Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Roger Slater on August 31, 2008, 08:38:11 pm
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Its a well known fact by savvy webmasters that Google cant spider then list any of the topics on this forum because it is password protected.
For eg: Googles spiders find the home page for Clean It Up but cant gain access because it needs a password.
Admin can quite easily allow guests to view topics but not post, create polls or vote etc... until they become a registerd member accepted by Admin/Moderators.
Or
Create an advertising page and the guests cant see the rest of the forum?
What a waste of a huge advertising resource, this would give Clean It Up members massive exposure on the net. Its also a well known fact that forum signatures is an excellent way to advertise your business.
Signature eg:
The Window/Carpet Cleaner
Liverpool, Birmingham, London etc...
Google would spider this signature then list it exactly as you see it above with the forum post following it.
Surley Clean It UP wants us to get as much business as we can.
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Perhaps it's an oversite over to the owner!
Shaun
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Unlikely as the gaffers want us to advertise on Spick & Span ......... so why would they give us free publicity on here ::)
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does anyone advertise on spick and span, does it work?
Mark
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Steve Gunn wasn't too impressed but I've never advertised only the free listing which I have had nothing from.
Shaun
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This is interesting.
I know it's early days as the poll hasnt been running very long, but i have posted the same poll on the Window cleaning forum and all seem to think its a bad idea because of the copius amounts of money there making and dont want the customers to see the forum, which is understandable, but they cant seem to grasp that a seperate advertising page that could give us excellent exposure purely because of the amount of content posted here every day.
The mind really does boggle.
Spick & Span ive never once had a google alert informing me that my listing has ever been listed.
And perhaps your right about not wanting to give us free advertising, and if thats right they should consider that we make the forum its is, not them, and not surpress the forum to grow even further.
IMO
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I got 2 months half-price listing on S&S and never got a dickie bird from it. The second month's £7.50 direct debit never got taken out of my account, maybe they were too ashamed :)
You have to look at this from the forum owner's point of view though. This forum exists as a marketing tool for the company that operates it, why should they compromise this?
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The tag line on S&S is "find and compare cleaning companies in your area".
To me that translates as "phone around and get the cheapest".
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:o
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:o
???
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The tag line on S&S is "find and compare cleaning companies in your area".
To me that translates as "phone around and get the cheapest".
Exactly mate. Although it seems that nobody is"finding" S&S :-\
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Not sure but is : a click for CIU directed through Express cleaning giving the Express site the benefit of the click?
CIU has no pagerank. :(
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Not sure but is : a click for CIU directed through Express cleaning giving the Express site the benefit of the click?
CIU has no pagerank. :(
If you mean page rank through Google thats because its a closed forum and Google cant spider the forum pages which is pretty much useless in ranking terms even to the sponsors of CIU.
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The Spick and Span Directory has proved very succesful for many of our members, large and small contracts have been generated and are being generated from it. As with any form of advertising it works for some companies and not for others. I also think that cleaning companies need to always ask where their customers came from, many customers just say "Google" it's an easy answer, but they may have actually found you on the Spick and Span Directory from Google like many do. Also you have to remember that your contact phone number is on your listing so all the customer has to do is ring you, they do not have to contact you via email or sms text message through The Spick and Span Directory.
In fact many customers want to find a contact number and sort out their cleaning needs there and then so they will not just send you an email and await your response. The more serious customers will ring you straight away regarding their cleaning needs. Of course some prefer the method of sending an email/sms message and this too is proven to be working for many of our cleaning companies.
Free listings only appear in one cleaning category and don't hold much data for that company, whereas featured listings appear in up to 6 categories with lots of data about the company as well as a company logo/image to make the listing stand out and of course featured listings appear at the top of their respective pages.
We did used to let Google spider our pages using a web tool that we designed and examples of the way they work is like if you do a search on Google for "potential earnings from window cleaners" you will see we're at number 1 and when you click it it doesn't open in the usual ciu way for security reasons etc.
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I cannot see any reason at all why anyone would want Google to search the site.
Why we would want our customers on here is beyond me ???
I know £7.50 a month is not a lot of dosh but does seem excessive for an internet directory especially when most of them are free!
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We do offer a free listing as well as a featured listing, cleaning companies do get contacted more as a featured listing due to the profile and exposure of the listing - but there is always a free option for companies to opt for.
Thanks
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I can appreciate the amount of work that has gone into the directory and this site. You are never going to satisfy everyone as to the layout, design and price.
I do have a free listing but could not justify £7.50 per month for a directory which ranks lower than many free listings.
I also think it is a shame you cannot search by location name, I think many people are weary about putting in just a postcode as it more often than not can give marketing people an exact location.
If I was looking for a carpet cleaner to help me out in Oxford I have to know the postcode for somewhere in Oxford, extra hassle so therefore just go to another site. Just a couple of examples but I think an important and constructive ones.
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I also think that cleaning companies need to always ask where their customers came from, many customers just say "Google" it's an easy answer, but they may have actually found you on the Spick and Span Directory from Google like many do.
There is a very easy way to find out if Spick & Span is generating you any leads, clicks or views.
Use your site stats to find out who your top referrers are.
Any good hosting company will provide you with these invaluable tools free of charge.
I use this all of the time to look at my ROI.
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wife used spick and span for a while paid fees etc.........
no joy..no phonecalls.................biggest watse of money after y/p imho
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£7.50 per month
It was being offered to me at £15 a month full whack, I wangled 2 months at half price as a trial ;)
Mitch I know for a fact I didn't get any calls from it, I always ask every single one of my customers where they found out about us and if they say google I ask further questions to pinpoint the exact source. The only ones I've ever had through google clicked on my listing in the 10 results from google maps and went direct to my temporary web page that's been there for nearly 4 years. That was the most useful 30 minutes I ever spent on the internet :D
I think what sealed the deal about S&S was when the guy phoned me up after 2 months and I told him I'd had no enquiries from it. He came out with what you'd expect a salesman to say when he knows he's at a dead end ::) Then he said something like "oh hang on I'm sure we had an email enquiry for your listing, didn't you get it?" "No" "Well I'll forward it to you."
No email came. I wouldn't expect to make many customers if I didn't get back to them when I said I would.
But anyway I don't wish to kick off a massacre of S&S, just wanted to clarify a couple of points :)
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roger
your wrong, sorry. its the URL thats the problem here, they are not user friendly.
if this forum was run on vBulletin like mine you can get an add on that puts the message subject into the URL making them more search engine friendly.
its really funny that both forums don't know or use this information as i know that this one uses PPC what a waste of money.
respect
ian harper
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I still don't see the reasoning behind Google searching this site. I think you should be more concerned with it searching Spick & Span, that is what the customer wants to know and that is what we want the customers to find. Not that half of us are not trained and charging £100 an hour to lick their rugs clean.
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roger
your wrong, sorry. its the URL thats the problem here, they are not user friendly.
if this forum was run on vBulletin like mine you can get an add on that puts the message subject into the URL making them more search engine friendly.
its really funny that both forums don't know or use this information as i know that this one uses PPC what a waste of money.
respect
ian harper
In the case of CIU how on earth can i be wrong its common sense among everything else tha googles spiders cant get past the first page. Ok if ciu are using this add on but there not so ciu is actually not at all google friendly and does absoultley nothing to helps its members to market there business and it would be a very simple process to do, except try and get you to sign up for spick and span.
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I still don't see the reasoning behind Google searching this site. I think you should be more concerned with it searching Spick & Span, that is what the customer wants to know and that is what we want the customers to find. Not that half of us are not trained and charging £100 an hour to lick their rugs clean.
Ohh what complete and utter rubbish, some people on here just dont get the point and are very nieave when it comes to marketing there business. I wont be posting anymore on this topic. I did try to explain in Layman terms.
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Well explain it to me again slooowly, I admit I am thick.
What use will it be to Google to search this site, thus giving members of the public a glimpse into what goes on here, prices we charge, chemicals used, spotting and cleaning tips etc.
My thinking is you want it Googled so it finds your website, then it finds everyone else's website and you are back at square one, in fact you are a square 2 because you now have competition as to who to use.
I think your time and energy would be better spent getting a better listing for your own web site.
But I am interested to hear your thinking and your motives.
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Thick old me has found half a motive.
You want to start up another forum that gives free advertising and listings.
It is already here, there are a couple of other forums with free advertising, free links and free information. But most still come to CIU because it is the best forum for information in the industry.
Looks like you have 14 window cleaners interested, go for it ::)
For someone who has only been registered a month you want to change a lot :P
And the biggest thing YOU are missing is it ain't got anything to do with yooooooo.
You say you are an ex web developer, if you are that great at it and missing it so much why on earth are you licking windows for a living now ???
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lol
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roger
why would google want to give results that where letter and numbers? google matches words and longtails. readable url's are what google is looking for.
stop and think about what i have said about the PPC your wrong again. this forum is promoted and where does the money come from for this?. not us.
plus it passes PR. so its sharing its PR with all those link at the bottom of our posts.
respect
Ian Harper
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Think we might be finding out why Roger is an ex web developer and why he is no longer posting on this subject :P
As Mitch says, ciu is number one in Google rankings if you ask "potential earnings from window cleaners" so that should bring in plenty of enquiries then ::)
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If i can give my 10 cents worth to this amusing but interesting thread.
Opening the forum to googles spiders will help with getting your web sites higher page ranking if you have your business url on your siggy.
Also submitting your web site to the Spick n Span directory will help to with your web sites page ranking higher, Google search bots will give you higher page ranking if your url is listed in useful quality sites or directories.