Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Mike Halliday on October 08, 2016, 08:14:15 am
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I have a carpet cleaner living 5 doors from me, 65yrs old been doing it since the late 60s. He laughed at me when I asked if he had a website :P
Is there anyone here (who is actively working not retired) who does not have a website?
I must say I've been lazy with the leaflets over the summer months and my websites have been producing most of my new work. I always hated website enquiries as they tended to be price shoppers or miles away but now I just tell them my price and let them chose if they want me to do it
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What's your conversation rate? Carpets I can get 7/10 upholstery 2/10
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That tells me that you are too cheap on carpets Shaun, and you don't like upholstery.. ;D ;D
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What's your conversation rate? Carpets I can get 7/10 upholstery 2/10
Not really measured it but I'm good on the phone so would guess it's about half on carpets, on suites I never give a price over the phone unless I don't want the job..... then I tell them
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I've been in business for thirty two years and have no website.
Nobby
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I've let my website lapse. The only inquiries I was getting was from time wasters and price hunters. I always ask an enquiry where they had my number from.
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Hector you could be right, I've learned that I can sell carpet cleaning quite well as it's far more productive and to the customer has greater value but upholstery is very much a take it or leave it and that must show in my voice I think Mike has the best idea of visiting for upholstery to get the conversion rate up but I'm always busy with those damn carpets!
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i dont have a website ,was thinking about getting one
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i dont have a website ,was thinking about getting one
Get in touch if you want a website built.
Cheers Paul
www.carpetcleanerchesterfield.co.uk (http://www.carpetcleanerchesterfield.co.uk)
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Mike
people with website are marketing
people without are selling
People with both are doing the right thing
as I said before when the market slows you start selling.
its my view that we have done a poor job of selling carpet cleaning as a regular thing to people. unlike take away that has done a much better job of the same years. having a take away is a thing in most peoples lives. unlike having carpet cleaned. I think its because marketing (internet) has made it so easy and the fact that we have lots of movement of people over many years. with the banks having problems thats slowed down.
I remember when your called yourself a specialist because you only cleaned carpets and sofas. now many clean other things and have adapted slowly to be more a general cleaner.
we need to sell much more. That does not mean competing on price all the time. we need to show the value that each of us give to people that become our customers. Value is where focus our sales message, because like it or not people expect clean carpets so price is the only way they have to judge us apart. in their mind its oranges with oranges. what machine, method, etc you use does not matter because they are buying clean carpets.
value can be added in many ways from free stuff, maintenance plans, after care, insurance, and as most already do other services that are bundled in. just like the phone and utility companies are trying to do now. lets face it if oven and window cleaners can clean carpets then we have no choice.
with regards site the big problem is google and seo. google just does not know the longtails. it thinks it does. My adwords i get hundreds of these longtails suggestions. with adwords there are three ways to use keywords, broad, phrase, and exact. but when you import their suggestions as exact you get little or no impressions from them. this shows that these words have been compiled over many years and do not reflect whats going on now.
now if you look at the bottom of the results page you see the real currant keywords. only problem here is if you use them to much your site becomes very spammy, because there are so few. The answer to this is that we all need to write good copy more. this is what google asks for, good articles. then the seo keyword base would grow and the results change to give people answers that are information rich.
carpet cleaning articles can never be sexy and people get motivated by them but they can be informative. Just look at youtube for the lack of reviews on carpet cleaners (machines) and cleaner products. Misinformation is taking hold. I was looking for videos on febreze and found some with some real mad negative claims. there is a massive area here that we can use to our advantage.
The more people buy carpet cleaners and find out how hard and limited they are the more it promotes our position. how many times have you been on a job and seen them sitting in the corner? these people are our customers, but why did they choose buying over using us first? maybe the fact these machines are sold to them.
My message is we need to sell much more. we already know we can get more money just by quoting in person than over the phone. because we are selling our self and people have the added advantage of being able to look at us and make judgement that they cant over the phone.
I know I go on Mike but I just dont understand why others are not talking about this stuff? Good Luck mate
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Can't see the whole website thingy catching on to be honest :P
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I now have two websites, virtually all my business comes from them.............
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Mike
people with website are marketing
people without are selling
People with both are doing the right thing
as I said before when the market slows you start selling.
its my view that we have done a poor job of selling carpet cleaning as a regular thing to people. unlike take away that has done a much better job of the same years. having a take away is a thing in most peoples lives. unlike having carpet cleaned. I think its because marketing (internet) has made it so easy and the fact that we have lots of movement of people over many years. with the banks having problems thats slowed down.
I remember when your called yourself a specialist because you only cleaned carpets and sofas. now many clean other things and have adapted slowly to be more a general cleaner.
we need to sell much more. That does not mean competing on price all the time. we need to show the value that each of us give to people that become our customers. Value is where focus our sales message, because like it or not people expect clean carpets so price is the only way they have to judge us apart. in their mind its oranges with oranges. what machine, method, etc you use does not matter because they are buying clean carpets.
value can be added in many ways from free stuff, maintenance plans, after care, insurance, and as most already do other services that are bundled in. just like the phone and utility companies are trying to do now. lets face it if oven and window cleaners can clean carpets then we have no choice.
with regards site the big problem is google and seo. google just does not know the longtails. it thinks it does. My adwords i get hundreds of these longtails suggestions. with adwords there are three ways to use keywords, broad, phrase, and exact. but when you import their suggestions as exact you get little or no impressions from them. this shows that these words have been compiled over many years and do not reflect whats going on now.
now if you look at the bottom of the results page you see the real currant keywords. only problem here is if you use them to much your site becomes very spammy, because there are so few. The answer to this is that we all need to write good copy more. this is what google asks for, good articles. then the seo keyword base would grow and the results change to give people answers that are information rich.
carpet cleaning articles can never be sexy and people get motivated by them but they can be informative. Just look at youtube for the lack of reviews on carpet cleaners (machines) and cleaner products. Misinformation is taking hold. I was looking for videos on febreze and found some with some real mad negative claims. there is a massive area here that we can use to our advantage.
The more people buy carpet cleaners and find out how hard and limited they are the more it promotes our position. how many times have you been on a job and seen them sitting in the corner? these people are our customers, but why did they choose buying over using us first? maybe the fact these machines are sold to them.
My message is we need to sell much more. we already know we can get more money just by quoting in person than over the phone. because we are selling our self and people have the added advantage of being able to look at us and make judgement that they cant over the phone.
I know I go on Mike but I just dont understand why others are not talking about this stuff? Good Luck mate
Seriously, WTF lol You need to get out more Ian.
How can you compare people eating food and carpeting cleaning? One is a necessity that people have to do daily, carpet cleaning is not.
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I think that the value of a website varies from place to place.
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Carpet Dawg
I think that was one of Ians best posts ,and I get what ian is on about re; takeaways such as hungry house .
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without mine i have no business................
maybe i shouldnt rely on them so much, but they bring in the work........
i could spend more time on marketing via fb and leaflets etc etc...........
but im (currently) too busy servicing the clients i get via my websites.....
now, being busy without paying for websites, addwords,management..
that sounds like utopia to me!!!!!!
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i dont have a website ,was thinking about getting one
Try www.kreth.com the have built over 500 carpet cleaning websites nearly all on front page of google
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i do ok from my website, i do get more price shoppers but having steered everyone who calls (from whatever medium) to my website definitely see a better conversion rate, they also realise the other services i supply, i go in to look at the carpets and can book in the tile and grout floor or leather suite ect ,i find that people who want a good job doing spend far more money after going to my site, usually 4-6 jobs a week im happy with, and the peasant will always be the peasants......i find the price shoppers jobs are usually small or crappy jobs so i would rather sit at home do frigg all than to loose money working on some numtpys filthy hovel
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so i would rather sit at home do frigg all than to loose money working on some numtpys filthy hovel
Oy... my filthy hovel house needs cleaning just as much as the next guy's especially now I have retired from carpet cleaning.... :P :P
;D
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Mike, Dave L doesnt have a web site.
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If your losing money doing someone's filthy hovel then your a poope businessman.
Peasants...lol....of course you never price shop but look for the most expensive quote....
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If your losing money doing someone's filthy hovel then your a poope businessman.
Peasants...lol....of course you never price shop but look for the most expensive quote....
I know its hard concept to grasp JandS but some people would rather spend more and they associate that with a better service/peace of mind.
I personally never go for the lowest quote when buying a service.
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So how do you know the more expensive guy does a better job..I found the total opposite re plumbers...
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So how do you know the more expensive guy does a better job..I found the total opposite re plumbers...
Rightly or wrongly that's the way a lot of people see it.