the more that you, in fact, have a business in the local area.

If you are keen on sharing your toll-free number, then you can add the information on your website.

4. Optimize your business page.

If you are truly serious about wanting to rank your Google Maps listing, then you need to give due diligence in creating your business page and do linkbuilding.

For example, you need to take the time to optimize your listing’s description by adding relevant keywords to it. Instead of saying, “seasoned digital marketer,” you can say “seasoned digital marketer based in Sacramento” instead.

Doing so will give Google even more confirmation about the identity of your business.

5. Get reviews.

Get others to review your page. When your Google business page has positive reviews, that will tell Google that you are a trustworthy business — one that is worthy of getting ranked.

However, if your business page doesn’t have any reviews, then Google wouldn’t be able to use Google reviews as a gauge to measure how “rank-worthy” your business is.

Allow me to share with you three of the best strategies that my team and I are using to grow the number of reviews on our clients’ pages.

1. Offer discounts or freebies in exchange for reviews.

Imagine offering your customers a 20% discount on their purchases in exchange for reviews on your business page?

Do you think they’ll ignore your offer?

If you’re like most people, then you’d be more than happy to write a review. After all, not only would it only take you seconds to write the review, but you’d be able to save a couple of $$$ (depending on how much you’d purchase) which you can use on more important matters.

2. Straight up ask your customers — the satisfied ones — to leave their reviews.

If you’ve been giving your customers nothing but the best service, then I’m guessing that you’ve had several of them reaching out to you at this point, telling you how happy they are with your company.

While there’s no way for me to tell how you’ve been responding to the positive reinforcements that your customers are giving, I urge you to take advantage of these favorable situations by asking them to leave a positive review on your Google business page.

Considering how they’re pleased with your service, the chances are good that they’ll do as you asked, and leave a review on your Google listing — a positive one at that!

3. Use contests.

Here’s a scenario: You sent your existing customers an email telling them that you are running a contest. You then proceeded by saying that the contest’s prize is an (insert an item that you know they’d die for).

How do you think would they respond if you’ll tell them that the only entry requirement is for them to leave a review in your Google Maps listing?

Do you think they’ll add a review to your listing so they can join the contest, or not?

While there are certainly some exceptions to the rule, I’m sure you’ll agree with me if I say that most of the people will add reviews so they can join the contest.

While there are several methods that you can use to go about getting more reviews, the three tips that I shared above should be deadly enough to move the needle for you.

That being said, be sure to use the tips, and not just read and forget them.

(After seeing the results from having used the points that I shared, you are more than welcome to come back and share your experience in the comments section below.)

What’s next?

If you don’t have ample experience in digital marketing, ranking your Google maps listing can be such a headache. This is particularly the case if you’re a Sacramento based business and your competitors are ranking using SEO and are working with a seasoned Sacramento SEO consultant who know the tricks of the trade of optimizing Google business pages.

If you are sick and tired of not being able to see your business page in Google Maps listing, then allow me to help you with that.

Hire A Sacramento SEO Company In 6 Easy Steps