Clean It Up

UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: cleanability on March 13, 2018, 04:27:04 pm

Title: Checkatrade
Post by: cleanability on March 13, 2018, 04:27:04 pm
I know I could do a search but anyway....easy question..............is Checkatrade worth the the outlay or a complete waste of money. Just rang them and its £83/month.

Thanks
Chris
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Robin Ray on March 13, 2018, 05:51:11 pm
I know I could do a search but anyway....easy question..............is Checkatrade worth the the outlay or a complete waste of money. Just rang them and its £83/month.

Thanks
Chris
On that basis i would say no.

I have never tried check a trade but when was the last time you or anyone else you know used it to find a tradesman?
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Mike Gwilliam on March 13, 2018, 06:59:02 pm
Most people would do a search for carpet cleaners rather than Check a trade. If Check a Trade were bringing in lots of work, no doubt you would hear other cleaners raving.

Always a good idea to have genuine testimonials on your web site. Testimonials from recognised companies will give prospective custards more confidence in you.

You can also add a review plugin if you have a Wordpress site which includes adding schematic markup that shows a star rating in the search results.
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Jim donaldson on March 29, 2018, 05:39:56 pm
What it would do is give potential customers confidence in you over a rival who may not be part of checkatrade. Would also give you and your brand more credibility as few carpet cleaners are part of checkatrade (unique selling point).  If it brought in 1 job a month would it be worth it?
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: SimonW on March 29, 2018, 09:33:00 pm
I can't understand all the negative feedback towards checkatrade. Their logo is everywhere even whilst footie games on Wembley.

I have joined last November and it has already paid off its annual membership plus the jobs I get via checkatrade are well high ticket. Customers always say that whatever service they need they would only search via checkatrade.
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Deep Cleaning Solutions on April 02, 2018, 09:21:22 am
Was the £83 per month just for listing one service ie carpet cleaning?

I own a multi-service cleaning company so if I could list a few services for that price it might be worth my while!
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: SimonW on April 02, 2018, 09:57:11 am
I pay £62 per month and I have listed few cleaning services so you should be fine then. Give them a bell and they'll explain  everything.
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: cleanability on April 03, 2018, 01:09:40 pm
Thanks for that Simon. I agree. They seem to have their name everywhere and the little catchphrase has stuck in my head. I did a search for a carpet cleaner in various places around my patch and there wasnt a carpet cleaner to be found. Its surely worth a punt. I'm going to give it a go soon.

Thanks
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: colin lightfoot on April 04, 2018, 09:12:03 pm
I joined check a trade last October.  Mine is 57.0 a month.
I joined like the previous comments made so that people will see me as a trusted trader.
So far check a trade has brough in 1 job.
I have regular contact with them every 4 weeks and they are very supportive. My feedback after 26 reviews is the highest in the area , my page is good etc etc
Neither I nor check a trade can understand what the problem is
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: SimonW on April 04, 2018, 09:45:30 pm
Don't know what makes some successful within the checkatrade and why others aren't happy.

Only yesterday had good paid job which was a lead through the checkatrade and today went for a quote and booked another good paid.job AGAIN through the checkatrade
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: tony bish on June 26, 2018, 11:12:01 am
I joined check a trade last October.  Mine is 57.0 a month.
I joined like the previous comments made so that people will see me as a trusted trader.
So far check a trade has brough in 1 job.
I have regular contact with them every 4 weeks and they are very supportive. My feedback after 26 reviews is the highest in the area , my page is good etc etc
Neither I nor check a trade can understand what the problem is
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: John Kelly on June 26, 2018, 11:16:16 am
Its what you make it. You must dish out the cards and make sure your customers fill them out or its a waste of time. We have customers with  hundreds of 10 out of 10 reviews and it works really well for them. Only downside side is you get trapped in and they keep putting the price up every year.
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: tony bish on June 26, 2018, 11:21:55 am
Well that went well ….shows how long I Iast posted .
Colin I must ask ,how do you have a feedback of 26 reviews but have only had one job from CAT
I have been with them since 2010 and have found it invaluable ,mind you I am from west sussex and checkatrade was started in Selsey west sussex so I guess people heard of it before .

They are however changing their format soon i.e they are giving every member an individual tel number so as they and you can track how many calls you get and cut out spam etc etc  ,but this is causing a few concerns in the fact that will customers still know you are local with the individual numbers to call .Jury is out until it gets under way .
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: tony bish on June 26, 2018, 11:25:39 am
Yes I have to agree John ,when you get past a certain amount of reviews you are rather reluctant to pack it in .
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Cleanevangelist on June 28, 2018, 01:01:33 pm
its an authoritative link to your site and will help both in local listing and seo. use it with customer reviews and its very powerful. just have a look at

www.roffeycleaning.com
 in southend (Search carpet cleaning southend)

he has worked hard to get reviews from customers and its paid off for him. if you look at the local its default setting is customer review. The weight that google give reviews is debatable but at the moment they are everything.

so money spent on checktrader will save money on both seo and adwords.

Ian Harper


Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: colin lightfoot on July 14, 2018, 09:30:26 pm
Hi Tony

Sorry not been on here a while. I get my customers I get through the website Facebook leaflet drops to fill the check a trade cards out to.
Had a great chat with a customer recently . He's from the north but lives down south.
He reckons london way and more southern areas rely on Internet sites like check a trade to get workman in from all trades.
Up north it's word of mouth etc.....I'm unsure
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Ian Rochester on August 01, 2018, 07:36:34 pm
I am "up north" and with Checkatrade, we probably get 1-2 jobs a week from it and they are generally the bigger value jobs ie: £300+

Just been out to quote one today which is a £720 job and they found us on Checkatrade.  Doing it  at beginning of September.

However I was seriously thinking of cancelling the membership in Jan as we were getting very little from it.
Title: Re: Checkatrade
Post by: Cleanevangelist on August 08, 2018, 06:10:59 am
Ian

dont do it

your seo will suffer. and its not so much about getting work from it more a place that people that find you elsewhere can check you out. promoting them in your other media will help.

plus you need to nudge people into writing reviews with rewards which is worth the money because of the seo part. the local pack on google has reviews set as default setting. make sure you in local. google is moving more and more to whats is called on page which means users not going to website but finding answers on google. with us coming out EU this will get worse as google will be not under those rules in UK any more. ( the ones that they got that massive fine for)

for those interested EU is going after android because of the playstore now. as an example fortnite make millions each day but has to give google 30%


Respects

ian