Click on the video above to watch Episode 214 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.
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Announcement
Adam: All right, welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts, episode 214. This time it actually is 214. I'm able to use my numbers this week, which is great. I almost wore my little Christmas hat, but I decided I gotta hold off for like another week.
We got a lot of good stuff. We got some news we want to share with you guys, and then jump into questions. But first, let's say hi. We got Hernan and Bradley with us. So, let's start on the left with Hernan. It looks like I can see half of his face. How's it going man?
Hernan: Cool.
Adam: Oh, there we go.
Hernan: How about now? Is that better? I'm doing great, actually, I'm doing really well. So, yeah, we're having a lot of good stuff coming out for '17 last year for the Mastermind. We have a bunch of good stuff for this month. I'm really, really excited for what's coming.
Bradley: I'm going to get a seizure from your fricking Christmas tree in the background.
Hernan: [inaudible 00:00:49].
Adam: No, come on we want to see …
Bradley: Stop doing that.
Adam: Oh my God. Stop doing that right along. Bradley, what are you doing, are you still alive?
Bradley: I'm convulsing, that's what I'm doing. No, I'm good man. I just finished the Syndication Academy Update Webinar, the first one in several months. Anyways, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped because I'm having some slight issues with one of the things I wanted to share. Because of that, I'm going to schedule another one for next month. So, just be on the lookout for that guys.
Adam: Thanks.
Bradley: Marco made it.
Adam: Yeah. Hey, Marco, are you there?
Adam: Well, we're just saying hello to everybody. If you've got a sec, if you want to say, “Hi, how you doing?”
Marco: Of course, man, what's up? I'm excited man. End of the year, so it's always good. Family time, just getting together. My wife's a chef, so I'm lucky and I'm really looking forward to 2019. We have so much coming down the pipeline, it's not even funny. It's ridiculous. The kind of money that's to be made right now. Dude, we're back into 2003, 2004, 2005 when I started out.
It's ridiculous the way you can just go out there and with almost nothing, make a bucket full of money.
Adam: Definitely. Now's the time. Well, we'll be speaking of that in a little bit more in just a minute. There's some really good opportunities, but I want to say too, if you're new to [inaudible 00:02:24], of course, thank you for watching. If you're checking out the replay on YouTube down the road, come join us live for these. You can always come to the most up to date or the recent or upcoming one. That's semanticmastery.com/hdquestions.
Again, if you're new to Semantic Mastery, you're wondering where to start, start with the battle plan, all right. That's going to get you repeatable results. Covers a ton of different areas, different stuff you need. Then, once you've got that, we even encourage our Mastermind members, everyone to get the battle plan. Once you're ready, take yourself a few notches, if you want to either start or grow your own local digital marketing agency, come join the Mastermind.
I can talk about Masterminds just in general, all day about how much good they do for you. We love ours, we're very proud of it. We've got a bunch of kickass members and we've got a lot of really good stuff coming here very soon. We're putting it to action right now. The [pofu 00:03:16] pass and we're going to have a little bit of a special to do with that. We're going to explain much more about that. Let you guys see a little bit behind the curtains here, more closer to Christmas, I guess, is the way to say that.
But, in the very near future, Bradley's going to be doing a webinar on Monday, right?
Bradley: Yes, Monday's the Local Lease Pro Update Webinar to share some additional things that I've discovered for that … Myself and my team have discovered over the last … Since we've launched the course, essentially. Several things that we're going to talk about is location research is much more granular now than before, so I'm going to be sharing that process on that webinar. I can show you guys how to use … How to run that software that we use in that course to find easy opportunities for GMB assets.
It's on a much more granular level and I'll explain all of that during the webinar, which will be on Monday. I'm also going to be talking about some things to avoid, to prevent getting locations terminated for spam. There's certain things that we've learned through all the very heavy custing that we've been doing the last couple of months. So, I want to talk about that.
So, you guys that aren't part of Local Lease Pro, you'll get information, like behind the scenes in some of the information, but it's not going to be the whole picture, right? So, we're going to make it public, everybody can come join because I want you guys to … This is our primary push right now in Semantic Mastery, we've really shifted directions entirely to building out legion assets right now because there's so much opportunity, more so than I've ever seen, since I've started in digital marketing and local marketing, which was in 2010 and I mean that.
Marco was just saying, “This is like 2003, 4, of 5, or whatever.” Well, I wasn't in digital marketing back in, so I don't know what it was like. But, since 2010 when I got started, I've never seen this much opportunity. So, that's why we're pushing it so hard and that's why I wanted to make this update webinar Monday public because I want you guys to see how excited and enthusiastic we are about this and also why.
When you see what I talk about, with the location research alone, if that doesn't get you excited, then you're in the wrong damn business is all I'm saying. So, again, we're going to have that public on Monday. Adam screwed up and put 48 hours in the email that it's going to be public, I didn't want it to be public for that long, so fuck you Adam.
Adam: Merry Christmas.
Bradley: Yeah. Merry Christmas you prick. Yeah, I was really only going to keep it public for 24 hours, but since the emails went out, it'll be public for 48 hours and then it's getting lockdown and then it's going to be in the members area only, along with the rest of the training. So, I highly recommend that you guys come check it out.
If you haven't joined Local Lease Pro, we're going to also offer a shit ton of bonuses and stuff like that. If you do want to join on Monday, but it'll be kind of a limited time thing. So, make sure you attend and absorb as much information as you can.
Adam: Yeah. I want to encourage people too who aren't in, obviously for the members be there … We're going to have some good stuff. For non-members, we are doing Q&A, so if you want, come and learn, see what's going on a little bit behind the scenes, like Bradley said, you can see really what's going on here, how big the opportunity is.” But then we'll also be answering questions.
We realized if you don't have the whole picture, there's something missing. You're not sure how this would work for you, this, that, or the other thing, be there. Ask questions, get them answered, and then like Bradley said, we've got a hell of a Christmas deal for you and happy to make that available, but yeah, that replays going to be only available for a limited time and then if you're not there live, obviously, you can't get questions answered as in depth as if you're there. Sign up, be there.
Bradley: Yep. So, what else we got?
Adam: One last quick one, just want to tell people the special offer is going away for MGYB, we've got a killer deal on the deep keyboard research. All right, this is one of the new additions to MGYB, it's a kickass keyboard research done for your service and it's 40% off and that's going away later today. So, I'm going to pop the link up there, check it out.
If you've got any projects coming up, you've got clients coming on board. You've got websites, thinking about building apps, need content ideas, this is the place to do it and 40% is a hell of a chunk of change. Highly suggest you make use of this today before it goes away.
Adam: I think that's it, are we ready to go?
Would It Hinder The Ranking Of A GMB Page If The Images Uploaded In 2016 Will Be Removed And Reupload Them For Geotagging?
Bradley: Yes, let me finish sending Rob a message real quick. All right, sorry. Let me grab the screen, we'll get right into questions. All right, here we go. Not a whole lot of questions yet, guys. You better get to asking some questions or we're going to shut this down quick. Anyways, Dan's up first, he says, “I had uploaded several images to a GMB for a customer back in 2016, will it hinder the rankings to take images … To take all of the images off of the GMB page, geotag them and then re-upload them? Perhaps I should just do a few at a time?”
Yeah, I don't think it would be a problem. I would do a few at a time if I were to do it, Dan. I mean, again, maybe Marco has some additional information than I do. I don't see why that would be a problem. If they're just GMB images, you're not taking post down and all that kind of stuff, then I don't see why it would be a problem.
I wouldn't want to take post down though, delete posts and then repost them again, I'd just leave the old posts up, if that makes sense. If it's just images, taking it from the GMB photo section, like removing them, geo tagging them and then reuploading, I can't see that as being an issue. But, I would still do it a handful at a time, dripped out of several days or whatever. What do you think, Marco?
Marco: Yeah, my question is why would you want to do that. Why not add new images.
Bradley: New images. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a very good point.
Marco: We teach how and I think Dan has Local GMB Pro. We teach you how to go in and get images anywhere you want and then you go and add all the information that you want and then you have new data. This is the whole point. You guys, I don't know how much I can get into this, but you're missing the whole point of what Local GMB Pros all about and what we're doing with Local Lease Pro and Local PR Pro.
We're trying to feed the fucking bot data and if you take stuff down and bring it back up, Google knows that the image existed already without the geo tagging. Why not give Google new images with new information, so not only is it looking at the front, it's also looking at the back. I don't understand the point, unless you can't get images. If you can't get images from your client, fire the client, or use the method that we teach in Local GMB Pro.
Always, for me, I always feed the bot more data. More data. It's always about more data, fill in the variables, and get lots of love.
Bradley: Yeah, I like that. That's just true. If you get more images … Dan, you should know, I think you're part of Local GMB Pro, but … I think RYS members also had access to that webinar, on how to get additional images. There's stuff like … Even if YouTube, you can just grab images from YouTube, I've done that a bunch. That's what my VAs are currently doing right now because they're a bit faster at it. Yeah, there's a ton of ways to get additional images. I agree with Marco, his was definitely a better answer than mine. So, Marco's the winner.
How Many GMBs Per Manager Account Is Acceptable?
Dan's up again and he says, “How many GMBs per manager account is acceptable?” Well, it depends, Dan. It depends what you're … What are the … What type of GMB assets are they? Are they real bonafide genuine businesses? If they're genuine businesses, there's no problem adding a manger and managing the genuine businesses from a manager account, right? They're real businesses, there's no problem with that at all.
Now, Marco and I have slightly differing opinions for lead gen assets, but personally for lead gen assets … Guys, let's just be 100% clear here, let's not sugarcoat this, when we're doing lead gen GMB assets, they're spammed, right? They're spammed assets, that's what they are. So, let's be clear about that. So, when you're doing lead gen stuff, then I don't recommend using a manager account because that connects … That creates a footprint, right? You can connect to different locations.
So, what I'm doing currently now and I've tested … Because we're scaling this lead gen asset building process so much right now, we're testing all different types of configurations and I've got several out there right now where I'm doing location clusters, which is multiple locations where assets within a service area, like a radius. A 20 mile radius is typically what I'm doing right now.
So, I'll secure many assets within that 20 mile radius. So, some of my location clusters are manged under a single manager account. In other words, each location is owned by a separate Google profile. So, it's owned by a separate Google profile. But, it's managed or there's a manger account that connects those profiles, so a manager can access them. However, like I said, currently what I've kind of shifted to now, is doing everything under the owner account or at least logging it … Or, if I'm going to add a manager, only adding a manger long enough to make changes to the GMB asset and then removing that manger, so that the footprint doesn't stay there.
In other words, for example, one of the things that we're going to be doing is providing done for you GMB optimization services, so we can provide an MGYB, our store. It's not available yet, but it's coming very, very soon, guys. We've got VAs in training right now, to be able to provide you guys with full soup to nuts done for you GMB asset building. From verification, all the way through … Setup an optimization and scheduling GMB posts and scheduling them to republish to where you don't have to do shit, except purchase it and then start making money from it once you monetize it, right.
So, one of the things that we're going to have to do is whenever we create or somebody … Typically, you're going to buy the asset from us, so we create it for you, but then the VAs that are going to optimizing it, will be … That asset will be … A manager will be added to that asset and then the VAs will optimize that profile, that GMB asset from the manager account. But, then as soon as we go to deliver it, we remove the manager account, right? That's what the process is likely going to be and that way there's the owner account and then you can add yourself as a manager if you'd like, but I would recommend using something like Browseo or Ghost Browser and always logging in and making changes to it from the primary owner account.
But, that's typically when for real businesses or maybe the occasional lead gen asset, I've never done it at scale, like we have been over the last few weeks. I'm really concerned because these are black hatted Google, GMB assets. I'm really worried about potential footprints. So, I'm trying to do as much as possible to reduce footprints. That means not using manager accounts when … If possible. If you're using a good browser [inaudible 00:15:17] like Browseo or Ghost Browser, you should be able to accomplish that.
Now, Marco, I know you have a slightly different take on it, do you want to share yours?
Marco: Yeah, we have managers doing it all. The owner never, ever goes back in. That's how we do it. It's as if an agency were doing the work for that Google my business listing, which I think [crosstalk 00:15:40].
Bradley: So, you have different manager accounts, is what you're saying?
Marco: Absolutely, yeah. Because we have a whole bunch of VAs.
Bradley: Gotcha.
Marco: Right? So, they all get spread out. We don't have one BA that does … For example, what you always talk about, tree service, right? It's not about a bunch of clustered tree service, GMBs that, that VA is doing. They're out everywhere. They have a bunch of different niches that they handle. The team lead will spread them out. She'll give, “Okay, you get three. You get three of these. You get three of these. You get three of these.” Then, she'll come back and she'll start adding them again until we get to a certain point and then we don't add to those who will open a new account and that account we'll manage the next set. They all won't be in one niche. I think that's just perfectly legitimate.
In fact, I haven't seen any problems with any of the stuff that we're doing getting suspended.
Bradley: Yeah, I haven't had anything suspended through a manager account. So, again, I've had in the past, I've had a manager account suspended and it didn't affect any of the GMB assets that it was managing because the asset was owned by a different Google profile. So, as far as I know, that's still the case, but I don't want to create a known footprint between assets. So, what Marco just said, Dan, just to clarify, is that he's … Remember they're making changes. His team is making changes to GMB assets through manager accounts, not through the owner accounts.
But, there's not a footprint between the manager accounts and the assets because he's randomly selecting different Gmail accounts to be added as managers and they manage more than just one vertical industry. Now, again, Marco's got a team. Dan, I'm not sure if you have a team or not. So, that might not be the most efficient way for you, if you don't have a team. If you have a team, then maybe it is. Also, it depends on again, like Marco said, if you're dealing with multiple industries, that makes it easier to do that because each manager account can be managing multiple types of GMB assets. In other words, different types of industries, which would make sense because that acts very much like an agency that would be managing different client's businesses, right?
So, what Marco's saying is absolutely valid, I completely understand his method. Me, personally, in my business, I am targeting one industry. So, we're targeting … For my business as tree service industry for contact media, it's remodeling and general contractors. So, because of that, we're targeting one industry, I don't have that … Even if we had multiple manager accounts, every manager account will only be managing similar types of properties. So, that doesn't work for my setup. Again, you're going to have to customize the setup based upon what your specific business is currently and select which is best.
For me, for my business, because I'm targeting one industry, the best, so far … At least what I think to be the best method is doing everything through the primary owner account or if I'm going to add a manager, it's only temporary, long enough for the manger to make whatever changes are going to the GMB and then that manager get removed, so that it's not a long term manager connection, if that makes sense. Okay, so again, really take what Marcos said and take what I said, and determine which is the better fit for your business and then apply that method, okay. It's a great question, by the way, Dan.
Marco: I'm also about to put it to the test because I'm about to close on a really deal, where we're talking about thousands of GMBs and it's in one vertical, one niche. I'm going to see which of the two methods works best for longevity.
Bradley: Yeah.
Marco: [crosstalk 00:19:42].
Bradley: That's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to develop processes to scale all of this, which is really what local, excuse me, what [inaudible 00:19:51] is all about. So, we're really trying to develop all of these processes and done for you services because we're building out our own. Guys, we're not just creating these services to sell them to you guys. We're creating these services for our internal use. Since we're going through all the trouble of creating all of these processes and training virtual assistants to do all this stuff, because we're building our own businesses this way, we practice exactly what we preach guys.
Thoughts On Google CEO Sundar Pichai's Testimony That Google Is Not Manually Intervening On Search Results
So, if you want to stay on top of it without having to do the testing yourself, then just come join us and … The Masterminds probably your best bet because that's where the conversations are held on a daily basis. All right, Wayne's up. He says, “Observation …” Yeah, this was funny. “Google's CEO Sundar Pichai …” Or, Pikai, I can't … Whatever. “Testified in front of the house judiciary committee and literally said, “Last year we served over three trillion searches, just as a fact, every single day, 15% of the searches Google seized, we have never seen them before.” That's crazy.
So, this is working at scale. We don't manually intervene any search results. Another SEO said, “Anyone else see the word manually in there? Duh, I would've preferred him to say, ‘We don't intervene.' Thought you slipped that one by, huh, Sundar? Maybe to that box of rocks they call Congress but not to us, SEOs.” That's funny. I thought that was really interesting. So, thanks for sharing, Wayne.
Are There Any Laws Or Issues One Should Worry About When Running Ads To A Vacation Giveaway Offer That Is Free?
Frankie's up, what's up, Frankie? He's coming to ask a lot of questions. He said, “Hey, guys. Happy holidays. I've got a new client who owns a travel vacation club in the travel niche.” Marco, this seems like might be up your alley. “In my city who's giving me $1,000 with ad spend with Google Ads because they want results ASAP. Then, for each lead I bring in, they will be getting …” You will be getting paid, Frankie will be getting paid, “$200 to $250 regardless if they join the travel club or not.” There you go, that's great Frankie.
So, they're giving you the $1,000 for ad spend and they're going to pay you with the leads that you generate with their money? Phew, that's a really cool engagement, man. How'd you get that? How'd you manage that one? That's great. I like that. “Since he is paying for the ad spend and I still get a nice chunk per lead, I agreed to do his deal at the potential … I agreed to do his deal as a potential … Here it's huge for me.” Yes, I agree. Typically, in this industry, in order to generate the leads, the main way all the current marketing companies have done is to … They do a free giveaway offer for a vacation trip to Orlando or a free cruise in exchange for their contact info and having them attend a short sales presentation where they have the option to buy or not buy. But, they still get their promised free gift.
Okay, so first thing, is there any potential issues with that? I don't know. You'd have to contact Google. If you're talking about setting up Google Ads, then I would just call Google Ads, formerly AdWords. Call Google Ads support and ask them that. They'll tell. Guys, listen. I've always found Google Ads … The support line, to call them, always really helpful. I'm not kidding. Anytime I have a question that I'm unsure of, I just call Google Ads because I'm spending money with them, why not call them and just ask them so I don't have to spend a bunch of money researching stuff.
Of course, I do a Google search first and if I can't find a direct answer to my question within a few minutes, then I will call. They're usually really responsive and they're happy to help because you're a paying advertiser. I found that to be the case, maybe other people have had different experiences, but I have always found it rather helpful. So, I would call in and ask. Do some Google research first if you can, Frankie.
It's very funny, but there was a training course, I can't remember the name of it, it was by Morrison, Anthony Morrison. He's got a brother too. They do a bunch of stuff, but he's got a training course, it's rather old. A couple years old now. It was very much like what you're talking about, but it was done on Facebook and that was giving away a free vacation, which cost him like $600 or $800. He could buy a three night or a two night, three day trip package at an Orlando resort or something like that, right? It would cost him like $800, $600 to $800 or something like that.
Then, he would do it on his Facebook page for that area, he would do a post and he would use Facebook ads on the page to promote this free giveaway for this free vacation giveaway, right? For two nights and three days at whatever this resort was. He did it in multiple locations and he would get thousands of people to opt-in for that free giveaway. On the thank you page, after the opt-in, there would just be AdSense. Straight up Google AdSense ads. Because so many thousands of people would click through and opt-in to be put on the list for the vacation giveaway and then land on the thank you page with the AdSense ads, which by the way you can put affiliate offers there and things too.
Then, he would end up making more money on just the AdSense clicks, then it cost to pay for the vacation, the giveaway, right? For the tickets of the giveaway. So, he ended up making money just on that giveaway alone and then he built a list of thousands of people that now he can email market to, right? Also, retarget or remarket through remarketing, right? So, it was huge because he was building a list with a free giveaway and making money on it. He as a training course about it, it's all done on Facebook, but you could apply that same principle to a Google Ads campaign or apply Google Ads to that same type of campaign is what I'm saying.
Again, if it's legal … Well, if it's not a violation of Google Ads terms and service, but you can find that out either through some research or just calling Google and asking them. It's a brilliant strategy. Brilliant strategy.
Marco: [crosstalk 00:26:35]. I just posted the URL for their policy regarding contests and giveaways.
Bradley: A no go?
Marco: No, yeah. He has to look through it. As long as the state where he is doing it doesn't prohibit it, as long as it's not prohibited in the U.S. or whatever, he can totally do it. [crosstalk 00:26:54]. Read through the URL, make sure that you understand it. Again, call Google. Frankie act real stupid. Look, “I want to spend some money with you, I'm not sure how? Can I do this?” If you act really stupid, they're really going to help. I mean, seriously. They're going to go out of their way to get you to spend your money with them.
Then, you go, after you're done with them and take … Everything that they said, with a grain of salt. Because all you're looking for is the clarification that yes, you can do it and what the conditions are. What the limitations are, that's all you're looking to get out of them. They're going to try to talk you in to getting some of their reps to help you or whatever. You can always do it yourself. But, the whole point behind this is getting all those little nuggets out of the person that you're talking to. The way that you do that is by acting really dumb.
Bradley: This is it. This is it. I was trying to think, I was sitting here the whole time you're talking, I'm trying to think a name of that Facebook page, where that … Let's see, was it this one or this one? It was Destin Florida and it was Anthony Morison's course, I can't remember. I think it's this one. Yeah, this one here. Destinflorida.com.
Bradley: Me neither.
Hernan: Yeah.
Bradley: But, this is it right here. Look, they're still doing it. See, look, he's still doing this, man. I don't know why'd you ever quit. He's crushing it with this guys. You can see, he's still doing it. The course is still at least two years old. So, destinflorida.com, you can see the type of promotions he sets up. Live three day giveaway. Again, the training course is really good. We don't have an affiliate link for it, I'd give it to you. But, honestly, it's a good course. I actually set it up for my keto VIP project, which is the ketogenic diet thing that I was doing for a while, but I don't do much of affiliate marketing, you guys. I just straight do local stuff. I certainly don't like Facebook.
I know you can make a lot of money from Facebook, but I'm just not a fan of Facebook. So, I spent a lot of time setting up a similar giveaway with ketogenic diet stuff and I wasn't nearly as successful with it and it's probably just because I only attempted it once and then quit because I just don't like Facebook. Like I said, this is a really good strategy, I think it's something you should checkout for sure. It was a great question. As far as Answerconnect, it's been several years since I've had Answerconnect do any outbound calls for me.
I used to do that with lead gen service providers, when I used to offer equity share or revenue, like when I would have a service provider where I would get a percentage of a closed job or of a closed sale. What I would do and I've mentioned this before, maybe I don't have the hangouts, but I've done this with three different tree service contractors. Only one of them ended up being honest with me and not lying about jobs that closed and they said they didn't get them.
One of the ways I found out that I had contractors lying to me and not giving me credit or paying me for jobs, for leads that came through my sites, was I had Answerconnect to … Answerconnect's been my call center, like my call answering service since 2012, so I've been using them for many years. At the time, I would have Answerconnect go … I would provide the leads that came to a particular GMB location and I would provide the phone leads to Answerconnect and have them do an outbound customer survey, right?
That's what it was disguised as a customer survey and they would call the leads that came through and say, “Hey, this is blah, blah, blah, tree service. We're calling with a customer satisfaction survey. We understand that you didn't use our services and we were just calling in order to improve our service, we'd like to ask you a couple questions as to what led you to make the decision to hire somebody else.” Something like that. It was worded something like that.
I provided them with a script. It was two to three questions. What would happen is the call, the person who would answer the phone, the lead that they were calling, right, would say, “Well, we made a decision to go … We just decided not to get the tree work done.” Or, “We went another company because of this …” Sometimes the answer would be, “Wait a minute, we did hire you guys to do the tree service. Go back and check your records.” Or, something like that. They would say, “No, we did hire you.” Then, I would call the contractor and say, “Okay, what about this lead here? Did you close this job?” When they would lie to me, I would show them proof, “Wait a minute, I had it confirmed that you did do the job, therefore, you're fired. I'm going to send these leads somewhere else.”
That happened to me … I tried that with six different contractors and only one of them turned out to be honest. I don't offer that anymore, unless I've developed a really good working relationship with somebody. But, at the time, Answerconnect was the service that did it. Now, I don't know if they still do it, the easiest way to find out, Frankie, is just contact Answerconnect, right? Go to Answerconnect and go to contact us tab and ask them a question. You can call them. They're an answering service, so call them, ask them, “Do you guys do outbound calls?” If they will, great. If not, just do a search on Google, right? Outbound calling, telemarketers, something like that and find a service and have them do the outbound calls. Okay? It's that simple.
Answerconnect used to do that, but I don't know if they still do because it's been many years since I've done that. Okay? That's a great … Man, that's really sweet about this guy with giving you a $1,000 and … So, you're going to spend his ad money and for every lead that you generate with his ad money, you're going to get paid? That's great, man. You should try to repeat that over and over again. So, congratulations.
How Do You Determine The Profit Margin Of A Potential Local Lead Gen Client?
Ken says, “Last week Bradley said …” That's the webinar for Local Lease Pro Update on Monday, I'm sure Adam already dropped the link, so there you go, Ken. Will, what's up Will he said, “Bradley, on LLP, you mentioned that …” Which is Local Lease Pro, guys. “You mentioned that one of the criteria for selecting a niche is to ensure that the service provider had good margins to afford your leads.” Which means good profits. “Question, how do you go about determining what profit margins that the client would have, as you explained with the carpet cleaning client you used as an example to drive your point?” Again, Will, ask, right.
For example, if you're … If you're looking for … Well, first of all, think about … You've got to think about the type of businesses … The carpet cleaning, they're very, very small margins for the most part. So, it's hard to justify marketing cost, especially lead generation cost for carpet cleaning companies. Like tree services, it's almost all labor, right? It's very rarely is there ever any material cost, other than fuel, right? Then, paying for labor for the workers and stuff like that. There's very rarely any material cost. Remodeling leads, think about a kitchen remodel, right?
A kitchen remodel on the low end, an average kitchen remodel is about $30,000. Typically, most general contractors and remodeling contractors have about a 20% markup, right? So, if it's a $30,000 job and again about the average is a 20% margin, markup, margin, right? Then, they're looking at about a $6,000 profit margin, $24,000 would go out to materials and two subcontractors for labor, right? That's about a $6,000 profit margin per lead there, so it's easy or it's much more easy to justify charging $100,000 a lead, when there's $6,000 profit potential for that lead. Does that make sense?
So, again, think about it logically, Will, that's first and foremost. Just think about the type of business that you may want to generate leads for. Think about what they charge for their product or service and think about what their cost may be. Try to guesstimate. You can try to do some simple Google searches, guys, and start looking for that kind of data. You will likely find it with a little bit of digging, just by Googling. As a last resort or if you're not …
Send somebody a gift card for $20 or something like that to Starbucks or to a local restaurant and then call them after you know that it's been delivered, right? Then, say, “Hey, I'm the guy that sent you the $20 gift card. Would you mind answering a couple questions about your business because I'm looking to get into marketing for that. I'm not trying to pitch you on anything, that's why I sent you a $20 Starbucks gift card. Would you mind taking a few minutes?”
Butter them up first by giving them something. I've done that in the past, guys, and it works. So, again, it's just a conversation starter and is it worth $20 to actually find out what the margins are for a particular business that you may be interested in generating leads for? Also, couldn't they be the first person to buy leads from you, after you had that conversation and built some rapport with them? Think about it. So, there you go, Will. Like I said, a lot of the times, just think about it logically first. Do some research on Google. You'll likely find the information you're looking for, some sort of statistic sheets or something.
Lastly, you can always just send somebody a small gift. Or, you could just do a straight cold call, but if you want to butter them up first … Remember the law of reciprocity, when you give somebody something for nothing and you're not trying to pitch them … You guys know, probably from prospecting and trying to sell marketing services, we've always talked about how we should lead with something free first and then you try to sell them something. What if you give them something free first and you don't try to sell them anything. You just want to ask them a question.
You'll probably close that sale because you're not selling anything, you know what I mean? I would try that.
Marco: What I've also done, is I just have people call as a customer, just a typical customer to get a quote, just so that I have-
Bradley: That won't reveal what the profit margin is for that.
Marco: No, no. It won't reveal the profit margin, but it gives you an idea. If you have a quote and you know the general markup, which is 20% to 30% across the board, sometimes 10. It's generally 20 to 30, then you know more or less where you are.
Should You Limit Your Service Area Within The Zip Code Where The GMB Is Secured?
Bradley: That's true. So, Ted's up. He says, “Local Lease Pro method question. I'm in a large city with a dozens zip codes … With a dozen zip codes within that city name. If I secure a GMB in one of those zip codes with the population of 10K, should I limit my service here to target just that zip code where the GMB is secure?”
Well, that's up to you, it depends on really how you spaced out your assets. You don't want there to be gaps or spaces between us, that's if possible. So, that's really determined … Again, this is more of a question that should be answered on Monday, not necessarily today, Ted, because we're having the whole Local Lease Pro Update Webinar then. But, yeah, I would say it depends on how you have your other assets within that same service area radius spread out, right? Let's say you have a 20 mile service area radius and you've got only four assets and they're equally spaced out across those 24 or that 20 mile radius, then I would have the service area setup for each of those locations to where they all overlap in the middle slightly but that way the whole 20 mile service area is covered, by service area of each location, right?
So, each location will cover 25% in that particular example. So, that's how I do it. If you're doing a whole bunch of locations within a particular service area, then yeah, you can go hyper local, which is really what we're teaching with Local Lease Pro anyways, is going hyper local and keeping your service area or radius very, very tight, or small. Something I typically have been doing is going about a 5 mile radius, guys. That's only a 10 mile service area, right? 5 mile radius from the location itself, that's typically what I'm doing. But, again, it depends on how many assets you have and how big your service area is and how you want to spread them out then.
We'll talk more about that on Monday. Okay, there you go, Adam, thank you. Thank you. There you, Brian, it was just posted below you. “What time is the webinar on Monday?” It's 4:00 PM, I believe Eastern, right? Hello?
Adam: Correct.
Bradley: Yeah. All right, Monday, September 17th, I believe, yeah, 4:00 PM>
Adam: I'll put it on the page, it should've been on there.
Does A GMB Page Needs A GMB Site?
Bradley: Yeah. Okay, cool, thank you. Cool, we're almost done. We can wrap it up either early or on time. GMB, Brian, okay. Says, “GMB, need to have GMB site in addition to the page, need to have a GMB site in addition to the page. I thought the GMB page was a site until I saw a link to a GMB site.” I think you're talking about the maps page. No, a GMB website, Brian, is a web … Google gives you a free website now. It's whatever sub domain you choose, .business.site, that's a GMB website.
Okay, it's just a one page site, but every time you create a GMB post, it gets … If you have a GMB website published, then it will also be converted into an internal page on the site. So, that's a GMB website. Yes, if you're doing GMB stuff, I say, setup the GMB website too. Use all the tools, all the features that Google gives you guys. That's why we're crushing it right now. We're doing everything that Google is giving to us, where 95% of other businesses don't even have a clue that it exists. That's why we're crushing it right now. That's what Local GMB Pro is all about.
Just get in there and use all of the tools that Google gives within Google My Business and Google will promote your location, your asset, above everybody else because you're using all the tools that nobody else is using. Does that make sense? Yes, Brian, use the GMB website if you can. Marco, do you want to comment on that?
Bradley: Okay. I'm not even building WordPress websites anymore guys. I swear to God. The only time I'm going to build a WordPress website is if a client demands it. For lead gen assets, nope, don't need them anymore. Why the hell would I want to go out and pay for a domain, setup hosting and deal with all the stupid WordPress shit that we have to deal with all the time, when I can setup lead gen assets all day long with a GMB single page website and I never have to do a damn thing to it, think about. So, again, if a client demands a website, which most clients will, then, that's fine, I'll work on their WordPress websites for them.
But, for my own stuff now, nope. No more WordPress sites, I'm done. At least for now, that may change.
Marco: For those of you who have worked out the page rank math that business.site is around a 5, 6 PR. That doesn't mean that your sub domain is going to get a 5, 6. But, I mean, you're attached not only to a Google property, but it's like a 5, 6 PR. So, the quality score will be a … Not the quality score, but the ranking score will be just a touch lower than that, but it's a really good indicator that it's fucking powerful and you need to be there.
What Are Possible Reasons Why A Site Ranks Lower Than The Others Despite Having Better DR, UR And More Quality Backlinks Than Its Competitor?
Bradley: All right, so … Thank you, Marco. The next question, [Asheesh 00:43:01], I guess. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name. That's a metric question, Asheesh and I know it's the first time you've posted a question for us, so I'm not going to slam you too hard, I promise. But, something we don't care about here at Semantic Mastery is metrics. I could care less what [Moss 00:43:18] metrics say about a domain or a webpage. I could care less what Majestic SEO says or what an AH Ref says because we stopped tracking metrics over two years ago and I haven't had any problems whatsoever.
I don't give a shit what the metrics are from my competitors compared to the metrics that I work on or my client's assets because we can still get results regardless of what those metrics say, period. We've proven that over and over again. So, again, I'm not picking on you. This is probably the first time you've asked a question here. This is really not the forum of Semantic Mastery is not the place to ask questions about metrics and why your higher metric property isn't outranking somebody with lower metrics. Probably because they're doing stuff that really speaks directly or feeds Googles … Feeds Google exactly what it wants and that's independent, separate and apart from metrics.
Metrics are proprietary. So, Moss has its own algorithm that it tries to determine the strength of domains, pages, and things like that based upon what it things Google wants. And AH Ref has its own and Majestic has its own and everybody has their own metrics and they're all proprietary. None of them work for Google. So, what I'm saying is because Google doesn't give us page rank metrics anymore, which was the most accurate, then why bother with third-party metrics. I know some people out here live and die by third-party metrics. That's fine.
If it's working for you, that's great. But, in your case Asheesh, you're saying that your metrics are higher but it's not ranking. So, apparently, it's not just a metric thing that determines whether you rank or not, right? You're saying that you have living proof right now that it's not just a metric thing, which is why we don't care about third-party metrics anymore. I don't even track them, I don't care. Does that make sense? Now, I know Marco has a strong opinion about this too.
Marco: Yeah, absolutely, because everything we do is meant to trigger the good parts, let's call it, of the Google algorithm, freshness and proximity. Just everything that Google is looking for. They're looking, as I said, for the ranking score, they're looking … It's not just pay join, pay join is part and I've been saying this for a couple of years. Pay join is part of the ranking score algorithm and that's what we're building up. As long as we're working towards that, we can care less what Moss is doing or Majestic or anything else. It's a guide, but theirs is a guess.
If you think of a whole bunch of people together and they got the math that Google gives you, because they don't give you everything, and they made an educated guess, right? Some went for domain authority, some went for trust. Well, neither one has everything that Google has. The only one that has that Google has is Google and they're not giving up the ghost. So, all we can do is … The Semantic Mastery, which is we test, we see what moves the needle and then we do some more of it.
We do some more of it to the point where we try to hammer it and try to break it and try to get Google to push back, so that we know when we come to you guys, we can tell you these are the boundaries as far as what you can do.
Hernan: Yeah, with the thresholders.
Marco: Yeah, absolutely. We need to know. We need to know what doesn't work, so that we can give people what does work, right? That's just obvious, that's what everybody should be doing and if they're not, then, Asheesh, avoid them. Go somewhere else.
Bradley: That's it. Thank you, Marco. [inaudible 00:47:04], by the way, I don't know if you saw that I commented on your question on the Syndication Academy update. Man, I really apologize, I missed your question. Yours was the first question, so I don't know how I missed it. But, he was asking on that about can you get an RSS feed from Facebook. Yes, you can from Zapier, you can get an RSS feed from Zapier. So, yes you can.
In fact, I posted on that page the event page from earlier that I would try to squeeze that in from the update webinar we're going to do next month in January, which is part two of this Syndication Academy Update Webinar that I held today. So, I'll try to get to that.
Is There A Benefit Of Using Hashtag When Posting To GMB?
So, his question today or for here is there a benefit using a hashtag when posting to GMB? I have no idea. Marco, do you know? I still haven't been using them, so I don't know. Does it even take hashtags?
Marco: Yeah, you can use hashtags, I don't know if they go … Actually, you can do jump links in posts. I just gave me something that I shouldn't be giving away, but run with it.
Bradley: Yeah. I don't know. Well, jump links are different from hashtags though. Again, I don't know if hashtags if they hyperlink with a posted post, I don't know or not, I haven't tested that. I have no idea.
Bradley: Hashtags, yeah.
Marco: Maybe that's something we should test, we should put that on our list of things to [crosstalk 00:48:31].
Bradley: I'm going ping Rob, test hashtags for GMB post.
Marco: Yeah. Tell him to contact Irene and then Irene will contact me.
Bradley: Whatever, he knows what I meant. Okay, yeah. That's a good one, thanks for pointing that out, I haven't even thought about that, we can test on that too. Yeah, the jump link thing, we will be talking about that in local Lease Pro or Local GMB Pro. Probably Local GMB Pro and then Mastermind guys in probably sometime next month, because I got part two of Syndication Academy Webinars very specifically about Q&A posts and Q&A schema, questions and answers schema. So, there's something that we can apply with what Marco just leaked to that. We'll talk about that once part two of Syndication Academy Update Webinar is complete. Okay. But, there's something very powerful we can do with that.
What Are The Main Needle Movers For Boosting A GMB's Ranking?
Edward says, “Hey, guys. Thanks for doing this.” I'll plus one that. He says, “For a competitive search term, which are the main needle-movers for boosting GMBs ranking> Only a small team here.” Right now activity, Edward. Obviously, make sure it's fully optimized, it's well optimized. It's got good content and then posting activity is probably the number one factor in my opinion for getting results. Getting traction with a GMB asset. So, guys use the data in the GMB assets to tell you what Google wants. The data in the GMB insights will tell you the best days to post.
Maybe you need to increase posting frequency on those days, right? It will also tell you the keywords that are … Or, the search queries that are bringing the most traffic to your site. For whatever reason, when you target those keywords in GMB posts, they tend to bring in more traffic. Also, by the way, you'll probably notice, Edward, a lot of the keywords that are bringing traffic are near me keywords, near me queries, right? Or, variations nearby, close to me, in my area. Those types of queries. Target those, guys. You're triggering the mobile algorithm that way. Google loves that shit.
So, go in there and collect … Start building a database in near me terms and all the variations thereof. Then, start targeting those in near me type posts. Again, we have post templates that are called near me post templates inside Local Lease Pro, as well as local GMB pro. Not going to give them to you here, but you can create your own too by the way. You don't need my templates, you can sit down and just think about how to create your own near me templates. Post regularly and consistently and often, right? That's the number one key.
Then, as far as getting ranked in the free pack, which isn't really necessary to get results from GMB. It doesn't even have to be in the three pack, guys, because you're talking … Especially what I just mentioned with the mobile stuff, you don't even need to be in three pack and you can still generate leads from GMB assets, we've proven that. If you want to be in the three pack because, let's face it guys, that's still something that we as us like to see, right? Local PR pro, I'm not shitting you.
Probably the quickest way I've ever seen, other than the other Local Lease Pro method, which is just researching locations and finding easy opportunities, other than that, the quickest way I've been able to get into the three pack is through press releases in the Local PR method, which is PR stacking and all of that. Again, that's why Local Lease Pro guys is hands down … That is our number one front end product right now. It will be, as long as this opportunity exists, right? Local GMB Pro is the advanced training for GMB assets.
It's for those assets that don't push into the three pack and generate results right away. It's for the more competitive areas. That's what Local GMB Pro is, it's about how to get the absolute power out of a GMB asset, whether it's in a three pack of not, it makes no difference. Local PR pro, is the course that teaches you how to push that into a three pack in very, very quickly, whether it has a website or not. That's why there's three courses, guys. I'm telling you, they work hand-in-hand. Then, lastly to follow it all up, is RYS Academy and drive stacks, which is like … that's super advanced stuff that just pushes a shit ton of power into whatever you want through Google properties, right?
So, it's like those three courses are … They compound. They just build upon each other and then RYS is for … That's just the icing on the cake and that's for if you have … If you just want to push massive authority. Marco, you want to chat about that at all?
Marco: No, I think you nailed it on the head. They go hand in hand. Local PR Pro, Local GMB Pro, Local Lease Pro, each one acts differently. Then, when you want to … If you want it to stick, you throw drive stacks at it and then it's like … Like I said, it's never … I haven't seen it this easy to make money in so long, that it's not even funny. It's just so easy. The main needle mover, as you said, it's just activity, but it has to be the right kind of activity on that niche. Let me tell you right now, that each niche reacts differently, depending on the kind of posts that you do. I'll give that away. I'm not going to give everything away, but I'll tell you that.
How Much SEO Do You Do For GMB Sites?
Bradley: Jeff says, “How much SEO do you do for GMB sites? Also, how much can you throw at a GMB site without incurring the wrath of G?” Okay, as SEO, I just put well-optimized content on it, guys. The beautiful thing about a GMB website is you don't … You cannot modify SEO elements of the page. You don't put in header tags and you don't … You just literally past content in. You can bold stuff and you can create links from within the content. You can't add header tags. There's nothing that you can modify on the elements of the page, it's just text only, right? It's all you can do.
Our auto-poster, the GMB auto-poster, that we have will also automate a siloing post, which is really, really cool. Okay, so you can do that. But, as far as the off page stuff, I don't know because I haven't done any massive spamming to the GMB websites yet because as I was just talking about in the previous question, the only exterior link building I have done thus far has been from press releases and drive stacks. I have not even thrown any spam link campaigns. We have a [inaudible 00:55:47], right? We have a link building manager who's fabulous, he's amazing at what he does.
I haven't even started testing, sending link campaigns to a GMB asset yet, maybe Marco has, but all I've done is drive stacks and press releases. I just now starting to play with syndication networks and syndicating GMB posts because our auto-posts create an RSS feed from GMB posts. So, I'm starting to test with that a little bit too. I have almost … I said this with RYS stacks, but I've also tested just link building with Google sites, using a software from Peter Drew. I haven't done enough testing there to determine whether that's something I want to add in my standard operating procedure or not.
Yeah, again, since it's a Google property, Marco can probably comment on this a little bit more, but I haven't tested the limit on that. But, since it's a Google property, will likely withstand anything you throw at it. What do you say, Marco?
Marco: I say that I haven't needed to do anything, except what's in the training so far. It's so simple, you just go, you get an asset. You optimize it the way that it's taught, you throw it up, it ranked or it doesn't rank. If it doesn't rank, you can still … The activity will create calls. The way that it's setup will create calls, it'll create activity. That activity, Google starts feeding on it because it starts seeing it. Activity is one of the major factors right now. I keep saying it, are activity, relevance, trust, and authority. Those are the things that will trump anything. I don't care what it is, I don't care what negative aspects there are. If you have activity, relevance, trust, and authority setup in whatever it is that you're doing, it's going to trump everything and Google is going to reward you over and over and over again.
What's Stopping Someone From Creating Thousands Of Websites And GMBs and Renting Them Out?
Bradley: Yep, there you go. Kasey says, “What's stopping someone from creating thousands of websites in GMBs and running them out?” Just time and any other major complications. Yeah, time, that's it. Time and funding and having a team to be able to accomplish that. What do you think we're in the process of doing right now? We're building those teams so that we can do that kind of volume. That's exactly what we're doing, Kasey. That's why I said, the opportunity while … Strike while the irons hot. Right now is the time to do it and that's why I've been pushing for two months now, as far as I have been to try and build a … This in a scalable way. We're training VAs. I've created … I spent weeks developing training videos and process stocks to be able to train virtual assistants how to do this entire process from start to finish.
The pofu live attendees are getting these updates from me in real time. They're kind of helping me with this, right? They're all using our scaling processes to build their businesses. So, we got all these people that are doing this right now and we're teaching some of this in the Mastermind as it becomes refined and repeatable because it's still kind of in its rough stage right now. The Mastermind as it becomes proven, I share this in the Mastermind as well.
That's exactly why, I don't know how long this opportunity is going to last. While it's here, we're going to try and secure as many as possible, right? So, Kasey, the only limitation that I know of right now is your bandwidth, and your funding, if you're going to be hiring it out, right?
Marco: Definitely budget, unless he has his own method of securing GMB assets. 1,000 or 2,000 of them, if you get through us, we're talking about quite a bit of money.
Bradley: Yeah. Yeah. All right, Wayne, last question and then we're going to wrap it up. We're right on time too, so that's perfect. Wayne says, “Realized today that if a prospect in HVAC or plumbing can't get into local service ads, then there's a hell of an opportunity to do what you learned from Semantic Mastery to help prospect.” Yeah, that's true. Thank you, Wayne. So, yeah, if you can't … For example, guys, I know that in our Mastermind, somebody was talking about trying to get one of their clients into the local services ads section, which is what you're seeing here, right? Apparently, it was funny. I think it was Muhammad.
But, if you can't pass a background check because of something … You've got a skeleton in your closet, you can't get into this section. So, what Wayne is saying is true. That doesn't mean that they're dead in the water, right. DITW, that means that they have … You just have to do other things, like Google Ads or like what we teach with maps, which is Local Lease Pro and Local PR Pro, right? Excuse me, Local GMB Pro. So, there you go. Thank you, Wayne, that's a good point. All right, no other questions, right on time. Hot damn, that doesn't happen very often. Whoo. Cool, and even Adam's still here. Wow.
Adam: About to head out. Time to hit it before the sun goes down, go for a run. But, I want to remind everybody to show up for the webinar on Monday. If you've got any questions about this stuff, I know we talked about Local Lease Pro for a bit today, a lot of questions about it. Whether or not you're a member, show up, go register, come hang out. This is a great way to close out 2018 and really start kicking ass in 2019.
Bradley: There you go. Also, we have a Mastermind seminar tomorrow, for those of you in the Mastermind. So, post your questions through the forum, the Google forum, guys, because we've got a lot to go through tomorrow. So, thanks everybody for hanging out. Thanks, Marco and Adam.
Marco: Bye everybody.
Bradley: See you.
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