The 8 Most Crucial Local Marketing Statistics for SEO Resellers in 2013

Private label SEO resellers should be the first when it comes to marketing trends and statistics. That's because our clients rely on us for their online optimization needs. We need to be there, constantly soaking ourselves into timely information about search engine optimization, local marketing, and other areas "we" specialize in. And by "we" it means us and our backend service providers. Providers do most of the technical work for us yes, but that doesn't mean we should be slacking-at least in learning what's good for our clients.

And if you've been reading, you already know that local marketing is exploding this year. Customizing SEO campaigns to suit local, brick and mortar businesses, and creating a "buzz" to improve their online presence, these are all part of local marketing. But while we can leave everything to our providers, we can do our share by being more informed about the services we provide. That's why you need to read SEO tools maker BrightLocal's "Local Consumer Review Survey 2013".

The study is quite extensive so we here at Private Label SEO Org decided to pick the 8 most crucial local marketing statistics for SEO resellers in 2013. You can start with No. 1 below.

The 8 Most Crucial Local Marketing Statistics for SEO Resellers in 2013

1. Only 5% of consumers did NOT use the Internet to find a local business

2. 85% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses

3. 73% of consumers said positive reviews make them trust a business

4. 67% of consumers read fewer than 6 reviews before they trust a business

5. 65% are more likely to use a local business with positive online reviews

6. 79% online reviews as much as personal recommendations

7. 37% of consumers have recommended a business on Facebook

8. 67% search for restaurants while 61% their read online reviews

Local SEO or Just Live Under a Rock

It may not come as a surprise, but yes, people are using the Internet to look for local business. This just proves the popular saying among local marketers that "consumers search online but buy locally. Today, as BrightLocal found, only 5% of consumers did NOT use the Internet to find a local business over the past 12 months. This is an improvement from last year, when 15% did not use the Internet to look for local businesses.

As private label SEO resellers, this is an opportunity to ramp up sales of SEO and social media services. You can help local business owners be more visible online. Optimize their social network accounts. Help their website rank higher in search results.

Online Reviews Dominate Local Marketing

If there's anything you can get from the survey, it is this: if you want to succeed locally, you need to dominate online reviews. Therefore, your clients 1) need to be visible online and 2) they need online reviews to boost their brand and credibility.

Six reviews or less: that's what it takes to earn your customers' trust. (BrightLocal)

The percentage of consumers reading online reviews shot up to 85% this year from only 76% in 2012. What's more, 67% of today's consumers read 6 reviews or fewer before they trust a business. This percentage is up from 53% last year. However, they seem to be losing patience as the percentage reading seven or more reviews has steadily declined over the past three years. Moral of the story: You need to establish your credibility in six reviews of fewer, which brings us to the next point.

Get Positive Reviews

Your clients need positive reviews and these reviews need to be the first ones they find online. We already know customers search local businesses on the Internet and that they only need six or fewer reviews to trust a business. Let's say you have a total of 100 online reviews from various sites, 94 of which are positive and six are negative. What if the six negative reviews are all on the first page of Google while all positive reviews are in Page 2 and lower? 

This is an opportunity for you to offer private label Online Reputation Management to clients, assuming of course your provider has that under its service menu. One of the many techniques used by private label SEO reseller providers is called reverse SEO. This is basically "pushing down" pages or websites down on search rankings (as opposed to SEO, which is pushing up) so that users see more favorable pages first. This is an attractive service for local businesses especially because now, positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a business and make 65% use a local business.

The 2 Other Big R's: Recommendations, Restaurants

Restaurant reviews are most read. (Source: BrightLocal)

Apart from Reviews, remember that local marketing has to do with Recommendations and Restaurants. Today, 79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations! This percentage is up from only 72% in 2012. So again, you need online reviews. Do they have to be from review sites? Not necessarily. Some 37% of consumers have recommended a business on Facebook, up from only 32% in 2012.

Now, if you are an SEO reseller with local restaurants as clients, read carefully. The Local Consumer survey also found that 67% of consumers search for restaurants online. This is up from only 57% in 2012. Restaurants are the most searched local businesses followed by doctor/dentist (35%), general shop (35%), hotel/breakfast and bed/guest house (30%), and clothes shop (28%).

Restaurants are also worth noting because 61% their read online reviews about them. Restaurant reviews are the most read online reviews! And in line with the top two most-searched local businesses, reviews for doctor/dentist (32%) are also wide read. Hotel/breakfast and bed/guest house (27%), general shop (18%), and hair/beauty salon (17%) complete the top five.

Does Your Private Label SEO Provider Have Dashboard Reporting? (Plus the Corporate States of America)

 

The other day, while at the pub, a friend of mine asked if he would count as a private label SEO reseller. He is essentially an SEO who works at home and he has some clients who are demanding. To his knowledge, he is a reseller because when he can't handle the demand, he simply outsources the work to some of his freelancer friends. He outsources the work and he gets a cut from the deal. Pretty much a reseller, right? I told him, "No, you are not an SEO reseller."

The Reseller Model is Simple

The business model involving a reseller is pretty simple, I explained to him. There's a provider who does all the technical work. Then there's the client who needs all the technical work. Then there's the reseller who looks for clients and then outsources the work requirements to the provider. Pretty simple right? And based on this simple premise, my freelance SEO friend could have easily counted as a reseller. So why did I break his heart and told him the truth that he is not one?

 It makes a lot of difference if you answered "Yes" to her question.

There are two sides to my argument. The first one is the flawed business model he believes in and second is the technology/software side, which I will discuss in a bit. First, a private label SEO reseller is someone who looks for clients and outsources work to providers. However, and this should really be noted to clear confusion, that reseller should outsource to an "exclusive" provider. What do I mean?

By exclusive, I mean the provider should only serve resellers, not retail clients. That's what I meant with the "flawed" business model. Sure my freelancer friend was "reselling" services but it does not count as strictly private label because the provider was servicing retail clients and not resellers. My friend's friend is a freelance SEO too and essentially, he is a competitor with my friend. While the two of them are good friends, and chances are they will not work with each other's clients directly, that setup still violates the reseller business model.

Caveat: there ARE businesses that cater to both retail and reseller clients. However, private label SEO should not count as one of them as the whole business model depends on the trust between the reseller and the provider. That's hard to achieve when you know your provider can snatch the client from your anytime.

The Dashboard Difference

The other side to my argument, which my friend considered an eye-opener, is that dashboard technologies set excellent providers apart from the rest. Case in point: my personal provider, Endlessrise. My private label SEO reseller partner has its own dashboard technology that has several functions like project reporting and proposal sending. What makes this dashboard stand out though is the "brandability." I am able to customize the software and put my own brand on it. That way it appears to my client that I own that software because it bears my logo. To me, that alone is a huge advantage over going with other providers, be them white label companies or individual freelancers.

Here are some other features of the dashboard that I really find helpful in my own private label SEO business. The first is the access to reporting tools like keyword research, audit reports, and competition analysis. Another would be the proposal tracking. Finally, I find the access to billing and payments very useful because transactions happen in one place.

Now, imagine if you were in my friend's shoes. Sure you can outsource some work to freelancers. But, would you rather create the excel reports manually or do them via the dashboard just by clicking a few buttons? Would you rather drive an hour to meet a client for a simple update or give them access to a dashboard that lets them search exactly what metrics they want to see? The dashboard is a huge help for me at the moment, my friend is also considering outsourcing his work to a strict private label SEO provider that has a dashboard.

The Corporate States of America

In other news, we spent hours just debating over a map we stumbled upon through online marketing blog Marketing Pilgrim. In an entry, the site featured a work by writer and artist Steve Lovelace called the "Corporate States of America." This is essentially a map of the US with the most popular brand displayed per state. See what I mean below:

Marriott apparently is the famous brand here in the Maryland - DC area. I thought the White House was a brand! Source: Marketing Pilgrim

For SEO resellers, this is just an opportunity to educate clients on the most famous brands in their respective states. What then can they do with that knowledge? There's a lot of creativity you can put to good use. For instance, if I were a small business, I might want to strike an advertising or promotional deal with a local store or branch of these brands. Or, they can just be a pretty good icebreaker when chatting with new prospects.

"Hey, apparently, BRAND NAME is the most popular brand here in STATE."

"No way!"

"It's true! I've seen it on the Corporate States of America map."

Many would consider that chatter a waste but you’ll never know, it might land you your next client.

Question: Are You Reselling Private Label Online Reputation Management?

 

Online reputation management is among the relatively new services offered by private label SEO providers. From a marketing perspective, ORM is simply monitoring and influencing the reputation of an individual or a business on the Internet. According to Wikipedia, reputation management "was originally coined as a public relations term, but advancement in computing, the Internet and social media made it primarily an issue of search results."

But exactly what is ORM for private label SEO resellers? 

For many it is treated as an "extra" or additional service, apart from search engine optimization which is the main product. They think of it as a complementary service that is very much suited for companies that are paying to get SEO. What resellers do not understand is that online reputation can be a precursor to many other private label services, not just an extra or add-on. 

 Or reselling ORM services? You should!

Online Reputation Management Statistics

Here are some figures that can make you -- and your clients -- seriously consider acquiring ORM services:

• 57% of consumers read reviews before deciding to book a hotel, says TripAdvisor
• 40% of consumers who leave a hotel's website to validate their decision actually end up booking a room elsewhere, says Tnooz
• 90% of HR recruiters consider searching a candidate on Google as common practice, says Ruby Media Group
• 57% of users now search what information is posted about themselves online, says Pew Internet
• 83% of companies will face a crisis that will negatively impact their share price between 20% and 30%, during the next five years, says Oxford-Metrica

We could go on but the meaning behind these numbers is the same. Everyone in the sales funnel -- from consumer to seller -- is concerned about their online reputation. It is more important for sellers to manage their online reputation because it impacts sales. That is why it is important to resell private label online reputation management and is the reason why you should be reselling it as well.

Some companies and individuals have yet to realize what ORM can do to their businesses. By letting them see the positive and negative results of this service, you'll be able to convince them to acquire your services.

Among the many prospects you can pitch private label online reputation management services are:

• Entrepreneurs - These are people who are very passionate about what they do. They are personally invested in their businesses and that alone is enough for them to take action to protect whatever they have built so far. While they cannot stop people from posting negative comments elsewhere, they can counter these negative comments by answering with more positive posts. Or, they can hire you to do so.
• Local Businesses - As the marketing adage goes, nothing beats word of mouth as the best sales promotion. Local businesses are in the prime position to benefit from ORM because people search online but buy locally.
• SME - Small and medium enterprises do not have large marketing budgets, especially when compared with large corporations. But they if you make them understand the importance or ORM, they will consider it.
• Executives - A survey by New York-headquartered PR firm Hill & Knowlton revealed that 87% of respondents believe the CEO’s reputation is an important part of a company’s reputation. Need I say more?
• Freelancers - Freelancers get recommendations from clients that found their service satisfactory. They get a lot of negative -- and sometimes unfair -- reviews from clients who weren't happy with their work.

Positioning and Using Data to Convince Your Market

What you should remember here is that pitching ORM to targets means you need to adjust your approach based on what field they belong to. For instance, the hotel statistics will work better, obviously, for hotel businesses. Although they can also be used for similar lodging businesses like motels, inn, and resorts. You need to adjust the data you will use to better suit your market. Better yet, you can come up with a document that contains general statistics about ORM and then include a "customizable" section, which you can adjust based on the target you are about to pitch your services to.