Interview with Local Search Masters 2016

Please introduce yourself and Local Search Masters.

I am the Chief Marketing Officer for Local Search Masters headquartered in Nashville, TN. Local Search Masters (LSM) is a digital marketing agency for franchises. We help franchisors generate and track new franchise sales, and help franchisees generate new and repeat business at the local level. Some franchise brands we work with are “emerging” and have less than 10 locations, while others are established household brands with over a thousand locations.

What is holding small businesses back from using SEO?

Small business owners receive numerous emails every day from people across the world that “guarantee” that their SEO services will provide these owners with amazing results. The owners who hire these people end up being bamboozled; they spend a lot of money and see no meaningful impact on their bottom line. Consequently, they are jaded by the industry and, understandably, are less likely to make another investment in SEO regardless of the perceived value.

Even with proper conversion metrics set up in a Google Analytics account, it can be difficult to understand the true return on investment generated from an SEO campaign. This causes owners, who have limited marketing budgets to begin with, to invest their marketing dollars in products such as online ads and radio that are easier to track.

How do you convince a small business owner of SEO’s value?

The first thing we determine is whether or not SEO is going to be the best bang for a prospective client’s buck. If we think that their marketing dollars are best spent in another way, say TV or sponsorships, we’ll raise the issue and see how they want to proceed.

If we truly believe that an excellent SEO campaign will help a small business owner accomplish a specific set of goals but needs a little insight about the value of SEO, then we use a combination of data provided by credible sources and common business sense to illustrate the benefits.

We’ll have the business owner look at keyword research from Google’s Keyword tool, which illustrates that their target audience is online and actively searching for the products or services they provide. We’ll show them a graphic from an article in Moz that illustrates how the top five organic search results are receiving a vast majority of the users’ clicks. Finally, we’ll talk about how people trust companies listed at the top of Google’s organic search results simply because they trust Google’s judgment. Being a top result instantly makes any business look credible.

LSM doesn’t try to “convince” anyone of the value of SEO. We provide them with information and let them come to their own conclusions. If at any point we determine that they need to be “convinced” about the value of SEO, we typically elect not to take them on as a client because we don’t trust their business acumen.

What advice would you give a small business owner who might be intimidated by SEO?

As with any new business investment, you must take time to do your research. When it comes to SEO, a small business owner can conduct a lot of research using the web. Go to a search engine like Google and perform some searches like “what is SEO,” “how does SEO work,” “SEO benefits for small businesses,” “what to look for in a quality SEO agency,” “how to measure the success of my SEO company” and “SEO company reviews.” If business owners simply check out the top results for these searches, they will feel much more confident about how SEO can impact their business.

Thirty four percent of companies that employ SEO for their website are deciding not to work with an agency. What is your response to this?

It depends. If you are a large business and have someone in-house who oversees your digital marketing efforts, then you may not need the support of an SEO agency. If you are a small business owner and you or an assistant are managing your SEO efforts, and you see an opportunity to generate more business from the web, then I recommend you explore hiring an outside agency that specializes in online marketing for your respective niche. It saves time, a great deal of hassle and allows owners to focus on their business and their customers.

In the past few years, customers are more knowledgeable about SEO. The standards for success are higher and there’s generally more transparency required. Has this been the case with LSM’s customers?

Yes, thank goodness! It’s much easier to work with people who are actually knowledgeable about SEO and understand its value. Another pleasant side effect of this growing understanding of SEO has been more business for us because businesses appreciate how Local Search Masters is, and always has been, 100% transparent with our work and our results. 

About the Author

Tim Condon Chief Revenue Officer at Clutch

Tim Condon is the Chief Revenue Officer at Clutch, the leading global marketplace of B2B service providers. Prior to Clutch, Tim served as the Chief Revenue Officer at Homesnap, the top-rated real estate app built for agents, which CoStar Group acquired in 2020. During his tenure, Homesnap grew its paying user base from 0 to over 80,000 clients. In addition, he previously served as the Director of New Ventures at The Washington Post. In this role, he built several new businesses, including The Capitol Deal, which became the third largest deal site in the DC metro area and was known for giving away 100,000 pizzas

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