- This topic has 28 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
noticed its pretty quiet at the mo and my yellow pages/thomson local work does not seem to perform as well as it used to so wondering if people had got themselves a website and what kind of impact it gave them?
Re: internet advertising
done the same,all quite,i do not have a website although i am constantly being offered one,maybe it would help? :rolls:
Re: internet advertising
had website 4 months, (deltradar.co.uk :rolls: ) not 1 enquiry yet, only cost £70 though. at least were out there 8)
Re: internet advertising
Had mine about 6 weeks and 3 calls from it. I’ve listed it and my services on all local search sites for free so it’s showing some use. Nothing fancy ‘cos I ain’t like that. 😉
Even had Google ring the mobile today and I never knew it was on there.
RobRe: internet advertising
I reckon most people don’t use Yellow Pages any more, certainly not the younger generations. I get a new Yellow Pages & Thompson Local each year but bung them in a cupboard and never use them. If I want anything or anyone I just search online.
This year my Yellow Pages featured just one page of washing machine repairers. 15 years back this would have been at least 15 pages full of ads.
I think a web site is essential but if no one sees it it’s not much use. You could still have stuff on there that helps existing customers though. Maybe to give basic advice or make your terms and conditions available. You could use one to send prospective customers to by advertising the URL on leaflets and other conventional adverts and give more details about your business than could fit on the conventional advert.
If you have a web site and want to get new work from it though you – or someone on your behalf – needs to understand SEO (search engine optimisation) or advertise it on something like Yell.com
Re: internet advertising
i figured it cant hurt and once you have it set up costs are minimal. the person building my site seemed pretty clued up with getting it found on google/yahoo etc. will have to wait and see but i do know my huge costs with yellow pages/thomsons is not getting the work at the mo.
Re: internet advertising
Following a link from a previous thread: http://tinyurl.com/mgjeyp I built a simple site, http://thurrockappliance.co.uk in about an hour, Completely free to build and more importantly to host. I have held the domain for quite a few years now so get listed on google, I get 3 to 4 calls every month following google searches, not many but its free.
I would like to add a logo and link to UKWG to my site would anyone know how I can do this.?
Goose
Re: internet advertising
It’s a murky world of myth, magic and a lot of shysters is the internet. 😉
Search Engine Optimisation or, SEO, as it is known is a whole discipline unto itself these days as we get into an age where every Tom, Dick, Harry, their dog, cat, house and the rats that live next door have a website or some sort of web presence. You have to deal with search engines, keywords, content, social media, false positives, negative keywords and a plethora of other things.
In short, it isn’t easy and it takes time to learn.
But if anyone, any company promises to do whatever, like get you the No1 spot on Google, don’t believe it as it won’t happen unless it’s done on some obscure keywords that are easily optimised.
But…
It depends what you want from the internet.
When I started it was a green flashing cursor and a few folks chatting over a squawking modem that dialled up a remote computer. It was there for no other reason (it now appears) other than to prove it could be done.
Now it’s almost a living breathing entity that grows and changes on an almost daily basis. The rules change constantly.
Due to this, most of the work that I do on the site you’ll never see, know about or remotely care about.
Andy’s the same as he also knows a fair bit about all this stuff.
Trying to explain it is, at best, difficult in short bites that are easy to understand. Which is also why there are a whole rake of shysters out there that will happily take wads of your cash, promise results and then not deliver. It’s all technical mumbo jumbo to most people unless you’ve lived a while online and have a grasp of what it’s about, what you can do with it and how to do it.
For most repairers any sort of internet presence is merely a glorified business card. You can of course do so, so much more with it than that and the scope is really only limited by three major factors, you’re ability to do what you want, your vision of doing what you want and either the time or the finance to do what you want. Anyone can, these days, with the tools available, produce a cracking, quality website it’s having the time or inclination to do it that’s the problem and, if you haven’t that, you have to throw cash at it to have someone do it for you.
But then you have to get people to find your site and, we’re into the murky mythical black magic that is SEO.
It is an art-form unto itself like no other. Just Google it as a term, you’ll get hundreds of thousands of results, even narrowing down what’s worth paying attention to and what isn’t is an art.
Someone else doing it will never, ever deliver the passion, drive and commitment through the bones of the thing that the person that wants to do it would do. It’s sort of like writing a book, you need good knowledge of the subject and a passion for it as people sniff out a fake, especially old hands on the net.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean, even although I suspect it’s been pretty successful for them but it’s the only one I can think of that’s industry related…
The much discussed (see the Rumour Mill) 4our whatever sites from CDSL.
Most people that have been on the net a while know all about site skinning. This is a process where you take a base site, like CDSL’s in this instance, and insert new graphics around the content that you’re trying to sell. So they all look different and yet, somehow, the same.
People aren’t stupid and, if they’re shopping about they see this glaring similarity. They KNOW it’s all the same company.
It started a long while back with some, shall we say, less family friendly websites trying to get multiple subscriptions from a handful of websites. From there it moved to service provision for what is known as dropshipping.
This goes back to marketing of a different type where you’d have a brand owner, Nike for example, who didn’t make anything or ship anything having their name on goods. Same thing, virtual world.
But I love this stuff. Don’t really have an option as I live and breath SEO, the internet, economics and marketing. I do this “stuff” 24/7, 365 as it’s a passion, a hobby and a job. I go on holiday with a laptop and don’t go anywhere I can’t get some sort of internet connection. I usually work 12-18 hours a day, every day.
If you have that sort of commitment to it and are prepared to learn a lot then you can achieve a lot. You may not become a .COM millionaire (I’m not nor do I care to be as it’s not the point for me) but you’ll make a living, learn a lot and have a whole hell of a lot of fun. And, if you’re lucky, along the way you’ll meet some really nice people that you would otherwise never have known.
I often see these strange internet people and, some of them are real strange (;)) at these little meetings we have twice a year.
But all the waffle aside, it’s not easy and it’s not a two minute job to build a successful website. If someone tells you otherwise, they lie.
To get graphics and whatnot up it’s generally very easy but how to do it depends on the site and what it was built with in terms of software.
K.
Re: internet advertising
I have just set up a website using the office live system. I have found it very easy to do and set up links to ukwhitegoods and ise applainces.
You can also accept payment by credit card via paypal which I have done.
Still a work in progress but I am happy with it so far. This took me about a day on & off and still needs more work.
I will be putting the address on my van and stationary and also the local papers. I have put a link on my facebook page and got a few views from there and one job (its only been up a week)
http://www.solo-appliances.com
I think this is the only way to go at the moment. The printed directories are not working for me and they will not be renewed when the time comes, but I will be on yell.com (they can put a link to your website) and ThomwebRegards
ToniRe: internet advertising
interesting toni that you find the directories not so good either, will have to stick with directories to a certain extent but i think the younger generation use google etc more often now. god i sound old!
Re: internet advertising
just to buck the trend
i have a web site
am on yell.com
used a company to get on the 1st page of google
calls from them over 3 month period 0 😥
yellow pages 5-6 calls a day 😀
go figure 😕Re: internet advertising
my website works well for me at around £170.00 per annum its a bargain, unlimited pages, i add the content with what i want, keeping it completely up to date. i also have webstats showing me all sorts of things including unique visiters (around 10 a day at the mo), and how many pages they have looked at (around 30 a day). people very often say “i found you on the web'”, i hardly ever here anyone say “i found you in the local paper” which costs loads more. new people to your area are sure to use the web to search for loacal buisness. my 10 page website can give much more info than any other type of advertising.[/list]
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.