What is your business model?

[cnwoods303]

Just wanted to see what others business models are.

Do you solely focus on local seo or do you provide other services such as i.e. web design, social media management, newsletters, promotional items, direct mail, business coaching, ect.? Do you consider yourself a business growth consultant or do you just focus on local seo?

How much of your business if any do you outsource? Or do you hire individuals to work exclusively for your company?

As far as local goes are you only focusing on marketing/working with clients within a certain radius of your location? or is your local any where? I personally prefer to have face to face interaction with people, is that limiting my growth potential? Do I need to get passed liking the personal face to face interaction and expand my perceived marketing area?

How do you manage your clients? (Not a problem for me at this point but I hope for it to be someday)

How is your business set up? DBA, LLC, Inc., ect.? Are you insured?

If you do retainer work, what is the typical average amount of time a client stays with you? As far as local seo goes, I feel it is only fair to be exclusive to a client for their industry and city, is this how others mostly conduct their business?

Sorry for so many questions, this post ended up being a little longer than I had originally intended. Feel free to answer all, any, or none of the question. I am just in the infant stages of the business and I just want get a good feel for what needs to be done to set a good foundation for future growth and I haven't been able to find the questions asked above discussed anywhere.

If you have any additional information that might be helpful for a good business model please share.

Hope I am not prying to much.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Phil Rozek]

Hey Chris,

MAN, those are a lot of good questions. Those are the sorts of things that other local SEOs typically will register for a consultation with me in order to cover.

But let me take a really quick crack at them:

1. I focus on local SEO, although I?ve also got a lot of experience in PPC. For long-time clients I sometimes also wear other hats.

2. I have two assistants ? both Americans ? to help me with gruntwork, and off whom I can bounce ideas. That?s the extent of my ?outsourcing.?

3. My clients are from all over the globe. I meet very few of them face-to-face. To insist on ?local? local SEO clients might limit your potential. But I know it works for some people.

4. Not clear on your 4^th question.

5. After getting violated by Uncle Sam and his self-employment tax for far too long, this year I finally got off my rear and did the paperwork to become an LLC, Subchapter S. (By the way, I highly recommend an outfit named CorpNet; they helped me get it all done.)

6. Depends on a lot of things. I don?t bill most of my clients on a monthly basis, but in general people stick with me for a while. When eventually they no longer need me, I?m happy; it means I?ve succeeded.

If you really want good advice, ask me for my reading list

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Chris and thanks for asking LOTs of great questions and for even asking in the right forum.

And thanks Phil for lots of great answers.

Sorry I didn't get time to reply til now. And don't have time for much now and of course I no longer do optimization for clients, just training and consulting for other consultants, so my model is totally different.

But when I did optimization I specialized in Dentistry and did everything myself as a sole proprietor. No that's my old model in a tiny quick nutshell.

But you can find lots of good advice and answers to some of your other questions here in the consultants section of the forum.

And hopefully other members will weigh in too. You posted closer to the weekend when it dies down here a little. Gets a little more active here during the week.

I'll bump this to Twitter and see if we can get more feedback for you.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Chris here is a new post I just did with lots of related insights.

http://localsearchforum.catalystema...-up-new-local-search-engine-optimization.html