I recently got a call from a Yelp agent trying to sell me on paying for Yelp ads to get more traffic. I do both general notary work and signing agent work. However, the general notary stuff is few and far between. It basically pays for gas. I’m getting 2 a week on average. At $15/signature, not counting travel fees, it’s low but if I had at least one general notary job a day mon through fri, that’s $75/week and $300/month for basically 10min of work. Has anyone had experience with Yelp or Google? Most people seem to find me through google. But there’s no point in paying $300/month for my Ad if I’m going to break even. I’m trying to figure out what kind of returns people are seeing. Yelp and google have been the only ways I get General Notary work.
I don’t believe you’ll see any more GNW business than you already get. $300/mo is one heckuva lot of $15 signatures and, ime, GNW is usually only 1 or 2 signatures/job.
TL;DR: I do not think it’s worth it to pay for either; instead, optimize your presence on both.
I do anywhere from 5-15 GNW jobs a week. Most people have found me via Google or by word of mouth/referral. If I choose the location, the travel fee is $20 and I always choose the Starbucks that is within walking/biking distance of me. If I travel to the signer, the travel fee increases based on the location. I notarize regularly for the tattoo and piercing parlors within a 10-mile roundtrip radius of me and that’s an easy $30-40. (I’m in Florida so each stamp is $10.) I also cover the local hospital and nursing homes in a 10-mile roundtrip radius and that’s at least $50. Home sellers are the bulk of my GNW and the starting charge for that is $100. I also get a decent amount of divorce and child support notarizations from local family law attorneys, those typically have at least three stamps plus the travel fee.
I always ask if people need to mail their documents (usually the divorces) once they’re signed and if so, offer to meet them at my local post office which is eight miles roundtrip and is a $30 convenience/travel fee and signers love it. I have found the more questions I ask when they call/message me, the more willing they are to pay for the convenience/travel fee. If they balk at my pricing, I refer them to their local UPS or Office Depot location and let them know that those locations will charge them $10 per stamp as long as they’re open and have a notary on staff at the time but that they likely won’t have the training or expertise to execute their documents. For those that choose to try UPS or Office Depot, I’d say at least 50% of them end up calling me back because the location is closed, not answering their phones, or doesn’t have their notary on-premises or the notary on-premises simply does not know how to do the notarization. I’ve signed a fair share of documents at UPS and/or Office Depot, the former being within walking distance of me, the latter is three miles away.
Anyway, I said all that to say that there is money to be made in GNW. Have you made sure to optimize your Google My Business Page, Yelp, and Bing for Business listings as well as your website? I have only worked on my GMB listing thus far and had a significant increase in calls within a couple of weeks of doing so.