How to Start a Local Lead Generation Business in 6 Steps (Plus 3 Tips to Maximize Your Profits) |IPPEI

How to start a local lead generation business:

Select a niche.
Target a location with low competition.
Create a local lead generation website.
Use local SEO to rank the site on Google.
Find local clients to make money from your leads.
Scale up by creating more lead gen websites.

Starting a local lead generation business can be a good idea. It’s way less saturated than most other online businesses because it’s local. Plus, lead gen services are constantly in high demand among businesses.

There are over 33 million small businesses in the United States, according to the Small Business Administration. Many of these businesses struggle with lead generation. Top reasons include lack of marketing expertise and limited marketing budgets. A study by marketing platform APSIS also indicates that around 68% of businesses struggle to generate leads successfully. As such, there is a major opportunity for those who can help small businesses to find the right customers.

A local lead generation business performs marketing activities to help businesses gain leads. Using local SEO to rank a local lead generation website on Google can take 2 to 6 months. However, it requires a relatively low risk investment. Plus you can achieve profit margins of up to 95% with potential to earn passive income.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of other forms of lead generation business, like email marketing or paid advertisement. Those require a lot of on-going effort and pay a lot less. Your client may not stick with you long-term if you’re relying on those common lead gen tactics.

I’ve been doing the local lead generation business model for 10 years now. It’s very clear to me: doing lead generation by ranking websites, map listings, & local citations are most effective in achieving the best results.

1. Select a niche.

Selecting a niche is the first step to starting your local lead generation business. There are hundreds of service niches to choose from and here are a few of the most popular:

Carpet Cleaning

Event Rentals

Plumbing

Junk Removal

Wedding Videographer

HVAC

Window Cleaning

House Painting

Tree Removal

The niche you choose directly affects your income potential. This is because the value of each lead varies by industry. For example, a niche like plumbing has a lead value between $30 to $150. Plumbers generally charge between $45 to $200 an hour for their services, according to Plumbing Webmasters. Meanwhile, leads for high-ticket services like HVAC installations can be worth $200 to $500 each. On average, HVAC system installation costs range anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000.

Besides profitability, you also want to think about other important factors. For example, you should consider license requirements, seasonality, people you know in an industry, and your own passion. Niches like snow removal and lawn maintenance are susceptible to seasonality.

You also need to consider if the business is phone driven or not. A phone-driven business means that it has no physical walk-in location. This is more ideal if you’re going to own your website and simply sell the leads.

However, it should also be noted that many of our students also found success going after much more obscure niches. Some even targeted niches that are not phone-driven but working out a hybrid deal where they work on their location & website.

2. Target a location with low competition.

Targeting a location with low online competition can help your local lead generation business. Of course, you should perform market research to do this. Start by looking at the population size. The sweet spot is to go into cities with a population size between 75,000 and 250,000. This range is ideal because there are likely a good amount of leads in the city. Plus it’s probably not oversaturated with competitors like larger cities would be. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are over 1,300 cities in the United States that fall within this population range. This can provide your lead gen business with ample opportunities.

When assessing lead gen viability in a specific location, you should first search for the niche’s main keyword and the city you want to rank in.

For example, you may see listings without websites in the Google Map Pack. There’s a good chance you can outrank those businesses with your own site. However, these opportunities are relatively rare these days. Fortunately, there are various other criteria you can look at when assessing the competition level.

Next, look for low Google review counts. According to BrightLocal, businesses with fewer than 10 reviews are perceived as less trustworthy by 54% of consumers. This makes it easier for you to gain a competitive edge. If you see two listings in the top three positions of the Map Pack with 15 reviews or fewer, you can most likely outrank them.

If all top three map listings have many reviews, as shown below, it is wise to find another niche or market.

The number of referring domains (RDs) is another indicator to see how competitive a market is. Referring domains are websites that provide at least one backlink to a website. Backlinks are one of the important signals that Google uses to understand a website’s authority and ranking. Therefore, the more referring domains and backlinks a website has, the more likely it is to rank well on Google.

However, not every backlink is equal in the eyes of Google. Backlinks from high authority websites (government agencies, respected news outlets) carry greater weight than backlinks from less authoritative sites. Some backlinks can even harm your website rating in the eyes of Google. An example of this would be those derived from sketchy sources, such as link farms and private blog networks (PBNs).

That said, you should dig into the source of a website’s backlinks to really understand the difficulty of outranking it. For example, you can outrank a site that has 43 links with just 10 links from highly authoritative domains. According to Ahrefs, websites with backlinks from high-authority domains (DA 70+) are 3.5 times more likely to rank in the top Google positions.

It’s better to find markets with ranking sites that have referring domains in the double digits or less.

You typically want to avoid markets with websites that have higher referring domains in the hundreds or thousands, like the one shown below. This is because it will be difficult and costly to try to outrank these websites:

3. Create a local lead generation website.

Creating a local lead generation website is your next step to building your business. After choosing a niche and location, you can go buy a domain name and build your own site. In 2025, exact match domains still work well because they contain the main keywords. For local lead gen, that would be “city” + “service”.

For example:

springfieldtreeservicepros.com
detroitplumbersdrain.com
chicagoroofingcontractorspro.com

Having a city plus service domain establishes your site as the go-to business for your area in the eyes of Google and your potential customers. This authority goes a long way in establishing overall legitimacy & trust of your site. This method also helps you speed up your overall ranking process.

The only downside is that using a city name in the domain means you’re stuck in that city. So if your city is not that competitive, it might be better to not use a city in the domain. Instead, you can use brand name in the domain such as: legacyplumbingservice.com. With this, you can easily target other cities, if you decide you no longer want to work on the same location.

I would purchase your site at Snapps.ai and build it there. This web builder was specifically designed for the local lead generation business. It’s fast and just as affordable as the popular options like Weebly and Wix.

In 10 years of doing lead gen, I cannot recommend building sites on cheap shared hosting & WordPress. These sites have all gotten hacked over the years. In fact, a Sucuri report says 90% of hacked CMS sites in 2020 were running WordPress. Plus the designs are always slow and buggy.

Your site should include a quote form near the top of the homepage. This encourages potential customers to submit their contact information, so you can capture leads.

Snapps.ai also has tools that can be quite useful for your lead generation business, such as:

Localgrids. This tool tracks Google map listing rankings based on geo-location around the city.
SnappsSEO. This tool gives you valuable insights into how to better rank your site.
Snapps AI Image. This tool seamlessly generates AI images for your site.

We encourage all our course students to build their own lead gen websites. You should it at at least few times so that you understand the entire process. It will lead to greater confidence & certainty for this business. Most importantly, you can also explain lead generation better to other business owners.

Once you got the hang of it, and you want my team to build it for you, we do offer that as a service as well. You can check out our Ippei’s Done 4 You Lead Gen Sites .

4. Use local SEO to rank the site on Google.

Using local SEO to rank your site on Google gets your business running. Your goal is to reach the first page so that potential leads click on your website. Local SEO entails:

On page optimization (Site layout, content creation, implementation of relevant keywords, title tags, etc.)
Off page optimization (Citations, link building, Google Business Profile optimization, etc.)

The reason local lead gen focuses on “local” is that the ranking process is much easier. You won’t have to compete for global keywords. Once you master the local SEO ranking factors, you can scale this business predictably.

Build high quality backlinks to rank higher on Google.

Building high quality backlinks helps Google to view your website as a niche authority. This helps improve the chances of higher ranking.

Here is a list of the high quality links you want for your lead generation site:

Links from relevant sites. Relevant sites are sites within your niche. In our course, we have a private Facebook group of 7,400 students. This is where you can form link circles with other students. This is just one of the ways we use the community inside our program to give us an edge over the competition.
**Relevant guest post links.**Guests post links are links that come from connecting with relevant sites. You provide them a free content piece and in return, you can get a link back to your own website.
Links from influential sites. Influential sites are sites with high domain authority and rank well on Google. We have access to a large network of sites. These sites have a lot of authority behind them and this gives our site “ranking juice”.
Links from highly relevant directories. Directories are web platforms that host contact details for businesses, such as Angie’s List or Yelp. Our team has a list of over 100 places to get these links from.

Are backlinks still relevant in 2025?

Backlinks are still relevant in 2025, but not as relevant as before, according to Google. In 2016, Senior Search Strategist of Google search quality Andrey Lipattsev said that links were among the top 3 ranking factors for Google. This sentiment eventually changed. In 2023, Gary Illyes of the Google Search team said that links are no longer a top 3 ranking factor.

Despite what Google says, backlinks may even be more important than ever before. In 2025, SERPs are filled with tons of poor quality AI-generated content. Backlinks could become more important for Google as the search engine searches for ways to assess website relevance and authority in a world rampant with AI content.

I tend to believe this is another misdirection from Google. They have been known to do this from time to time to dissuade SEO’s from taking advantage of their algorithms. What I find is that quality backlinks are still massively powerful booster of rankings. In fact, a MOZ study confirms websites with backlinks from high-authority domains (DA 70+) are 3.5 times more likely to rank in the top Google positions.

Do you need to create a Google My Business profile to rank a local lead generation website?

You do not need to create a Google My Business profile to rank a local lead generation website. It is possible to rank a local lead generation website on the first page of Google without a GMB. However, creating a Google My Business profile enables your website to get listed in the Google Map Pack. This increases your chances to attract quality leads to your website.

BrightLocal also says 64% of consumers use Google My Business to find contact details of local businesses. Also, businesses with a GMB profile receive 7 times more clicks than those without one. This highlights the importance of having a GMB profile for local visibility.

In our program, we have come up with many different ways to get our map listings verified. It takes creativity but what we do works.

5. Find local clients to make money from your leads.

Finding local clients allows you to make money from your leads. This typically requires hopping on the phone with potential customers. You will be pitching to businesses on why they should take your leads. Don’t worry though, it’s actually an easy sell. In fact, a HubSpot survey says 61% of marketers admit generating leads is their top challenge. This makes your service highly valuable.

You can initially offer some free leads. This way, they can get a firsthand experience of the value that your leads can provide their business. You don’t even have to tell them you’re sending new leads. You can easily automate lead distribution by using call tracking. I like to use what our team made: Callsling. Every time they get calls from leads, they’ll hear, “This lead was sent to you by…(Your name).” This method not only ensures seamless lead delivery. It also reinforces your brand name with each call.

You can learn more about getting clients with the free lead strategy in the video below:

results in advance are the keys to local lead gen. be successful.

Once they’re convinced with the value of your services, you can start discussing about having a long-term partnership. This will allow you to earn $500 to $3,000 per month for the leads you send them. You can structure your deal in several ways, including:

10% of closed business
Pay per lead
Flat fee per month (retainer)
Hybrid: Combination of flat fee plus 10% or pay per lead

What strategies can you use to reach local businesses and start selling them leads?

Cold calling. 82% of buyers accept meetings with sellers who reach out to them, a RainGroup study says. This makes cold calling an effective strategy.
Attending local events. Networking events, trade shows, and local business meetups can provide direct access to potential clients.
Email marketing. A DMA study found that email marketing has an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent. This makes email marketing a cost-effective way to reach business owners.
Visiting businesses in the local area. Face-to-face interactions can build trust and rapport more quickly than digital communication.
Direct messaging business owners through LinkedIn or other social media platforms. LinkedIn reports that 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, which makes it a powerful platform for reaching business owners.

These all work but I prefer sending business owners free leads first. Afterwards, I reach out to them after they’ve heard my name a few times through the call whisper.

6. Scale up by creating more lead gen websites.

Scaling up by creating more lead gen websites will grow your overall revenue. Besides, local lead generation has passive income potential. This means you have plenty of time to scale your business. Creating more lead gen websites allows you to create more passive income streams.

Eventually, you’ll end up earning more than a single-family real estate. According to Roofstock, the average annual return on single-family rental properties is around 8-12%. In comparison, successful lead generation websites can command profit margins up to 95%.

The more money you’re able to earn, the more bigger, competitive markets you can get into. You can build more lead gen sites to boost your monthly income.

3 Tips to Maximize Local Lead Generation Profits

1. Automate processes by outsourcing work.

You can free up even more of your time and scale more quickly by outsourcing work to automate processes. For example, you can hire content writers on Upwork, and virtual assistants on onlinejobs.ph.

This enables you to focus more on high-level work like market research and client acquisition. Meanwhile, you can offload time-consuming tasks like content writing. Of course, the potential downside is you have to take the time to train your people. This is why a lot of our students just choose to outsource the build outs to us.

Here is how I automate my local lead generation websites:

Content Writers. Responsible for niche research & content creation.
Web Developers. Responsible for taking the content and putting the site together on Snapps.ai.
SEO/Site Ranking Experts. Handles all the optimization, from building high-quality backlinks, citations, & more.

I still handle basic business operations. I speak to business owners and work on closing deals. However, you could consider hiring a sales team to do calls and seal deals on your behalf.

You can also use a time tracking software to keep track of your employee’s activities. TimeDoctor can be a good choice. It’ll stop recording if a VA has been inactive for over 1 minute. It also takes screenshots sporadically to ensure work is being performed.

2. Choose local lead generation niches with higher lead values.

Choosing niches that have high client value can earn you more money. These businesses can afford to pay you more for the leads. Some of the best high ticket niches for local lead generation are:

Concrete Paving. The average cost of concrete paving projects ranges from $2,500 to $7,000. Quality leads in this niche are highly valuable.
Kitchen & Bath Remodeling. The average kitchen remodel costs around $25,000, while a bathroom remodel averages $10,000. This high expenditure translates to valuable leads.
Roofing. The average cost of a new roof installation is between $5,000 and $10,000, with some projects exceeding $20,000.
**Contractors.**General contractors often handle large-scale projects with budgets ranging from $10,000 to $100,000. The costs could increase more, depending on the scope of work.
Epoxy Flooring. Epoxy flooring projects can range from $1,200 to $6,000, depending on the size and complexity.
Water Damage Restoration. The average cost for water damage restoration is between $2,500 and $7,500. Some severe cases can cost up to $10,000 or more.

3. Achieve expertise in a specific niche.

Instead of trying to attack many niches, you can improve your performance by achieving expertise in just one or a few niches. Each niche comes with its own intricacies and challenges. Case in point, you’ll have to deal with different types of potential customer base. You’ll also have to target different keywords, depending on their industry. By attaining a deep understanding of a niche, you can compete better and increase your income potential.

How much does it cost to start a local lead generation business?

It costs between $500 to $1,000 to start a local lead generation business on average. The primary costs to consider are:

Website domain: Starts at $10 to $20/year per domain
Website hosting: Starts at $2.95 to $49.99/month
SEO software: Starts at $99/month (optional)
Call tracking software: Starts at $15/month

These are the bare minimum requirements and associated costs to starting a local lead generation business. According to Entrepreneur, starting a small business typically requires an initial investment of $2,000 to $5,000. This makes local lead generation a relatively low-cost venture.

What are the key software for the local lead generation business model?

No code website builder (Ex: Snapps.ai)
Call tracking software (Ex: Callsling)
SEO backlink checker (Ex: Majestic)
All-in-one SEO tool (Ex: Ahrefs)
Google Map rank tracker (Ex: Local Grids)
CRM (Ex: GoHighLevel, optional)

These are some of the key software for the local lead generation business model. You can incorporate them into your operations as you start and scale your business. As you invest in the right tools, you can significantly enhance your efficiency. Doing so also allows you to focus on growing your business.

What is a local lead generation business example?

A local lead generation business example is Ippei Leads . This is my own local lead generation company, which specializes in SEO and lead generation marketing services.

What are some examples of local lead generation websites?

Example #1: Limo rental site in Lansing, Michigan

Here’s an example of one of the first sites I put together in Lansing, Michigan, in the limo rental niche. I had no prior online experience but I followed Dan Klein’s training and put this site together.

It took about 4 hours to build and another 10 hours to rank. I haven’t even logged into this site since 2014 and it’s still paying me $750 every month. With each phone call that I generate, my client gets an email of the recorded call. This way, my clients know exactly how much money they’re making from my leads.

Example #2: Tree care service in Grand Rapids, Michigan

This Grand Rapids Tree Care site generates 30 to 50 leads per month. It has made me $2,000 per month for more than 8 years now. It only took me 15 hours to build and rank. Plus it only costs me around $500 to create. So far, I’ve earned over $192,000 from it.

What’s the difference between a local lead generation vs SEO agency?

The difference between a local lead generation vs SEO agency is that in local lead generation, we generate results first. We then sell those leads to local business owners. Meanwhile, an SEO agency performs site audit on the client’s website. Usually, they charge a monthly fee as they perform SEO tasks.

The problem with SEO agency is that once you get the rankings, the business owner can decide to fire you at anytime. Also, the business owner can get impatient and constantly bug you for results. I love local lead generation because I own the sites. The business owner can never fire me. Instead, I can fire them.

It’s just powerful to have your own income producing digital assets. I get to rank them at my own pace. Once I do, I have a web property that will pay me long-term without much hassle.

What are the benefits and challenges of starting a local lead generation business?

Benefits of starting a local lead generation business

Earn passive income.
High profit margin of up to 90% or more.
Low initial investment.
Maintenance costs are at a minimum each month.
You don’t need to be good at sales. You only need to provide leads in advance and ask a business owner how your free leads worked out.
Easy to scale the business by creating and ranking more sites.
Easy to get started.
My clients can’t fire me. I choose who I work with. As long as I own the websites, I have the control.

Challenges of starting a local lead generation business

Some sites might take some time to rank, depending on the niche and market.
Due diligence may take time as you find the right niche and market to get into.
You’re responsible for the upfront investment to build & rank the site. You’ll need $500 to $1000 initial investment for low to mid-level competitive markets.
If your client decides to stop working with you, you’ll need to find another local business to sell your leads.
You need to make sure you have the edge when it comes to your ability to rank websites. In our paid program, we go much more in-depth on high-level tactics for ranking.

What is the best local lead generation course to help you get started?

Dan Klein’s Lead Generation Coaching Program

Dan Klein has been providing coaching in the local lead generation industry since 2014. I was one of the original students and I eventually became a top student. After reaching over $50K in residual income, I partnered with Dan to help people learn lead gen and quit their 9 to 5 jobs. Together, we’ve since taught students the great skill of generating leads for small businesses. It’s all possible using online properties that generate free traffic. We also do live coaching calls twice per week.

So far, we have over 7,400 students in our program. Our community provides a supportive environment where members can learn from each other. Moreover, we also do live coaching calls twice per week.

New Training Coming Out in 2024!

Me and Dan have now refilmed the entire training and we’re now putting the final editing touches on it. This new training will be coming out in 2024. It’s a lot more robust because now we have over 10 years experience. Instead of just 1 coach, we’re going through the entire model from 2 people’s perspectives: mine & Dan’s.

What are the legal considerations when starting a local lead generation business?

Data protection and privacy laws. Data protection laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protect internet users from unnotified collection and use of data.
Anti-spam and communication consent laws. Anti-spam and communication consent laws like the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States and the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) regulate the methods in which electronic messages can be sent for commercial purposes.
Telemarketing laws. Telemarketing laws like the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) apply to businesses that use phone calls to reach the target audience.
Intellectual property. Any lead generation campaign that uses content marketing on the website should make sure not to infringe on the intellectual property of others. For example, you shouldn’t use copyrighted images from the web.
Contractual agreements. Contractual agreements with clients should include all necessary information (such as scope of service, lead delivery terms, and payment method).

Is it Possible to Put Your Local Lead Generation Business for Sale?

It is possible to put your local lead generation business for sale, but you must first go through all the steps of building and optimizing your assets. After positioning your assets well on Google, you can eventually sell your lead generation business or lead generation site for 40 times the monthly revenue it generates. All of your websites are lead generation companies that you can sell for a hefty profit.

Is a local lead generation business legit?

A local lead generation business is legit way to make money. As a lead gen provider, you use digital marketing strategies to help small business owners with search engine visibility. You offer more qualified lead options than they would get from other sources. In comparison, Yelp & HomeAdvisor leads are often expensive & low quality.

Lead generation can be a good business model because there’s always a demand for high quality leads among businesses. Plus with your services, they can focus more on running their companies.

In essence, the principle of lead generation has become a huge part of our everyday lives. For example, Uber is technically a lead generation app. It connects passengers in need of rides with nearby drivers. On the other hand, travelers use Kayak to find affordable flight or hotel deals. This website makes money by referring customers to its travel partners. Again, this is another type of lead generation business.

In short, lead generation is all about being the middleman. You make money by helping businesses attract attention from their target market. Compared with traditional business models, local lead generation is a lot more scalable. You can also enjoy more free time since it may possibly lead to passive income.

To illustrate, doing SEO on a global scale for affiliate marketing or ecommerce can be incredibly difficult. In this case, you are competing against everyone on the internet for traffic. Furthermore, Google’s new AI answers (or Self-Generated Entities) that appear at the top of search results are taking clicks from online publishers. Today, people don’t have to click articles to find the answer they are looking for.

Local lead generation avoids these issues. Local lead generation websites only compete against businesses in the same location. It’s much easier to rank a website on page one of Google since you’re only going against 5 to 10 small businesses in the area.

If you want to work with me and Dan, we have a local lead generation coaching program. You will not be disappointed with how much effort we have put into making it the best on the internet. Heck, we’ve been around 10 years now and we’re still going strong. We’ll teach you how I make up to $52,000 per month from owning multiple lead gen sites.