I get it. You’ve been cold called and cold-emailed so many times that you simply had to look up local SEO and see what it’s all about.
You watch the videos and read the blogs (like mine, hehe), but nobody just seems to answer the ONLY thing you care about as a local business owner – how local SEO increases profits and benefits your bottom line?
After all, you’re going to be paying $750, $1,000, $1,500, or even more every month for someone to “optimize” your website, whatever that even means, right?
In today’s post, I’ll walk you through, step by step, like a baby, how ranking higher on Google Maps has a direct positive impact on your revenue.
Let’s go!
~5 Minute Read
What is Local SEO?
We’ll rewind for a bit. Chances are that a slight introduction to local SEO might remind you of what we are actually doing.
Local SEO involves ranking your website AND Google Business Profile higher on Google in front of your potential customers.
When I say “your potential customers”, I mean people who, based on their behavior and things that they are searching, have expressed interest in purchasing a product or service that businesses like yours are selling.
If somebody searches for “roof replacement near me”, we can assume a few things:
- They already know that they need a professional roofing service
- They know exactly what type of roofing service they need – a full-fledged roof replacement
- They are ready to spend money (based on the type of keyword, we can also assume their budget as well, likely between $10,000 and $20,000)
If pictures say more than a thousand words, then a local SEO keyword says just as many. This keyword also tells us so much more about the person who is searching it, including their problems and goals.
Local SEO is like placing a sign in front of a house with a roof that misses plenty of shingles and has leaks. It’s not 100% certain you’ll get the sale, but it’s pretty close.
How is Local SEO Done?
I recently wrote a 25-page eBook and converted it into a blog post I linked at the beginning of the article that answers this exact question.
But in short, local SEO involves checking all the boxes that Google wants a local business to check. See below:
If Google tells me how to rank, why would I pay a company to do it for me?
Why would you pay a plumber to fix your leaking pipe? You know how to do it, right?
The thing is, you think you do. But you don’t. The surface-level knowledge an average Joe has about plumbing is nothing compared to what someone who has years of experience fixing pipes, water heaters, and other plumbing work knows.
The details and predicting every possible outcome are what separate you from a professional plumber.
It is the same with local SEO. Yes, Google tells you what to do, but the explanations are surface-level. They are there just to introduce you to the topic. They are not there to ACTUALLY tell you A-Z how to rank #1, make more money, and retire.
Because if they were, it would be bad for business. Google wants your ad money, not your SEO success. I am here to change that for you.
But to finally answer a question, local SEO is done by simply making your business assets – website and Google Business Profile (GBP) – more relevant to keywords like “plumber near me” or “roof replacement near me” while also increasing your business’s prominence on Google.
Does Local SEO Bring in More Leads?
YES!
And here’s proof.
From my experience, I found that having a properly done local SEO campaign can quickly start making your phone ring.
In the matter of just 2-3 months.
This is GBP’s call tracking feature. We started this project in March of 2024. Here’s what happened:
- March total call volume equaled 26
- May call volume equaled 43
Not only that, but May 2024 call volume was 40% more than May 2023, proving that seasonality wasn’t a thing here. Read more of our case studies.
Studies also back me up:
- An average GBP on Google Maps gets around 1,000 views per month. Note when I say AVERAGE. If you’re doing what I say in this post and throughout this site, you’re not average. Nowhere near it.
- Then, an average GBP gets around 5% conversion rate. This means that they’ll either get a direction request, website visit, or a call.
- This tells us that you’ll get 50 conversions a month as an average GBP. Again, do what I say and you’ll be well above average.
Given that you want calls, and this 5% conversion rate reflects ALL actions someone can take on a GBP (call, visit a website, or request a driving direction), we’ll now play a numbers game.
Roofers, plumbers, or water damage restoration companies don’t get as many driving direction requests. Why would you? Customers want you to come to them, not the other way around.
So, we can confidently say that you’ll get the least driving directions from total conversions.
This leaves us with calls and website visits. Now, when people visit a website, they usually just want to learn a few more things about the company. The services they provide, their service area, who is behind the company, portfolio, and pricing. For emergency service providers or any other type of home service businesses, website visits lead to calls any way. Nobody submits a contact form.
My case study above was from a car detailing SEO campaign (nowhere near an emergency service). We got plenty more calls as months went on, but pretty much nobody submitted our form on their Contact Us page.
To end my rambling, all of this goes to show that out of those 50 conversions you’ll get just by having a GBP, you’ll have 15-20 calls in the most pessimistic scenario.
Can I Predict How Many Leads I'll Get?
Again, yes!
Open a Mangools account. Go to KWFinder and select your service area as a location. I’d either set the state or the county for most accurate results.
Many SEOs Google those keywords you want to research to check the rankings of their clients, which can skew the numbers. You can filter them out by setting the location to your county only (or if you service wider, just select your state).
And then, enter your keyword. Let’s use “car detailing Cleveland OH”.
There are over 5,000 searches per month for car detailing in Cleveland. Pretty promising, right?
Now, top companies on GBP get around 15%-20% of the business each. It’s highly unlikely you’ll be number #1 for all 12 of the keyword variations the tool displayed, but being in the top 3 for most can be done. Let’s assume that you’ll be in the top 3 for 50% of these keywords.
That’s 2,500*15%=375 clicks from these targeted searches. They convert more, as your reviews and portfolio will be better than most; otherwise, you would not be in the top 3. But let’s just stick to our 5% conversion rate.
That’s 19 leads at a 20% conversion rate (average across all industries), leading to 4 sales, which could yield anywhere from $500 to $2,000 for a car detailing business.
And this won’t even take that long or a lot of money to achieve. KD score on the right tells us the competition, and anything below 20 can be considered easy or very easy in some cases (below 10).
Keep in mind that the true value comes from having this business for YEARS, because local SEO is not like Google Ads. Once you get to the top, you stay there.
🥷 Ninja Tip! 🥷
Don't overlook "near me" searches. Narrow down your search to city-only or county-only, and then enter the same keyword with a "near me" modifier. In this case, it would be "car detailing near me". These have high buyer intent and usually as much search volume as "car detailing {city}" keywords.
Why Not Just Run Google Ads?
Because of multiple reasons:
- Google Ads have lower CTR (click through rates) in general, although this can be very different across niches.
- Google Ads have a “learning period” where you’ll mostly lose money and it lasts 1-3 months, similar to SEO.
- Google Ads stop as soon as you stop paying for overpriced clicks.
They have their own benefits, for sure. Even though the learning period is there, it can be much shorter if you’re experienced with Google Ads. But that’s also the case with local SEO.
When speaking of costs per click, this can also vary drastically. Emergency service industries, for instance, have such astronomically high CPCs (cost-per-clicks) that the advertising just doesn’t make sense for the average business owner.
Note that this will only get worse in the future. As Google keeps pushing organic search results down (meaning, SEO results) by adding things like Local Services Ads or SGE (Search Generative Experience), more and more companies will be forced to run ads if they want to get business. So, if advertising wasn’t expensive enough, don’t worry. It will get more expensive.
Now, if you have a budget and are willing to invest in Google Ads, go for it. Nothing beats fast leads. SEO will very rarely get you as fast a result as Google Ads can.
My answer, in the end, would be to do both if you can. Taking multiple spots on the first page increases the chance of getting a call significantly.
Conclusion
And there you have it – how local SEO increases profits. Hopefully, this post was helpful to you enough to learn how to estimate how much money you can make in your target market with local SEO.
To learn how to actually get there, browse through our other blogs.
Good luck!
Bogdan is a local SEO expert with over 3 years of experience helping businesses grow using Google. When he is not helping businesses grow, he works on his own SEO projects, works out, takes long walks, and watches Suits, which is completely ironic given how rarely he dresses up in a suit himself.