684: $500 Per Client Per Month: Why Local SEO Should Be Your Next Side Hustle

Summary

Summary of The Side Hustle Show Episode 684: "$500 Per Client Per Month: Why Local SEO Should Be Your Next Side Hustle"

Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Eric Dingler, Owner of InTransit Studios
Release Date: July 17, 2025

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1. Introduction to Local SEO as a Side Hustle

In this episode, Nick Loper introduces local SEO as a lucrative and relatively straightforward side hustle. He brings in Eric Dingler, who manages a six-figure digital agency while traveling globally with his family. Eric emphasizes the enduring demand for local SEO services, highlighting its resilience compared to regular SEO, which faces increasing competition from AI-driven tools.

Notable Quote:
Nick Loper [00:01]: "I've got a relatively simple recurring revenue side Hustle you could start today even."

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2. The Great Opportunity in Local SEO

Eric explains the vast market potential for local SEO, noting that millions of small businesses have yet to claim and optimize their Google Business Profiles. He underscores the continuous reliance on platforms like Google Maps and Apple Maps for local searches, asserting that this demand is unlikely to diminish.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [02:15]: "Only about 20, 25% of businesses have claimed their Google business profile and have optimized it. So 75% of the local businesses around you haven't done this yet."

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3. Steps to Start Selling Local SEO

Eric outlines a step-by-step approach for beginners interested in launching a local SEO side hustle:

• Sell the Service First: Even without technical expertise, Eric advises selling the service to secure initial funding.

• Set Clear Expectations: Communicate realistic timelines (e.g., four to eight weeks) to clients.

• Leverage Social Media: Create a beta test post seeking local businesses willing to participate in an SEO experiment for increased visibility.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [04:27]: "The first thing you're going to do is you're going to go sell it."

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4. Service Delivery and Setting Up Systems

Once clients are secured, Eric details the execution phase:

• Content Collection: Obtain high-quality images of the business.

• Content Creation: Use AI tools to generate engaging posts tailored to the business's needs.

• Scheduling Posts: Regularly update the Google Business Profile with new content to enhance visibility.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [10:34]: "You're going to do it one time. Then you're going to create the 12 pieces of content and you're going to go in once a week and add those."

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5. Pricing and Building Recurring Revenue

Eric discusses pricing strategies, suggesting an initial one-time SEO boost priced around $500. He shares his experience of selling the service for $1,300 initially and advises adjusting based on confidence and market response. The goal is to transition from one-time services to ongoing monthly packages, enhancing revenue stability.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [03:44]: "If you're as arrogant as I am, you can do that. But if you're a little more like, I don't know, that makes me nervous. Start lower. That's okay."

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6. Scaling Up and Building a Remote Team

As the side hustle grows, Eric emphasizes the importance of scaling operations by building a remote team. This allows for efficient service delivery without compromising profit margins. He shares his strategy of hiring remote talent to handle content creation and client management, enabling his agency to expand while maintaining flexibility.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [29:23]: "We have an amazing person on my team from El Salvador. She's a rock star. And this is all she does for us. She only does local SEO content."

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7. Additional Services: Reputation Management and Accessibility Compliance

To increase monthly recurring revenue, Eric recommends offering supplementary services:

• Reputation Management: Helping businesses collect and manage customer reviews.

• Accessibility Compliance: Ensuring websites meet ADA standards, which not only broadens customer reach but also fulfills legal requirements.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [39:18]: "Accessibility is both a social justice issue as well as a good for business... Accessibility is a whole another new fascinating world, but I don't think I would try to get into it as a side hustle."

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8. Marketing and Client Acquisition

Eric highlights the effectiveness of local networking over digital-only strategies. Building relationships within local business associations and hosting community-focused initiatives, like podcasts, can lead to steady client acquisition. Strategic partnerships, such as with commercial real estate agents, further bolster client referrals and business growth.

Notable Quote:
Eric Dingler [46:12]: "The fastest way to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue is local networking."

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9. Final Tips and Conclusion

In his closing advice, Eric stresses the importance of leadership and list building as foundational skills for scaling a side hustle. He advises entrepreneurs to delegate technical tasks, focus on client relationships, and continuously build their contact lists to sustain and grow their businesses.

Notable Quotes:
Eric Dingler [49:11]: "Real estate agents don't build the houses they sell. So don't fall into the trap that you have to be the one doing it."

Nick Loper [49:44]: "Leadership and list building."

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Key Takeaways

• High Demand: A significant portion of local businesses have untapped potential in optimizing their online presence.

• Simple Start: Begin by selling the service, even with minimal technical skills, then invest in learning and service delivery.

• Recurring Revenue: Transition from one-time services to monthly packages to ensure steady income.

• Scaling Efficiently: Utilize remote teams to maintain high service quality while managing costs.

• Diverse Services: Expand offerings with reputation management and accessibility compliance to increase client value and revenue.

• Effective Marketing: Prioritize local networking and strategic partnerships over solely digital marketing efforts.

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For more detailed guidance and to download Eric Dingler’s Local SEO Side Hustle Checklist, visit EricDingler.com/sidehustle.

Transcript

[Nick Loper]

All right, I've got a relatively simple recurring revenue side Hustle you could start today even. The idea is to help local businesses gain more visibility in Google so they can make more money. And the market is huge. Think millions of potential small business customers here. Today's guest runs a six figure digital agency while traveling the world with his family and says if he was starting over, he focused on selling a simple local SEO service. This might be the last bastion of SEO. Local SEO from Eric Dingler.com Eric Dingler welcome to the Side Hustle show.

[Eric Dingler]

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to unpack this with you for your audience.

[Nick Loper]

You bet. Stick around in this one. I'm excited as well. We're going to figure out how do we find customers, how are we going to deliver this service quickly and effectively and maybe how to remove yourself from being the hands on technician in the business. But kick us off with what do you see as the opportunity here in local SEO?

[Eric Dingler]

Well, for me, and especially as somebody that every three weeks to three months I'm moving into a completely new city with my wife in our 14s, we're constantly going to Google Maps or Apple Maps looking for restaurant, barber, you know, grocery store, dentist, whatever it is we need. And I don't see people stopping that. People are still looking for that local service. I don't see it going away. And everybody in the entire world uses Google Maps, Google my business and Apple Maps.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. Where regular SEO, article, SEO, website SEO is all being eroded away by AI and maybe Reddit in the search results. Local SEO is maybe a less competitive game and it still works by the old rules, more or less. Where it's like if I want a restaurant near me, it's not being eaten by AI just yet.

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah. The thing about Google, they have invested millions and millions upon millions of dollars mapping every city, every country, every road in the world, adding all of the businesses that they can find to it, working to ensure that we have access to a business's hours, contact information, all these things.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

And they don't charge for this. They don't charge you and me as the end user trying to find a place and they don't charge the businesses to be on it. But even with that, only about according to Google's most recent Numbers in the USA, only about 20, 25% of businesses have claimed their Google business profile and have optimized it. So 75% of the local businesses around you haven't done this yet. And they all already know about Google. They already know about SEO and If you can learn a few key phrases and use those when you're talking to businesses, it's a very easy services out. In fact, Nick, today is our oldest son's 18th birthday.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, okay.

[Eric Dingler]

And he is an outdoor kid through and through. Computer's not his thing. You know, he wants to be outside all the time. He wants to be playing soccer and stuff like that. But if he was to come to me today and say, okay, Dad, I want to start my own thing, you know what, what should I do? And my agency, we do, we do web design development, app work. We focus a lot on helping businesses meet accessibility standards. We do paid ads, social media. Like we do all those things.

[Nick Loper]

Yes. And this is in Transit Studios, if anybody wants to go check that out. That's all right, go ahead.

[Eric Dingler]

Thanks. Yeah. But if my 18 year old came to me today and said, I want to start my own thing, I would give him a checklist for to start a local SEO business. And I would say, this is what you need to go do.

[Nick Loper]

All right, coach me through this. We'll worry about, like the technical skills. I don't know, I don't know the first thing about local. We'll worry about that in a second. But like, let's say I'm your, I'm your son. Like, talk me through this. What do I do first?

[Eric Dingler]

Great. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to go sell it. I do this a lot. I often sell services that I don't know how I'm going to deliver it. In fact, my very first local SEO client, I sold them local SEO. I collected the money and then I used that money to go pay for somebody to teach me how to do what I need to do. Because you can tell your customer, this is going to take me four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks. They don't know.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah. Set up expectations. Sure.

[Eric Dingler]

Exactly. So you set those expectations. So what I like to do in this case, and this so kind of take going step by step, really breaking this down. Nuance. The first thing I would do is I would write a what we call beta test social media post. And later at the end of the episode, Nick, we can give people a link to. I have this written out in an actual checklist with links and everything that can, people can follow.

[Nick Loper]

Perfect.

[Eric Dingler]

But for, for the conversation, the thing I like to do is I like to create a beta social media post. People that are listening, they probably have friends that are business owners or they use local businesses. They have a dentist, they probably have A barber or hair salon, they have a favorite restaurant that's not a chain. You have your local mom and pop, favorite places, landscaper, whatever it might be, you have friends that have these businesses. So what I like to do is create a social media post that says, hey fellow business owners or hey business owners who are friends. I'm testing a new piece of software or I'm testing a new system that lets me help local businesses be found more often when somebody searches for them. I'm looking for three businesses that I can use that would be willing to let me use their business as an experiment. You'll get an increased visibility on Google and I'll share all the results with you in exchange for helping me out. If you're interested, let me know. So that's kind of the gist. Something, something like that. You put that out there and then you tell every business owner the next time you talk to them, you know, if you've got a neighbor that has local business, you go knock on the door and you're going to tell them you're going to do this. And then you can say when they respond to the Facebook ad or when you go talk to them, you say it's $500. You know, the first time I did it, I sold it for $1,300. Had never sold it before, sold it for 1300. Okay, if you're as arrogant as I am, you can do that. But if you're a little more like, I don't know, that makes me nervous. Start lower. That's okay.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

But there is a guy, Sam Sarsten, and he has a, a coaching program. It's $49 without the community aspect. 99 if you want into the community. That's monthly. And he teaches exactly how to do all this. I don't have a course, but I know Sam, Sam's course is great. Okay, you can go sell this and then go sign up for Sam's course and he'll show you exactly how to do this. And what you're selling specifically is a one time SEO boost. So that's what you're going to sell. It's your foot in the door offer. That's why I sell it for 500. One time SEO boost. And you tell them I'm going to improve your position in Google Maps and Apple Maps within three months. Okay, within three months you're going to be ranking higher, which means, and here's that one of those key phrases, Nick, I was telling you I like to use. Yeah, we're going to increase your Customer activity. I'm not promising more leads because I can't promise, I can't deliver on that. I'm not promising specifically more website visitors or more phone calls. I'm just promising more customer activity. And every local business owner understands that. And a restaurant is never going to use the term leads. Restaurants aren't looking for leads. A barbershop's not looking for leads. They're looking for appointments or walk ins. A roofer is looking for leads. And so to me, the most universal phrase that I have found is customer activity.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. And this allows you to not worry because that was kind of the next thing I was going to ask about. Do you worry about Niche Select? Well, I'm only going to target roofers, but then it becomes maybe a potential conflict of interest if I sign up five roofers in the same town. And now I'm like competing, well, who do I, who, who's my favorite? Like, how do I figure out who I want to rank the highest? Yeah, so you're going to go, you go, you're going kind of broad, it sounds like, because this is the same skill set or the same toolbox can apply across any number of different businesses.

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah, absolutely. And the fastest way to a sale is the face to face conversation. For a side hustle, especially to just get started, you're just talking about finding three or four local businesses that are going to do this SEO boost. $500. Because here's what happens. You're going to do the local SEO boost and then within that three months, you're going to get results. And here's what you're going to do. Okay, when they say, yeah, I'll do this, this sounds great, I'd love to do it. Okay, it's $500. So you know, here's, you know, set up a stripe account, take PayPal, take check. Starting out as a side hustle, like cash is fine. Like however you can get them to pay you.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah, somebody can. Venmo, you sure? Don't, don't, don't let that be the bottleneck.

[Eric Dingler]

Exactly, exactly. Like there, there's lots of ways to get people's money from them. So receive the money and then say, hey, Listen, I need 24 pictures of your business, people in your business, behind the scenes, the front of the place. I, I need 24 pictures and that's what you need to send to me. And if they're like, oh, I don't have them. Do you have a 17 year old, an 18 year old, a 25 year old on your team, like everybody on your team's got an iPhone. That's all I need. I need somebody take out their phone to get 24 pictures. Then they're going to send you those pictures. You're going to take those pictures. You're going to create 12 posts with those pictures about their business. This is a great place to leverage AI. AI is really, really fast, fantastic at this. And then every week you're going to go in and you're just going to post to their Google business profile this. So they're going to, they're going to give you access. It's, it's super easy to get access to their Google business profile. You're going to get access to their Google business profile. You're going to go in once a week, you're going to post a picture for 12 weeks.

[Nick Loper]

And maybe this is for these 75% of businesses that haven't even claimed theirs. Maybe that's step one. Like hey, here, here's an easy quick win for you Mr. Mrs. Business owner. Let's, let's do that first and then we'll go do this one time boost, right?

[Eric Dingler]

Well this is part of the one time boost. Yeah, this is, this is it. This is part of the one time boost. So for the one time boost you're going to use AI to rewrite their description. You're going to use AI to help you create those 12 posts and then you're going to go in and you're going to schedule those. Now down the road there are tools you can get to automate this. We now when we do an SEO boost, we, we create all the content, takes us about two hours. We pre schedule it for three months and we're done. We move on to the next one. But you're going to grow into this as a side hustle. I didn't start there. And so to keep it simple, you don't need a fancy automation tool.

[Nick Loper]

Why does the description need to be rewritten? Or what are some of like the checkboxes you want to see in that rewritten description?

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah, well they probably haven't done it, especially if they've never claimed their Google business profile or if the business owner wrote it. The business owner talks about how they've been in business since 1985 and Grandpa gave it to dad and dad gave it to me and we've got six employees and we're so proud of our community and we love serving da da da. And nobody cares. They want to know are you the place for them? You know, if you're A barber shop. You want to, you want to answer what we call their pre qualifying questions. You can walk in, you can pay with cash, credit card, you can book an appointment. We do kids, we do fade ins, we do beards. Like what are the common questions people ask you about your business? And that's what has to go in the description. And so most business owners talk about themselves and not their customer and their customer's needs. So real easy fix. Plus you want to make sure that you mention, you know, the business type you are, you know, AJ's barber, proudly serving Columbus, Ohio. Men, kids, short hair, you know, then, then you list the things, walk ins, welcome, all that kind of stuff. So that's in the description.

[Nick Loper]

Got it.

[Eric Dingler]

Okay then. And this is in that, the checklist. I have a lot of businesses, local businesses, they go to set up their Google business profile, Nick and they're like I want to serve everybody. So they put their service areas the United States of America. Okay, huge mistake, huge mistake. Because when Google decides who to show to somebody in Google Maps and when Apple decides in Apple Maps, the first thing they look at is the geographic location of that phone. So I'm in Budapest, Hungary right now. If I get my phone and I search barber near me, it's going to show me a couple the closest barbers right here to me in Budapest. But if I turn my VPN on and I say I'm in Miami and then I open Google Maps and I ask for a barber, it's going to start showing me barbers in Miami. If you say you're in the United States, that puts your business geographic location out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean because it goes clear up past Alaska, down around Hawaii. And the only people that's going to see your pizza shop barbershop mechanic is somebody trolling from for fish out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Not what you're going for.

[Nick Loper]

More with Eric in just a moment. Including the exact type of posts you should be creating for local businesses. Plus how to scale this thing into a six figure recurring revenue business with a remote team. Right after this it's summertime and the living zz. That is unless you're a business owner with too much on your plate. If that's you, it's time to start buying back your time. And the number one place to do that is our partner. Indeed, by the time this ad is over, 23 businesses will have found their next team member. I'd love for you to be next to find that amazing candidate. Find them fast and free. Up some of your hours. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. Plus, with Indeed Sponsored jobs, there's no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. It's no wonder why three and a half million employers worldwide are already using Indeed to hire great talent fast and why it'll be my first stop when I need to make my next hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to indeed.com Sidehustleshow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need for.

[Darina Kulia]

Such an important channel like phone. The software powering this important channel was super outdated and clunky. We wanted to make it delightful and make it very easy for businesses to connect with their customers through voice and text.

[Nick Loper]

That's Darina Kulia, co founder of our sponsor OpenPhone. Trusted by more than 60,000 customers, this is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications. I like to think of it like a centralized hub to receive and respond to calls and texts in your business. And I asked Darina about who's typically signing up for this kind of service.

[Darina Kulia]

We definitely have a lot of folks who come to us and their personal cell phone has become their company phone number and they've hired a team or they're starting to scale their business and they just find themselves as a business owner as being the bottleneck. So we see that all the time. And then we also see folks much further along where they're using some legacy complicated tools that are just not really made for how communication happens these days. We also just recently launched Sona, which is our voice AI agent that can handle any missed calls. If you have clients calling outside of business hours, instead of them going to voicemail, it can go into Sona, which is capable to handle any replies and can also take a message. So you are capturing that lead information.

[Nick Loper]

And it's a robot. It responds on the fly with some pre programmed responses.

[Darina Kulia]

It does such a great job. This way they can handle questions 24 7.

[Nick Loper]

Now here's a scenario for you. So let's say I've committed to a certain business phone number and I've distributed flyers. It's Printed on my business cards. It is on my local business listings, on directories throughout the Internet. Like, what's the process to now have that ring Open phone system versus the current system?

[Darina Kulia]

Totally. So we see this all the time. This process called phone number porting. We port numbers from all kinds of carriers. So basically, no matter what provider you're using, we can take that number and move it over to openphone. It is free. We handle the whole thing. And if you want to try out OpenPhone, we have a free trial. You can try it out, see how you like it. And if you like it, you can then decide to port your existing number over. And we handle the whole process.

[Nick Loper]

Now openphone has automatic AI call summaries so you don't have to worry about taking notes while you're on the call. But another cool feature is what Darina called AI call tagging. Basically allowing you to quickly filter for the calls that were sales objections or customer complaints or requests for a discount so you can review those and see what worked, what didn't and train team members on the most effective tactics and language in those cases. And it's all in the name of building a better, faster and friendlier customer experience.

[Darina Kulia]

I want all OpenPhone customers to have five stars only.

[Nick Loper]

Right now, OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com SideHustle that's O P E N P H O N E dot com SideHustle and like we talked about, if you've got an existing phone number with another service, OpenPhone will port it over at no extra charge. Open Phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. All right, so another, another quick win. Sounds like, okay, narrow down that service area location and you kind of draw.

[Eric Dingler]

A perimeter and okay, the service area. Yeah, all kinds of ways to do that. You know, just the city or a couple towns. But I just start with that, that one central space. And so you do that. That's optimizing, optimizing the description, optimizing the service location. You get those things optimized. And a lot of people, they haven't, they business owners, they haven't bothered filling in all the little boxes about parking accessibility. Is it, you know, veteran owned, woman owned, you know, something like there's all these things and it's because Google keeps adding these questions and information. Every few months they add a new one. And most businesses aren't updating that. So you're just going to go through the Google business profile. And here's the thing. If you're like, oh, I don't know the answer. Make a list and send an email to the say, hey, just wanted to follow up with a couple more questions. Do you do this, this and this and this? They're going to answer it. You're going to put it on their Google business profile. Super simple.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

So that's optimizing. You're going to do it one time. Then you're going to create the 12 pieces of content and you're going to go in once a week and add those. So one day added on Monday, one day added on Tuesday. You want it to seem kind of natural. And then once a once a week you're going to add a picture. Those things right there, you're going to start to see their rankings improve. You're going to see increased customer activity. We like to use a tool called Local Falcon. I think I pay around $29 a month for Local Falcon. It's a super inexpensive tool. You go into Local Falcon, you go to reports and you find the business. If they've got a Google business profile, Local Falcon is going to find them. And then you set a geographic region. We normally start with like two miles and then you put in a search term or a couple search terms. Barber, men's haircut, pizza, pizza delivery, pizza pickup, depending on the business.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Eric Dingler]

And what Local Falcon does is it goes and it scans the entire area. Because I can be a quarter mile to the east of a business and it's in 20th place on Google. I can go a quarter mile to the right or to, to the west and it's going to be in first place. Your position on Google changes street by street.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

What this does is it creates a heat map and it shows you all of these dots and it puts the rank position of where you are. So you're going to have some areas that are green, some areas that are red, some that are in between in the yellow and orange. Now some businesses may be all green. This whole expand out, look for a different search term, expand the radius.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Eric Dingler]

Some businesses, it's all red except for right where their business is, it's green. And those are the business owners that go, well, we thought we were in first place on Google.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, you are. If you're searching from your front door.

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah, yeah, indoor business. But you can either get in a car and drive around town and refresh your search every street, or we just create this geo grid for you. Now down the road you can offer this geo grid as a freebie. This is a good way. Once you start getting Some clients, as you're getting established and you start to promote some things. This is a great lead magnet because a lot of business owners see this map and they're like, oh, I want, I want to see that for my business. You don't need to do that starting out. That's kind of a 2.0 kind of strategy.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Eric Dingler]

Right now you're going to just talk to a couple businesses, get a couple people to hire you. You're going to go in and do these things. You're going to create one of those heat maps. Every month, you're going to run the scan again. Local Falcon has this whole list of suggestions after it runs the report. AI generated suggestions that'll tell you a wealth of information of things to do to improve your ranking.

[Nick Loper]

Give an example or two of like, the type of post that you're posting on behalf of these different businesses to their Google profile.

[Eric Dingler]

Sure. Give me an industry, just any industry you want.

[Nick Loper]

We can go with the barbershop example again.

[Eric Dingler]

Barbershop, great. So they give you a picture of a kid getting a haircut. You're just going to, you know, take that and you're going to say, depending on the type of year, maybe it's another one of our, you know, customers in. Getting ready for the summer, getting a haircut before vacation, back to school seasons coming up, getting ready to head back to school here in Pittsburgh. Talk about, you know, vacation coming up, just whatever you can. Or maybe it's the barber that's cutting their hair. Maybe in there. Five years, you know, hey, here's Tony, been with us for five years, cutting one of our favorite little customers hair again, helping them get ready for vacation.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. But you don't know. You don't always have that insight. So you got to like, kind of probe the business owner for what's. What's the occasion. You don't want to just make stuff up. Oh, Tony's. Tony's Tony really just started last month. It's always be a little weird.

[Eric Dingler]

I wouldn't make up anything like that. I wouldn't make anything like that. But. But here's the thing that can be a little annoying with this. Very few people read these. That's what's annoying.

[Nick Loper]

Sure. No, I get it. It's like you need to feed the machine. Even though nobody's realistically reading. It's like. But you got to give it some data. You got to give it some stuff to chew on.

[Eric Dingler]

Yes, people read reviews and people look at the pictures, but very few people read the Post. But Google does. And Google wants to make sure that if it's going to recommend you, somebody's there turning the lights on.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

Because if Google sends somebody to a closed business, they're going to lose their trust in Google. They may start, they may switch to another tool. If Google starts losing eyeballs, Google starts losing advertising. Google will not lose advertising. I mean that's, that's how they make their money, is advertising.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

So they want to keep the eyeballs. They want to make sure that they're giving you and me, when we look for a business, a business that's open, a business that other people use, a business that keeps their hours up to date, Google will reward you by what these, these are called signals.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah. Giving positive signal. They look active, right? It's active and engaged. They're, they're using our tools and helping people in that way.

[Eric Dingler]

Yes. And right now, again, for those that are listening, they're just trying to get started. You're just doing a one time local SEO boost. So you're doing a minimal viable product here to get results. When you run that first local Falcon scan, you're going to take a screenshot. Each time you run it, you're going to take another screenshot and suddenly you're going to get before and afters, you know, had very little green. Two months later, all of this green, they're showing up all over the top of Google. Okay. Because then what you can do, you've got these first few seed clients, they've given you the money that's given you the money to invest and hire, you know, into a training, into getting some tools. But now you can go back to them and you say here's the results we got. This is great. Here's what it's going to take to keep you at the top of this. You're going to need to keep posting once a week and you can do this. And we got to get into eventually what there's these things called directories. There's some great tools that help with this mods. Local is one, yext is another. These are tools a business owner can go and pay themselves for themselves to, to do it. And the business starts getting added to the directories. Directories are websites that link to businesses. So this is how you get those backlinks. There's still gold even in local SEO.

[Nick Loper]

This is still a big thing. This was nap listings, name, address, phone number listings like all across the Internet, all pointing back to your home base, your website.

[Eric Dingler]

Exactly. And some of these directories now power voice Search. So it's important to have these, these directories up to date because Google looks for consistency of nap. Name, address, phone number. If you're listed on 20 websites. But sometimes the name is spelled out one thing, sometimes it's this, sometimes that the address is a little bit. Sometimes the phone number is different because you had, you got a new phone number, something like that. That's a signal to Google. Like do they have their act together, they really be trusted. But this is an advanced. And this is. We don't, we don't touch directories. For a local SEO boost, I don't have to.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Eric Dingler]

But for our monthly recurring where we go and we say, hey listen, we can manage this for you and we can write content. We need to have a strategy session once a quarter where I come in and I interview you about your bar. How long have they been here? How long have they been like. This is where you get into the nitty gritty. And we do a quarterly strategy session and we. You got any specials coming up next? Three months. Anything you want to put like you have a seasonality to your business in the next three months. Is it where somebody like, oh, back to school is big for us. Valentine's Day is big. Okay, great. So then you create that content calendar and at this point you'll get a tool where like now you're going to create the content and post it so it's automated and done for three months, Things like that. Or better yet, how I do it is I now have a team that does this. I've got an amazing person on my team from El Salvador. She's a rock star. And this is all she does for us. She only does local SEO content. She creates. She meets with the clients once a quarter, does a strategy session, maps out their content. She can do two of these a day. And we typically charge around $750 a month for the ongoing monthly recurring revenue.

[Nick Loper]

Wow.

[Eric Dingler]

But again, I grew into that. So this is local SEO. It's not going away.

[Nick Loper]

But that's. No, that's like really, really cool. To see what is potentially possible down the road with a trained up team member who is taking half a day to service this customer that you're charging $750 a month for. You imagine the margins on that are quite healthy.

[Eric Dingler]

Yes. Even if you hired somebody in the States. I have one person on my team in the States, but the rest of my team are remote. We're an entire remote. I'm remote.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

You know, so my team is remote. Yeah. And. And we just. That's how we. We operate because we are able to keep in very high margins. We're able to keep our costs very competitive that way. And it's fun to be able to travel around the world and meet your staff.

[Nick Loper]

Do you worry? You know, this is the Bezos line of, you know, your margin is my opportunity. Do you see clients getting poached from under you from other competing services? It was just like, the number of small businesses is so vast, so massive that it's like, well, even if we lose a client, that's fine. We'll go find somebody else. Like, it's. We. You try to play this game of churn versus retention and margins versus, like, well, wait a minute. How much does this really cost to fulfill?

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah. If you show up every month with a report that's showing results, hey, we got you these results. That's you. Most business owners, that's the number one complaint I get when we get a new customer. We were spending all this money. I never knew if it was working.

[Nick Loper]

Got it.

[Eric Dingler]

You know, I didn't know where the results were because in the agency world, we're known for just sending a report, expecting our clients to read it. They don't have time for that. We show up proactively. Hey, we just looked. You're at this, and we just tell people. We might call a client and say, hey, we just ran your report. And, you know, on average, we've dropped three positions. And we use that. We use we, not you, not. You know, it's. It's. We're in this together. Hey, we dropped three points. And so we looked, and here's what we'd like to do. We'd like to do this and this and this over the next six weeks. And they're just like, hey, man, thank you've. Got our back. Whatever you need to do, like, because it just. You build trust. You build trust. And for us, then, Nick, how this led to. Then the. I had no intentions to own an agency. I was pastoring a church, and my wife and I decided to adopt a sibling group from Bulgaria. We had two biological children, and we just felt like the next thing we were being called to do was adopt. And I had to come up with an extra $50,000 because we wanted to adopt debt free.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Eric Dingler]

I didn't know how I was going to come up with $50,000, so I had to come up with a side hustle. And I knew how to build websites, and so I started building websites, and that kind of got a Little bit of traction and I got a couple dozen clients and then I learned about this local SEO and I just went back and I upsold my very first client to do it. I was like, hey, I'm testing this thing and you know, da, da, da. And they're like, yeah, okay, sure. And I was like, $1,300. And they're like, yeah, sure, let's do it. I'm like, great. And then I went to some businesses I didn't even know. I did the same thing. And I did that. And then I start. And then I worked through my network, my local business network, onboarded all the low hanging fruit and then we started to learn how to do another service. And so I just went back through and I said, hey, we're now doing reviews as a service. We can help you get more 5 star reviews from your satisfied customers. Oh yeah, Eric, let's do that.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I was going to, I was going to ask if the reviews were a part of this like ongoing monthly package review. Reputation management, collecting reviews.

[Eric Dingler]

Reputation management. Yes, it is now. It is now, absolutely. But it is really its own separate kind of monster, if you will. And that's okay. So we packages it as a separate service.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

Because I can either sell somebody reputation management or I can sell them local SEO boost. We always start with the boost and then I can come back and say, hey, we can add this. We're constantly trying to figure out how can we increase wallet share. You know, how do I increase that monthly recurring revenue per customer. When I first started out, my average monthly recurring revenue per customer was $49 a month.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. Come a long ways.

[Eric Dingler]

Yes. We're now more like $490 average per customer per month with a whole lot more customers. Now. Some of our customers are $2,000 a month. Some of our customers are still $99 a month. But you know, it averages out across the board about $495 a month.

[Nick Loper]

More with Eric in just a moment. Including why accessibility compliance could be the next big service opportunity. Plus his fastest path to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue coming up right after this. With our partner, Mint Mobile, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to just for way less money. And for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering side hustle show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless for just 15 bucks a month. So while your friends are sweating over data overages and surprise charges, you'll be chilling, literally. And financially. I've been a Mint customer myself since 2019. All Mint plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can bring your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and your existing phone number and your contacts. So join me in ditching overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint mobile for just 15 bucks a month this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsidehustle that's mintmobile.comsidehustleen upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 per month limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Let me know if this sounds familiar. You've got more ideas than you've got hours in the day and that to do list is never quite done. That's why finding the right tool to stay on top of everything and simplify things is is such a game changer for millions of businesses including dozens of side hustle show guests that tool is Shopify. One thing I love about our partner Shopify is you don't have to start from scratch. They've got hundreds of ready to use templates that help you build a beautiful online store to match your brand's style. Plus, Shopify makes it easy to create email and social media campaigns to capture customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling. And they're not sleeping on AI either. I'm talking tools to write product descriptions, page headlines and even enhance your product photography. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com sidehustle go to shopify.com sidehustlez shopify.com sidehustole what's your take on this? Because I've seen some people advocating this as a potential foot in the door strategy and it's to say thanks to these AI website building tools. You know type in a quick little prompt, you know spins up this really nice looking website for local business xyz you could send that straight to the hey look, I noticed your website was maybe looking a little dusty, a little outdated. I made you this new one. You could have it for 200 bucks. It took you all of three minutes to create with AI like and people using that as a potential foot in the door one for, okay, I could sell that website as a quick little revenue hit, but maybe this guy clearly knows what he's doing on the tech side. Maybe I can hire him for this local SEO and potentially this recurring revenue holy grail down the road.

[Eric Dingler]

I think that's totally doable. You can do that first. There's a whole lot more people doing that and you're running up against ads for WIX and Squarespace that run during the Super Bowl. That's what you're competing against. And so I have found it's become a little bit harder to sell websites because there's a lot more. Well, I think I can just do this tomorrow. You know, business owners move towards the squeaky wheel. They're always going to want more customers and they all use Google. A lot of times I've even had some clients start to tell me like, I can't, Eric, I can't remember the last time I looked at a website website if I'm not doing research. And so I'm not saying websites aren't going to always be important, but for a local bit like, when's the last time you went and looked at the barber shop? I'm kind of bald. I don't look at a lot of barber shops.

[Nick Loper]

That's a funny example for two bald guys to be using here.

[Eric Dingler]

Maybe barber shop's not the right one, but, you know, for a barber shop, even a landscape or something like that, like, I'm not going to go look. I might go look at a dentist website site, but I don't know. Sure, absolutely. I, I would rather help somebody because it's hard to qualify the win of a website. Like, hey, I got your new website up. Like now if they're vain, they're going, oh, look at me, I got my nice new website. They're going to like that. But if you can show up and say, this is why I like reputation management is actually another foot in the door offer. Because I can show up four weeks after we launch and I can read you three, five star review. Hey, Nick, let me, let me show you what this customer said about you. They said you're the best and you're great. You know, and then this customer said this and, and, and you're able to give them that feedback, then you can say, now I was looking at your website. Now that we're getting more reviews, your website needs a little bit of work. They're going to trust you and say, oh yeah, that, let's, let's redo it. Yeah, it's easier in my opinion to go that way than to start with the website. That's been my experience.

[Nick Loper]

All right, that's fair. No, I was just curious to get your take on that as somebody who's in the space. All right, what else do we need to know? So we've kind of covered. We're going to start with this local SEO boost. We can hopefully transition into an ongoing monthly maintenance package. We could layer on reputation management, collecting reviews and there's software tools to help you do really all of this stuff and hopefully make it a little more automated and potentially sell websites down the road like, you know, getting your foot in the door and hopefully, you know, business owners know other business owners. Right. So the word of mouth starts to spread. Do anything else proactive on the marketing side to try and build up that client base.

[Eric Dingler]

Yes, accessibility. Accessibility is both a social justice issue as well as a good for business. And every business, unless it is a religious organization or private club, every business has to legally meet the standards and requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And just this last week the European Union's new accessibility laws rolled out. So this is becoming very, very universal. 20 to 25% of people that use the Internet have some type of barrier. Could be a disability, could be slow Internet. It could be they use a SIM card with limited data so they have images turned off. If you can design a website or social media content that is super easy to read or you make sure you use what's called the alt text, you're opening up a business to about 20 to 25% more customers. So accessibility is huge. It's never going to go away. And that's the other problem with all these places that are spinning up webs. None of them yet are spinning up websites that meet accessibility. So you can spin up a website for a foot in the door offer, but you've just put a legal target on them. And not only that, you're not being a good neighbor to people with disabilities. So that's how we talk about it with our agency. Like we want to help you be a good neighbor. Accessibility is a whole nother new fascinating world, but I don't think I would try to get into it as a side hustle.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, so this is another add on service. Like hey, by the way, did you know all websites, you know, I think it's all businesses over a certain size. Something like their website has to be ADA compliant according to the like, yours is not, but we can help get it there. And here's what it's Going to take.

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah. So the confusion that comes in on the size of business is there are a couple different articles of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The part of the article that deals with the physical and employment accessibility, making accommodations for that, but specifically to the physical property, depends upon the size of your business. There are zero exceptions for your web content. Your. It does not matter how many employees, it doesn't matter your revenue. If you're selling $3,000 a month and you're a business, your web content technically has to be accessible. Now there's no enforcement unless somebody chooses to bring a lawsuit. But last year this changed. The Department of Justice came out with some new regulations last April that said if you receive any money from the government through a grant, maybe you're a doctor's office and you, you accept Medicaid or Medicare, maybe you're the local garbage company and you have a contract with the state to, or I'm sorry, the city to provide garbage pickup within the city. If you get any federal or state money or local money, and in exchange you're providing a service. To continue to be eligible after April next year, you must have your website compliance. And we're starting to get clients that are coming to us saying, eric, we're filling out our application for our state funding for next year and they're asking for a website compliance certificate. So that is happening in a very specific industry. So that's. There's a little bit difference. But here, here's the beautiful thing about it. I tell people this all the time. Real estate agents don't build the houses they sell. Nick. I have no clue how to go in and set up what's called ARIA tags on a website. I don't know how to do it.

[Nick Loper]

I don't even know what that is.

[Eric Dingler]

Yeah, but my developers do and they do it every day, you know, and so I've never ran a Google Ad. I've never logged into the Google business platform area. What I forget, I mean it's struggling, but you can't think of what it's called right now. But the Google Ads platform, I've never, I've never done it. I don't have no idea. But we run Google Ads every day for, for customer. Eventually from a side hustle, team building becomes key to it. And again, if my son was wanting to start a business, this would be something I would try to get him to do. From the, from the very beginning is to find somebody that can do fulfillment and then go out and sell it and then pay that person to do the fulfillment.

[Nick Loper]

Got it. Is there a sweet spot in terms of metro area size or is there markets that are just like this is too competitive. I wouldn't trust myself to sell a one time SEO boost because I don't think we can move the needle here.

[Eric Dingler]

No, because even in a very competitive market, there are plenty of businesses that those other brands are not even going to give the time of day to. They're going to judge them based upon their location or the condition of the business or something like that. And they're looking for mass. They're marketing broad strokes, running ads, you know, cold calling, cold. I can't stand cold calling, cold emailing. So they're getting bombarded with cold emails, cold calls. In my experience, Nick, and I don't know what your thoughts are on this or what you've seen. In my experience, the fastest way to $25,000 a month and recurring revenue is local networking. And sometimes we go into new markets and by geographic markets. I just recently hired somebody in Kent, Ohio and we're following our process in Kent. It's our, it's a US based employee. We needed a new person. The last person was leaving. I found somebody in Kent. It's always good for me to have somebody in the US and we just started the same thing, signed up. This person started going to all the local networking events. We found a local business association and went to them and said, hey, we'd like to host a podcast for you. You're the producer of it. It's under your branding. We'll interview your members and it becomes a member benefit for you to give to your members for free and would help you recruit more members. This is the fourth or fifth local area business podcast we've done. And they're like, they love it. And so we just. Katie started going around and interviewing all of Main Street Kent. That's the business, that's the business association. She just started interviewing all of their businesses and at the end of it she's just like, she's built a relationship and she says, hey, can I add you? I actually am with Intransit Studios. Can I add you to our weekly email newsletter? And they're always like, oh yeah, that would be great. We'd love to get that. And we've signed on all kinds of clients that way. So over and over and over again, it's hard to beat. I'm not saying the Chamber of commerce or bni. Those are great. And they have their places.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah.

[Eric Dingler]

But I'm talking about going to the local community business Association. And getting in there and then finding some of the strategic partnerships. When I was in Ocean View, Virginia, one of my best strategic partnerships was a commercial real estate agent. Because Duncan knew every single time a new business was coming in to town and, and he was able to make referrals for me over and over and over again. First, you know, hey, so and so starting this business. Hey, did you hear so and so is going to try to open up ice cream shop? Oh, no, I hadn't heard that. You know, I'd reach out, hey, I heard you're going to start an ice cream shop. You know, how can I help and stuff like that. So it's hard to beat that. There's no money hiding behind your computer, especially starting out in the side hustle with the, with a local business. Yeah, it's just hard to beat getting out there, hitting the pavement and meeting people, having a face to face conversation and getting those first few clients in. Like you said, they start talking to others. You get a couple case studies, now you can start to branch out, now you can start to grow. And it's just to me, the fastest way to $25,000 a month in recurring revenue is local networking.

[Nick Loper]

All right, that's fantastic. You heard it here first. The digital nomad life comes second. What comes first is this boots on the ground, local effort. There's no money hiding behind your computer. I love that line. Eric, you've got the agency, what's next for you? You got the family, you got the travels. What's got you excited these days?

[Eric Dingler]

We are trying to figure out where in the world we're going to live. We need to settle down. As our children are turning 18. We have another one that will be 18 next year. It's time for them to start transitioning to young adult life. And literally the world is open. Like in three and a half years. We've lived in over 20 countries and we've just learned that we, we love all the places. And so what's exciting for us is trying to figure out that.

[Nick Loper]

Give me like your top three, like where are your favorite spots?

[Eric Dingler]

Oh my goodness, our favorite spot. So London would be a great to live in. We really love Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentina's fan. Fantastic. We really like that. And let's see a third one. Istanbul, Turkey. We wouldn't settle there, but if you're looking for some place to visit, check out Istanbul, Turkey. It's a great city.

[Nick Loper]

Very good. I've been fortunate enough to have visited all three of those, so I will all vouch for Those all very cool places. So.

[Eric Dingler]

Okay, there you go.

[Nick Loper]

This has been awesome. I've got a ton of notes. I know people will hopefully take a lot of action based on this episode and go sell some of this service on their own. If you would like to grab Eric's local SEO side hustle checklist, I would encourage you to do that. It'[e-mail] Sidehustle with all the details that we talked about in this episode. That's Eric with a C. EricDingler.com sidehustle for that local SEO side hustle checklist. Let's wrap this up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.

[Eric Dingler]

Real estate agents don't build the houses they sell. So don't fall into the trap that you have to be the one doing it. There are some side hustles where it makes sense and things like that. But if your long term kind of desire is to to start a side hustle, to escape the 9 to 5 with it, then figure out how to be a leader. If I was starting over, the two things I would study starting over and I'm talking like I'm 50. If I was going back to my 20s, the two things I would study to start over is leadership and list building.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, well, you heard it here first. Leadership and list building. Real estate agents don't build the houses they sell. This is my interpretation is like don't find yourself getting stuck in fulfillment, right? You don't want to be the technician doing the work all day every day. You want to be building client relationships. You want to be leading the team rather than kind of getting stuck in the freelancer's trap of selling your skills. Right? You don't even need to know necessarily how to do this. You just need to be able to play matchmaker with the people who need the service and the people who know how to get it done.

[Eric Dingler]

That's absolutely right. And I do. I have a 90 day accelerator. I do. Every quarter I take a group of people through the process of gearing up to hire onboard and lead a remote team. And so if that's something somebody be interested in, you know, go. Eric dingler.com side hustle they'll download that. They'll be able to reach me from there and be more than happy to help somebody navigate hiring a remote team.

[Nick Loper]

Very cool. Go check it out. Ericdingler.com side hustle My other note that I have here is, you know, you want recurring revenue, you got to solve a recurring problem. Businesses needing to increase their customer activity like Eric said, hey, that's a recurring problem. It's never going to go away, right? So sell that result. And if you want recurring revenue, you got to keep selling it. Give those follow up reports. Hey, before and after. Here's what we did, here's what we're able to get done. Here's where we want to go next. So really cool stuff again. Ericdingler.com the side hustle show as you may or may not know, just had his 12th birthday and whether it's your first time listening or you've been here since the beginning, I appreciate you spending some time with us in your earbuds today. If you're newer to the show and you know want to go a little bit deeper, hey, what else you got here? It's been around for this long. You can actually get a personalized playlist at Hustle Show. All you have to do is answer a few short multiple choice questions and it's going to recommend eight to ten of our greatest hits to start with based on your answers. Totally free Hustle show for that personalized playlist. Big thanks to Eric for sharing his insight. And can I shout out our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone? Side hustlenation.com deals is where to go for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Fire off that text message. I know you got at least one friend who can take Eric's model and run with it. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.