If you want to see a watch a local search marketing project unfold before your eyes, this is a great example to watch.
The business is Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental in Ft. Myers Florida. The business owner, Tom Kindelan, knows the value of local search first hand (read his testimonial) so he asked me to get started on his local search project post-haste. Here’s what we did.
June 1, 2011
Tom decided he wanted to start a motorcycle rental business and open it before the snowbirds came to visit Southwest Florida in the fall. He called me and asked what he needed to do over the summer to prepare for the work we would do in early fall when we started on his local search marketing project in earnest. This was my advice.
- You must have a website. It does not need to be fancy or expensive, but it must be fully optimized for the search engines. Get a domain name that describes exactly what you do and include your location. Try to get something like FtMyersMotorcycleRental.com
- Get a local telephone number exclusively for your business. You won’t need it until about 60 days before you open, but Google suggests/demands/requires that you have a unique telephone number for each business. 239-257-8085.
- Research your competitors on Google and determine your niche. What will make Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental different, better? Rent a pre-owned, professionally maintained Harley-Davidson motorcycles for a fraction of the cost you would pay to rent a new Harley.
October 8, 2011
Now it was my turn. I took the information Tom acquired and build a fully optimized website for his local business. I also optimized and claimed his business listing on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Unfortunately, because Tom owns another business at the same location, neither Google nor Bing allowed me to claim his business via the telephone. We’ll have to wait to verify Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental through the mail.
My next step is to place his business listing on UBL and Localeze in order to promote his business on the net and acquire tons of citations, which I will do over the next few days. Then I’ll do a little link building to his new website via article marketing to give it some recognition on the Internet.
Then I’m going to run off a list of the most powerful citation sites for motorcycle rental companies in Southwest Florida using a very, very cool tool from Whitespark. I’m going to share this list with Tom for he and his staff to use to gather even more citations over the course of the next few months.
As of today, October 8, Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental is not showing up on any of the search engines for Tom’s primary keywords which are “Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental” and Ft. Myers Harley Rental.” He won’t be renting motorcycles until mid-November, so we will not be able to acquire reviews until that time, but rest assured we will be generating a 5-star review from virtually every happy customer.
- Cost of Project: About $2,500.
- Return on Investment: My guess is that once Tom Opens his doors, he will recoup his investment in less than 60 days … and that’s without any ongoing monthly fees. Sweet!
Stay tuned and let’s see how well this local search marketing project works for Tom, both in search engine placement on the Internet and more importantly, in real dollars for a start-up business.
Update November 1, 2011
Just received a call from Tom, the owner of Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental. His business listing is now in the second spot for the term Fort Myers Motorcycle Rental and he’s in the third spot for Fort Myers Harley Rental. Super Sweet!
Now his quest is to continue to gather business citations at the rate of one or two a day from the list provided by Whitespark.ca and generate 5-star customer reviews using the 5-Star Review, Reward and Referral System … which will come as soon as he is ready to start renting his bikes.
I also made a change to the description text on the Fort Myers Motorcycle Rental website. Currently the text under the search results reads as follows. “Rent Harley-Davidson Motorcycles from Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental in Ft. Myers, Florida.”
After talking to the owner, one of his biggest selling points is the cost of renting from him over renting from the Harely-Davidson dealer in Ft. Myers. Therefore …
I’ve change the description text to now read “Save 30 percent by renting your Harley-Davidson Motorcycles from Ft. Myers Motorcycle Rental in Ft. Myers, Florida.” The goal is to attract Harley renters who want to save money on their rental. I’ll be keeping an eye on this to see how quickly Google picks it up and if it makes a difference in the number of rentals.
