I'm thrilled to see that the economy is starting to open up throughout the country and as this continues your customers and potential customers are going to Google you more than ever to see even basic information like are you open? If you do retail, are you doing curbside pickup or how are you doing social distancing or physical distancing in your business and how are you ultimately keeping your employees and people safe in this COVID-19 era and Google is rolling out changes on a nearly daily basis with opportunities that you can customize to help you show up with this information in the right place. Check out today's episode where I share a clip from my presentation with the Boulder chamber this week where I gave the Corona comeback with three local SEO tactics to help you get found. Now I share two case studies of clients and things that are actually working like right now and a watch or listen to the end to see how you can win an emergency roll of toilet paper and a free copy of my book.
I'll send it to you in the mail. Now. Normally, if you guys are listening to this as a podcast, I'd encourage you to watch this one. It's going to be short, um, on YouTube or on my website, landscapersguide.com/podcast because I'm going to share an actual screencast of the behind the scenes of Google my business. I'm going to show you how to log in and make some of these changes now, so check it out and enjoy today's episode. And for those of you who are new here, my name's Jack Justice, and this is the landscapers guide to modern sales and marketing. This show is all about helping lawn and landscape contractors and small business owners get found online by more of the right customers so you can enjoy a more profitable lifestyle. Let's dig into today's episode.
We weren't getting the leads that I knew we could. We weren't getting the right leads. What started happening is that our leads are more qualified. Our sales have probably gone up by about 10 to 15% a year. We're gonna increase our sales volume by a million dollars a year.
Hey, thanks so much for having me here today. I'm going to share with you Corona comeback, three local SEO tactics that you can go and do today to start getting found online now. And a real quick, my name's Jack Jostes and I'm the CEO at Ramblin Jackson and the author of get found online. I've been a Boulder chamber member since 2009 and I have to say this is the weirdest time, at least certainly in my business history and I'm so excited to be here speaking about sales and marketing during this time when we're seeing around the country, economy is opening up and it's, it's absolutely critical that small, um, execute quickly on what's changing so they can open their businesses and have a strong comeback. And today I've got three tips. One of them is on your website, what you should be doing on there, how to use video, what to use on your Google my business listing.
I'm going to share two case studies from like this week of what's working. And if you, if you stay to the end of my talk, I, I, I'm going to give you an offer to get, um, a free roll of toilet paper. It's an emergency reserve and a copy of my book. Uh, so a state of the end to see how to win that. So, um, because of this stuff is changing so quickly, like as of today, I'm just going to do a screen share of what's changing on Google right now because man, the last several months have just been crazy. We have, um, several clients all throughout the country, over 40 clients and I've been, I feel really grateful that we've been able to retain 97% of them because we've been doing a lot of these urgent quick changes. I think the Marilyn and Michelle, you guys touched on some really great strategic, um, questions that we need to be asking and one of them around Maryland asking of who is my ideal customer and what will they buy from me now is really a great one.
The first thing that we've been doing primarily working with contractors, I work with landscapers, home repair companies, flood restoration companies. I also work with a handful of other local businesses is communicating how they're handling COVID-19. The first thing that I would recommend that you guys do is add a pop up on your website. So here's a popup from a Boulder chamber member, 24, seven restoration and people have a couple questions right now is one, are you open? And two, how are you going to keep me safe if I do end up buying something from you? So this, this headline here answers very clearly. Yes, we're open. And we also put an eyebrow in their website that says yes, we're open. See our update to the Corona virus. And uh, we built this page to have a really easy to remember URL.
It's, it's their domain slash Corona virus this way on the phone. If they're talking with potential clients, they can direct them to this page. And it answers a few key questions of, are you open? What are your hours? Can I pay over the phone? Do you do online payments? What are you doing to keep me in my family safe? And this is where we're going to talk about whatever, uh, physical distancing, social distancing, uh, whatever guidelines we're going to be following. And also instructions on how to contact them during this time. Um, so that would be one of my top tips for you guys is again, is to create a page on your website specific to the Corona. And this is especially important if you have a retail or a brick and mortar location where these things are changing. I'm seeing like over the weekend I had over five clients email me with the things that had changed in their state, city or County that needed to be updated now.
And luckily, boom, it's just this one page that we're altering. And then you can share this on your social media. Um, Marilyn was talking about hashtags that you want to be using when you're posting and it helps people just understand if you're open. Now, the next thing I'd recommend, and this is something that I have a client who's actually thriving right now because there's an increase in, in demand for gardening. People are stuck at home. They want to buy plants, they want to revamp their yard. And uh, this, this client is using video. And right now I'm actually recording some other footage right now on my iPhone, on a tripod. And he's using the same setup here. Simply putting your phone on a tripod. He does have a basic microphone that I sent him. It's a road, a lavalier mic. They're like 80 bucks. But he was able to create a video at the start of this to let people know, Hey, we're open, we're doing curbside pickup, we're doing social distancing.
We are limiting the number of people in each vehicle. We're doing hand sanitation and we are able to keep you safe while, um, while this is all happening. So video would be my number two tips. So the first one would be create a page on your site. And uh, you know, uh, we call this an eyebrow on WordPress. And then adding video to it. Talking about how you're keeping people safe with instructions to buy is really powerful because you can also share this on Facebook and Instagram. LinkedIn, put it on YouTube, email it out. I really believe it's, it's more important than ever that you're communicating more directly with your ideal customers, with your past customers via text message, phone call, email and sending along video adds this human element to it. When people can literally hear your voice talking about how you're handling this. It instills a sense of confidence that you are trustworthy, that you're open and you're worth buying from.
That would be one of the, the tips here. So the next one, the third one that I want to talk about is actually your Google my business listing. So Google my businesses is what shows up in this case. If you Google 24 seven restoration, they have a location in Longmont and Boulder. It's your map listing and you can see that there's something called Google post that shows up in the search results. And Google recently, uh, just made another area on your Google listing that you can share an update specific to COVID-19. So if you Google Ramblin Jackson as an example, you can see that I made this update. This literally came out. I wasn't able to make this update recently, 16 minutes ago. I made an update that we are open during COBIT 19 and working 100% remotely. So you see this as under this section under COVID-19 updates from business.
And if you click learn more, um, you know, it opens up the page that I made with a video. Like I'm saying about how we're handling this, how this is a time to lead your company, how to take care of people. So I want to take you behind the scenes on your Google listing and show you just how easy this is. A lot of business owners haven't done this. And if you log in at google.com/business, um, you'll, you'll need to have your account and you want to make sure that you own this, you, the business owner, not your SEO guy or gal or some agency or somebody else. You want to own this because this is something you should be able to control. So you can see that, um, in my dashboard, I have my latest post here, I made one about this workshop, right?
And now people can learn more there. And if we go over to the posts section, we can, um, we have this COVID-19 area where we can update something. So this is where you're going to want to make whatever updates they are. And I recommend that you, you let people, again, the questions that they want to know or are you open and how are you going to keep me safe if I buy from you, if you've adjusted the way that you're selling. I have a lot of clients who are doing curbside pickup or some of them have already been doing delivery. You'd want to mention those things in there because the searches on Google right now for curbside pickup or delivery are skyrocketing right now. I expect that to shift a bit as things start to open up. But the point is whatever you're doing now can be updated in that Google post.
As a recap here, I recommend having a page on your website where you talk about how you're addressing this externally to your clients internally to your people. Uh, to include a video on there and three, um, make posts, I would recommend weekly from your Google my business listing. People are glued to their smartphones right now. They're glued to social media and the news. And when it comes time that they're ready to buy from you, they're going to Google you. They're going to do more research than ever online and these things can help you. So if you'd like to win the book and the emergencies, toilet paper roll, um, because I want you to get this done now I want you to go ahead and make a Google post, go in, log in at google.com/business, make a post and then take a screenshot of it and email it to me.
My email is jack@landscapersguide.com and whoever does that first, I will, I will mail this to, I will disinfect it and it'll arrive days later in the mail. And, uh, my thanks again for having me here. Let's bring it back to you for whatever's next. All right, thanks so much for checking out that clip from my Boulder chamber presentation. It was a real pleasure. Um, the speaking there have been a chamber member for over 10 years and uh, I'm really grateful that they're producing these types of events and resources to help small businesses. Now, for those of you who are watching or listening to this, after that event, I'm still giving away a free roll of emergency toilet paper and a copy of my book. All you need to do is log into your Google listing.
You can either do it on your, on your phone or on your computer at google.com/business go ahead and make a Google post, update your, your COVID-19 section. Send me a screenshot to jack@landscapersguide.com and the first five people who do that, I'm going to send you a book and send toilet paper. So go get it done. Now, I promise it'll be something you can do fast and you'll get results faster. Stay safe, keep selling, keep serving your customers and your people.