Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Russell Morgan on October 24, 2008, 05:30:54 pm
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Hi all, im considering having a website and just wondering whether or not it brings in any jobs or does it work just if people are directed to you from website advertising, if you canb understand what i mean ???
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Yes Yes yes, best form of advertising you can do these days, It just gets better all the time, can be slow to start with but will build up very quickly if your website works.
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Russell,
Yes, I think I know what you mean. The answer is a resounding YES.
The main thing is that you get some sort of contact from it (either phone or E-mail).
Do they work? Yes.
Some friends have a business where say, 98% of their work comes from the web. What started of as an e mail enquiry from an interested party turned into several phone conversations. It finished up as a quote for a staggering £ 98,000 of work! Sadly this was not a carpet cleaning business.
A website should be an important part of your marketing armoury.
Best of luck,
Garry
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cheers, i think i should get one, been running a couple of years now, im a bit behind the times :)
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look at it as an extension of your little ads in mags and papers, its cheap to advertise your web site, just one line but once people visit your site you can say so much more,
derek
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if you can tell me how the internet can target a 3 mile radius of my home and bring in enough work within that area to keep me busy then I'll agree.
but if you want to cover the whole county and travel miles to jobs, go for it.
A website is a good addition to any marketing, but to rely on it is not an ideal situation.
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well i've got the back pages of the main directories in my two nearest towns, got a yell and yellow pages ad and im the only ncca listed cleaner in the ncca listing in the peterborough yellow pages, i pay 2 grand a year for these, so for the sake of a few hundred for a website, i'd be a foooool not to
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Russell,
You can do what you like, it's your website.
Just write on your website which areas you work in and which you don't. You can even say what sort of customers you want or don't want if you do it subtly.
You can also do geo-targeting with adwords down (almost) to individual postcode areas.
Garry
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I have had a site for about 4 months and it does get me some work not a lot mind you.
The good thing is it looks more of a prof set up on your cards and leaflets van signs etc :)
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Mike
Who said anything about totally relying on it? ???
In your situation I would hav thought you would be able to have an evn bettr chance of creating a niche through keywords.
Once the cost of the site is coverd it's all profit so you can afford to weed out what you don't want. You could evn say you serve a spcific community and no on else.
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My sites get me work in the areas i wish to travel to .......... i list the areas or postcodes i will cover ::)
Can always farm out surplus work or jobs out of range .......extra income ;)
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I never get calls from all over the country, max 10 miles away. People search for a cleaner in there area. ;D
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Mike O I was counterbalancing Niels Yes yes, best form of advertising you can do these days answer.
if it does what I ask then I would agree, but it doesn't.
Chris you make my piont exactly, 'I list the areas or postcodes i will cover' if I wanted to cover areas & postcodes I would use the interent
but I only want to cover 1 area and 1 postcode
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PS; it looks from what I'm saying that I'm against the internet, far from it I'm in the process of having a website done, and we are all different so if the internet fit into your marketing strategy then that's great use it to its full effect, my only question is with Neils first answer..... 'YES.YES.YES........etc'
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Mike
I reckon if you say I only serve xyz please don't call outside this area will strengthen your local community image strongly.
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Dave have you changed your site ???
Or the name ???
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I will travel pretty much 30 miles from home and because of this web is great, I can also target any area I want by town.
So many good customers around here so why would I want to limit myself to 3 miles from home. 1 good job a day is better than 3-4 when you are driving to and fro.
I only advertise using the internet and its got better and better. 1 London customer has paid for my business for the next 2 years and thats just from the internet, One in Holland park and another near Odiham. PArts of London are gold and to target these area's when I am only an Hour away is a must.
Internet works for me and I would recomend it over any other advertising but I maybe lucky as this area all the way into London is the Silicon valley of England so it maybe that more people use the internet to find traders.
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mike
it can be done. if you follow what everyone is doing and just keep your keyword to streets in the 3 miles then you would pick up work.
for example you had some photos up for sale some time ago, and these would be a good start. by using a blog (wordpress) type site it would be easy for you to post them each day say.
I would post one a day with with the street name. people can be funny about their names being linked to a photo and in a small area you would find some problems with this. its not so bad when you work over a large area. so by just using street names and towns you can avoid this.
its a shame your not a NCCA member I just started to write some articles about this.
as you know if your keywords relate to you target area then you will get work. and if you think about it if its only say one a week that money is worth the time, as it will only take you under a minute to post your photo.
I think that a testimonial based site will give you more work. i use photos and it shows prospects what can be done. if say their carpet is not as bad as the ones in the photos it will give confidence to them that its worth spending the money.
respect
Ian Harper
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Ian I could target a very specific area, I could put I only work down my street and only for the house with even numbers, but how much work would it bring in?
within our industry the internet works for people who target a large area, if this is'nt true could some show me a carpet cleaners website that does target a very small geographical area, everyone I have seen either don't say any area or list towns and counties.
mike
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I would love to work within SM3 but only so many nice big house to go around ;D That is why i have my areas as SM, SW & KT ............. areas with affluent streets aplenty ;)
Just had my van MOT & service and realised that only done 6000 miles in a year, so must work relatively local then ::)
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Thanks Chris
You see mike it can be done. ask Chris how much of his work comes from the Internet each month? and you will see the it pays. the longer you leave it the more money you lose.
It will not happen over night and you get out what you put in. but i spend my time and not my money on the Internet instead of other media that you have to spend money with no proven results like the yellow pages.
your a salesman you know its all about numbers well with the Internet you get all the numbers you like. like my synonymic net has grow so has the hits on my site.
there is no one thing that you can do to make it happen its about the many things. if your happy with the level of income then its harder to take on new stuff but if not then the motivation is higher to learn.
those photos are a massive asset to you. if you have as many as you say then all this will be a lot easier for you as they give you the subjects to talk about.
I have just printed off the keywords that prospects used to find one of my sites this month and there are 161 keyword phrases that's a lot of different problems that they need answers to. so you can see how big the synonymic net is.
one area that i have been getting into on my sites is pet accidents and it's reflected in this list. its a massive area. dogs poo and people don't like cleaning it up. i say that i have earned about £400 this month from this one area. now if you look at other areas like stains, wine etc and you can see how the numbers stack up over the month. but you have to have these words on your site in the volumes that is need to get the positions.
Why spend money on PPC when you can get the same thing for free? if you spend the time writing about the subjects. its the easy way. people value their time more than their money. now if you look at the comments on here about the slow down the answer is to make more with less.
i could quote numbers but i know how they are viewed on here so i will not. but my ROI is the best its ever been on any marketing. and that's the bottom line in business.
Respect
ian harper
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I'm starting think I'm talking to myself ::) Ian please read what I'm saying, and stop trying to fit what I'm saying into what you want to lecture us all on.
the fact that Chris only did 6000 mls is totally irrelevant and proves no point what so ever. I agree Chris does well out of the internet and perhaps he only did 6000 mls because he lives in the most populated area of the UK, he has a massive potential amount of customers within a very small area geographical area, Neil probably does well because of the same reason.
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Thought the population was high everywhere but agreed that more dense in some areas ........... i now turn away new jobs from NW London as takes too long to get there but still maintain the ones i have in that area ;D
Firmly feel that for the cost of about £40 a year, a basic web page is a must for any business ............. i know loads that have visited my site then booked a job without much persuading ........... they said that pressure selling puts them off phoning some people but website gave them a feel of the quality and type of work i would do and the type of person i was ::)
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Hi Guys
I probably have more sites than any other UK CC, over 100.
An upholstery site I set up 3 months ago brought in a 6500 Pound job yesterday and I have also had another excellent 4000+ job in the last few months from a dry site.
The best thing is that you can communicate what you want, target the markets you like and most of all bypass the large office cleaners etc who used to tie up most of the larger commercial.
I sell from loads of different angles, green, dry, leather, area etc all of which bring their rewards.
If you want to target a tiny geographical area then leaflets is the best way to go but if you want to broaden your horizons then internet is the way to go.
It has transformed my business from a local, comfortable business into a much higher profile, profitable and dare I say saleable growing company.
Cheers
Doug
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opps sorry, i keep it shut from now on then :)
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Sorry Ian, I might have been a litte harsh with my last reply :-* :-*
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You can target if you use Keywords Mike, I target all my area's by town name as most Prople I ask whe they call always say they Searched Carpet Cleaning Town.
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Certainly in my neck of the woods a website is a must - it brings in 80% of my enquiries. Maybe it is a geographical thing as I am in a similar area to Chris and Neil.
I look at it as a pension - once it's built and optimised it takes minimal ongoing investment and time to keep it well ranked.
Got to be one of the cheapest and most effective forms of advertising.
Steve
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Maybe its a little dif down south ???
As what doug said there i have not got anywere near all those thousands of pounds of work and get just a little work from my site :(
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You beat me too it steve :)
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Just out of interest how accurate are these tools that say how many visit your site gets. One siad I was getting between 300/400 visits pr month yet I'm lucky to get 3/4 calls from the web a week.
I this typical?
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Lets see ya site Mike
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This one?
www.deeperclean.co.uk/contact.htm
Looks quite smart!
Nearest competitor is this one www.easikleen.co.uk/ which also looks very tidy.
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Hi Mike, I don`t trust them and many other web tools.
Is that page visits or site visits? Sometimes easy to confuses the two.
Rab
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Doug
Thats interesting you do so well from your sites. To be honest I dont like there layout and I didnt read all the text so what in your opinion makes them so successful?
Dont take that personally BTW its just not to my liking but your doing something right.
Mark
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Hi Guys
Because I have bought so many sites a lot are fairly basic and are currently being revamped.
What I have is excellent search rankings, just try carpet cleaning with essex, southend, brentwood,Chelmsford etc or sofa cleaning, leather cleaning, suite cleaning, chair cleaning, leather cleaning products, green carpet cleaning dry carpet cleaning etc.
I also have high rankings for other areas and this is growing.
I decided to build the portfolio first and gradualy increase the quality.
My customers like the honest, low bull approach and comment they picked me because I seemed like a real carpet cleaner.
Don't get too bogged down with prettyness, go for rankings!
Cheers
doug
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"seemed" .......... little do they know :o ::) ;D
Keep up the good work ;)
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Mark i initially thought the same, but you do tend to read Doug's sites they get a point across quickly with out to much technical BS.
And he owns many of the best domain names :)
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Yes
Easiklean are always above me, not sure if it makes that much difference.
Both my site and that one are Mr Roberts efforts, which is a testiment to his abilities.
But my site is younger and all other things being equal I guess links are the only thing that may change that.
I'm thinking of adding opt ins and video to get better convrsion rates. Yes I know some buzz words ;D
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Same here mark.
They are easy to read sites and as mark says easy to read and no going on about the size of the air flow,what make or model the machines are etc
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Defo a yes 90% of my business comes from the web and my site I am in the process of building a more expensive site which will be fully optimised which I hope, will organically get me 1st page listing on Google for certain keywords! If you are not using the internet to market your business you must be sleeping it is the only way to get a high volume of enquires+conversions=S£les=happy a CC
If you have a bit more in depth knowledge about SEO, Adwords or have a good strategy like Mr Harper you can't loose. Customers ready to spend their £s are looking for you not you for them! :D
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i've got a listing on google at the mo which comes up if you ask for cc in my town or county and thats free, i get 1 or 2 jobs a month from it, whos to say say a website will bring in more??
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Oh go on give it a go you tightarse. ;D
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lol, il see ;)
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Obviously no guarantees, but if you get that from a listing surely that's a good indicator that a websit will work, plus also you can link from the listing to your site.
I'm with 1&1 and while it has it's limitations a pretty good site can be done along with SEO.
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Why dont you get a basic one done first and see how it goes then upgrade ???
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this computer lark could be the way forward :o
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Because he's a tightarse! ;D
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Mike you could be right ;D
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There are a few guys on here that do them for not much. Rabby, Prodry and Mark Roberts (homersimpson)
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yea iv had a few emails from a couple of members
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How much do you charge rabby ???
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i think websites are waste of time and money i have nice website and rairly get any work from it and im first or second page of google now
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Ross where are you based?
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Just remmember when your geting your site done that you get the passwords to get into your web mail box/email
As i have not been able to get into mine for 6 weeks as i had to replace my pc and can not get hold of the person that did the site for me so a new site its going to be for me :o
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Hi Clinton, www.transwebdesign.co.uk/clients.htm
Sites not finished yet (only been working on it for three years), I`v eleven really nice new designs to add, been working on it all day.
But then again a sites never finished.
Cheers
Rab
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Hi rabby
Do you put the sites up and sell them or get someone to do the work for you in the areas ie like your leeds carpet cleaning ???
Cheers clinton
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Mike O,
"Visits" include search engine spiders etc so the actual visits will be less.
Easykleen Vs Deeperclean..... Easy clean has a few more links and may have slightly better quality links. A lot of Deeperclean links come from the same address so may be downgraded.
When I've got time I'll try an On page comparison.
Garry
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Hi Clinton. I`v got a few up n running and for sale.
Leeds and Coventry both page one. I`d love to say they were getting loads of hits but its not that
great compared to other areas. People still phone enough to make it worth while.
If anyone in those areas wants to chat about it, feel free to get in touch.
Cheers
Rab
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Clinton
I know a man who can retrieve your passwords. Contact me if you want more info.
Doc
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I think they are a waste of time just there for The egoes of the owner of the Carpet Cleaning Company.
Just like Big Brother giving us our 30 seconds of Fame ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Hi roger
I will give you a ring sory for the late reply as was working late yesterday thanks for that reply sounds like its going to be v helpfull for me :)
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Your in the for sale section selling your business why bother getting a website now ???
are not selling now?
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nah, not for sale now, was just seeing how much interest it got