PCO’s: Here’s a List of Questions to Ask Before Paying for Internet Marketing

Online Exposure

Your goal for online marketing should mirror what the Little Mermaid wanted:

“The people” are on search engines, Ariel.

People use search engines for EVERYTHING. Even for reasons that just come across as lazy. The top Google searches this past year were (seriously):

• facebook
• youtube
• amazon
• gmail
• ebay
• yahoo
• craigslist
• People couldn’t be bothered to type in “.com” at the end of these! Instead, they went to Google.

This isn’t a problem per se, it’s simple an illustration of how dependent the population is on search engines, and overwhelmingly, Google.

Pest Control Application

It’s all well and good that people use search engines, but how can it help your pest control business?

The answer is: if you’re showing up as a trusted provider first when potential buyers are searching for pest control, it could mean the difference in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let’s take Houston, for example.

If you showed up first for the search “pest control Houston” and its derivatives (search volume: 1900 per month), you would get approximately 33% of the clicks, or 570, to your website. If you have a halfway decent site, perhaps 25% become leads, and half of those become customers. That’s 71 customers per month!

Now if your contract value is $450 and each customer stays with you for a couple years, your lifetime revenue from one month is around $63,900!

Even a fraction of this number per month could change the life and business of a PCO.

Questions You Should Ask

You need to be confident that the company you hire for SEO/Marketing is perfectly suited for the job. The more specialized, the better.

General SEO companies can do good work, no question there. But those who have intimate knowledge of the industry and all its components will give you that much more the advantage over your competitors.

Here are a few questions you should ask internet marketing companies in order to evaluate how effective they will be with your hard-earned cash.

• What experience do you have in the pest control industry?
• How long have you been doing internet marketing?
• May I see a case study on a company similar to mine?
• What level of risk do your tactics employ? What gray black hat methods do you use, and how long will they be effective?
• What exactly do I get on a monthly basis for what I am paying? (they can send this info over with their proposal or in an email later)
• How will you prove ROI on my investment?

How Much Should You Pay?

You’re in pest control, so you know there is a big range in quality. From those who just use a hand tank and a can of Raid to those who invest in cutting-edge products and methods, there are those who offer “pest control services” for extremely cheap prices. Someone who offers a full service for $20 probably isn’t doing much of anything at all.

Internet marketing is the same way. You could technically get “SEO” for $79 per month, all the way to $5,000 per month or more. In my opinion, it’s not worth paying for ongoing SEO unless you are willing to pay at least $1000. This will ensure quality and competence, not shoddy work that could land you penalized.

Conclusion

In the end, business owners make the decisions that they believe will help their business the most. However, with some faith and cash, internet marketing can help take your business to the next level, and beyond.