Let's break down how to start your own local lead gen business.
What is it?
Simply put, it's creating value for business owners by generating leads using simple websites optimized for local google searches.
Step 1: Due Diligence
Step 2: Create the Asset
Step 3: Optimize Your Asset
Step 4: Prospect and Land a Deal (using Leads in Advance Strategy)
Step 5: Increase Your Passive Income by Multiplying Your Assets
So there's 5 steps. Just as a heads up, 1 and 2 are pretty fast, 3 takes a while, and 4 & 5 are on-going.
Let's dive in:
Step 1: Due Diligence
We like targeting cities with population of 75K to 250K. Remember: You only begin getting good volume of leads when you crack the top 3 spots in Google, so we're going to want a list of all other businesses that are doing well for themselves online before diving into our own work and optimizing on-site SEO practices.
The importance of SEO is invaluable to a successful business. I've been doing it since 2017 and have become really adept at finding low hanging fruit markets that can be easily dominated with the right know-how. There's 15 factors we look at, but just 2 for now;
First off, you'll need to see what kind of search engine optimization will be required in order to outrank your opponents on page 1 ; if there are keywords or phrases being searched for frequently then you're golden!
Secondly, analyze which pages rank best highly ranked webpages so they might give some clues as how well optimized this site is...
The low hanging fruit of the map can be found in areas that lack reviews and are not connected to a website. This is a pretty low hanging fruit situation.
Another test I've found helpful is the link review:
How many links (and what quality) do the top sites have?
Some links carry more weight and worth. I can beat a site with 8 links pretty easily, especially if his/her's are weak, as long as my own have the power to do so and then some.
Once you know how Google takes into account 15 factors for local rankings, it becomes like shooting fish in a barrel - easy work that gets done without even trying all day every day due to knowing exactly what needs to be done when taking out 95% of competition.
Step 2: Create the Asset
To Create a Website, you first need to pick a domain. I use namecheap for most of my domains, as it's super "cheap" and their interface is super intuitive to work with.
I generally use the following formula when picking domain names (because I almost always have multiple sites in the same city to get more leads for my clients).
[City][niche][pros/team/co/crew][.com/.net]
ie. kenttreepros.com
But there's pros and cons to including the niche & location in your domain
I think there's a lot of merit in using the city name if it exceeds 150,000 residents. The search engine will have an easier time finding your business when you use that keyword with what is already being searched for and found on Google - which means more traffic coming to your site!
But enough on domains.
As far as website platforms go, I've used all kinds of site builders:
WordPress (the old, yet reliable)
PROS: dirt cheap (ie. free)
CONS: can be a bit technical, and hackable if you don't set it up right
Weebly (the middle-aged no-coder)
PROS: easy-to-use, click-and-drag
CONS: expensive to scale with
Duda (the young gun, new-to-the-game)
PROS: easy-to-use, click-and-drag, robust security, excellent integrations with gsuite
CONS: expensive to scale with
Then, since most of your leads are phone calls, you need a tracking software.
I've used a lot of different ones, testing their pros and cons throughout my time in this space.
Call Rail
One of the best in the phone tracking industry, CallRail has been a great source for my numbers and they provided a quality service. The one thing I was a bit frustrated with was the lack of call tagging that I could do, since I do manage over 200 different phone numbers.
CallTrackingMetrics
CallTrackingMetrics is also one of the phone number tracking providers that I really did enjoy using. Their platform enables excellent analysis of call leads, and their audio was never scratchy. One small issue was onboarding my clients, as it was often a bit of a struggle to get them fully integrated.
CallSling
Callsling is the proprietary software of Dan Klein, and is only offered to a select few groups, like students in Ippei & Dan Coaching Program. The numbers start at 15 dollars per month, but have rolled out bulk discounts. If you go with this provider, just plan to never transfer your numbers anywhere else, as Dan charges $100 per number to port the number out.
CallFire
CallFire's plan is known for it's flexibility, but you will be charged 2 ways if you use their service: first on your phone number, and second on how many minutes you use. Their pricing is very reasonable, I found their support to very fast and professional.
LeadSnap (what I use currently)
Rather than simply tracking phone calls, Lead Snap is a newly developed software that will likely take over the giants in the lead generation industry over the next few years due to their rapidly growing toolset and upcoming marketplace integrations.
It's has a fully integrated CRM, phone tracking system (of course), a sick-as-I'll-get-out heat map for tracking GMB rankings, and also contains reputation management abilities.
Step 3: Optimize Your Asset
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Step 4: Prospect and Land a Deal
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Step 5: Increase Your Passive Income by Multiplying Your Assets
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