In 2013 over 50% of small businesses in the United States of America still didn’t have a website. These businesses are losing out on lots of customers by not being online. Most businesses that do have a website do not track their traffic, which makes their online marketing useless (or almost).
You’re reading this blog because you want to make an extra income or maybe you’re already earning some extra cash online. Helping local businesses in your city can bring it quite a nice amount of money. Here is how you can get your share of “local gold”.
Offer Basic Websites To Local Businesses
Most local businesses do not need a complicated website. The simpler the better. Web design companies will often quote several thousands of dollars for a website and most mom & pop shops simply can’t afford it. You can offer them a beautiful and functional website for under a $1,000. You do not to be a designer or a coder. In my recent blog post I explain how to easily build a site.
Offer Local Listings
It is now crucial to be listed on Google Local for every single local business. Many business owners do not have time to take care of this. Most of them think it’s rocket science when in reality it’s really easy. You can use a free tool like GetListed.org to see which listings should be claimed for the business.
You can easily charge $100-$200 per listing.
Offer Social Media Presence
This is similar to local listings. You can help your local businesses to create a Facebook fanpage, Twitter account and Instamatic. Besides simply creating these accounts you can because a Social Media Manager and can manage the social networks activity for a monthly fee. Big companies pay high 5-figures and sometimes even 6 figures salary to their Social Media Managers.
Offer Content Creation
A business might have a site and even a Facebook page, however they need to create and share helpful content in order to take advantage of their online presence. You can write articles for small businesses, create infographics or make great promotional videos.
Offer Recurring Extras
Think of recurring services that you could offer. It can be monthly SEO services, web site maintenance, Google Analytics tracking, PPC campaigns, social media management, email list building, etc. The more time you will spend in the “marketing world” the more ideas you will get on services and products you can offer.
Build Relationships. Ask for Referrals.
Offering one services to a local small business is great, offering several services is even better. If you make a website for a local shop and they love what you’ve done you can easily sell them more services. At the same time you can ask them for referrals. Most business owners know other business owners and they would be more than happy to refer you if you are doing great work.
Get More Training. Become an Expert.
Most of these tasks are fairly easy to accomplish, however you can get amazing marketing and business training to help you out if you aren’t sure how to make a website or do SEO. I have seen internet marketers turn this “local business” sideline into a full time successful business. Most local marketing consultants started exactly like that; by offering basic marketing services.
Have anything to add? Comment below!
– Alex
There’s good money in this but I still prefer affiliate marketing.
I did a website for a local real estate company last year and that was a good experience. There’s one thing that I’m grateful for that people should realize. If you’re learning affiliate marketing then you have a lot of knowledge – from putting up WordPress blogs to keyword research, SEO and more – that a lot of people don’t have.
You only have to know how to do one thing really well to offer your services to others – that was my takeaway.
Jay, this is not an easy choice. I love online marketing but I also like local marketing. Affiliate Marketing is an amazing model, mostly because the business runs 24/7… regardless is you are there or not.
However, there is a LOT of moolah to be made helping offline clients and it can be really fun as well. Many companies pay $10,000+ to people like us just to manage their online reputation… Imagine landing a few of these clients!
I stay away from “site building” because every business owner has a nephew who “knows computers” and can make a site for free. And there is no point trying to explain why they should hire YOU instead of their nephew, I am sure you know how it goes 😉
I think offline business marketing can be a great sideline 😉