[md_cleaning]

am giving these a try, max payment £30 per month and no contract, is anyone else using them already? Have only been with them two days but will see how it goes.
 Dave

[davep]

Seriously save your money.

[garry22]

Out of interest, what made you call them?

[Mike Halliday]

who are they & what do they do?

[davep]

Out of interest, what made you call them?

. 

[Mike Halliday]

just found them on google...... they are a company who gets you on the first page of google.

which from my limited knowledge of google is done with adwords on search terms that are not very popular...... so are cheap

[AshWhite]

I've been with them a few months, not particularly effective - but not particularly expensive either.

They DON'T get your website to the top of Google (as the salesman might lead you to believe), what they do is create a new website for you (called a Plink website) which they fill with keywords relating to places in a list you give them. They then check 4 times a month to see if this page is on page 1 of Google for each search term.

For every term that it IS on page 1, you get charged. The more obscure the term, the less you get charged. They cap your fees at about £30, so even if ALL your terms are on page 1 all month, you don't pay anymore than £30.

You have to be careful, because they'll suggest a list of about 50 keywords - and some of these will be for places that are out of your range of travel. So it's up to you to vet the list and make the necessary alterations.

So far, I've had one query which resulted in a very small rug clean (I charged £25, and it was the next street over from where I live), and been billed a grand total of £17.25 - so it's not been massively successful, but I'm guilty of ploughing my money into worse ventures!

The good thing is that on the Plink site, your contact details are partially hidden, so when someone clicks to reveal the rest of the details, you get a text message to say someone has requested your details.

If you want to know more, ask and I'll tryt my best to fill you in with an unbiased opinion.

Ash

[garry22]

You don't get much for your £799 + VAT if you have a bespoke site.

[AshWhite]

Forget that, just go for the free plink site - they don't charge anything to register the domain, and there's no contract. A few weeks after I agreed to it, they called asking if I wanted a bespoke site, then again if I wanted a fb business page designed. I declined on both occassions and haven't heard anything since.

[dave 12]

£30 for a front page on google has got to ring alarms just be another scamming media firm praying on small businesses ? well wish u luck  

[AshWhite]

Dave,

It's not a scam, it's just not particularly effective either. It's not £30 a month, its CAPPED at £30 a month.

[md_cleaning]

Thanks Ash for feedback, if it's not much good have not lost anything at £30 max per month if I don't do much from it you just cancel it as Ash said, am sure we have all taken bigger advertising risks, I know I have.
Dave

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

£30 LIMIT...I'm sure there's VAT on that as well.
All this for very, very, very long tail key-phrases,
that any one on this forum could achieve on there own, with ease!
I have a plink with them and i will be cancelling it this month.
When they first contacted me, i said i was very sceptical
and that they would use obscure keywords to get money out of me,
but i ignored my own advise because i thought it would help with SEO
on my main website which it has a link to.
I have realised that,
nearly £40pm would get me some pretty decent SEO in it's own right.
If you decide to get one, you will be amazed how quickly it gets to
it's limit!
And as for ASH saying - "The good thing is that on the Plink site, your contact details are partially hidden"
Well this will just show you how she-ite it is, with the lack of replys.
Yes it's it's great marketing not showing your phone number!

[garry22]

Ash,

Ranking wise, how does the Plink page compare to your proper website?

[AshWhite]

Gary,
At the moment I'm trying various approaches.  My home town, I am normally 1st result on "Places", which given the changes over the last week or so has been massively important.

For the two closest cities, I use adwords to get a decent presence.

There are however lots of towns and villages within a 20 mile radius which I don't target specifically (I don't like to fill my page with vaguely related keywords, I don't think it reads very well), so this is where I was hoping to gain.

I keep an eye on analytics, and I've had a few hits on my own site referred from my plink site, and only one query directly from the plink site itself.

The point is, I haven't paid them ANYTHING for the last 2 months because they haven't had enough successful listings to warrant charging me a direct debit. So, while it has far from set my marketing world alight, it hasn't cost me a penny either.

I'd rather me have a very marginally successful marketing strategy in place, than my competitor 5 minutes down the road. It only takes one call to make the whole thing massively worthwhile (ONE big job!).

Overall, it's nothing to get excited about, but I certainly don't feel in the least way that its a scam.