Your Website Is A Marketing Tool! - Page 5 - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Roof Cleaning · 07-08-2008, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hvacwebsite

Someone ealier in this post mentioned ditching the phone books and such...I try and tell HVAC dealers that the phone book is becoming obsolete, but some old timers just don't believe it. They don't realize that investing a small amount into sprucing up their site and coding the SEO stuff in will A) cost less than what they pay yellowpages and B) will help them realize better profits fast.

All I can say is that my generation Googles everything. From needing car insurance to getting a ticket for a movie - I never touch the phone book. So anyone sinking serious money into phonebook marketing better only be selling to a retirement community where everyone is 90+ in age.

THAT would US, LOL
I work in Tampa Florida, lots of elderly here.
They haven't even mastered remote controls yet, let alone Computers.
WE have big display ads in Yello Pages, they work!
Tried the little ads, useless.
But 1/4 page display, or larger gets the high end customer.
Big bait, big fish, thats how it works.
My brother has an Air Conditioning Company in Tampa, I clean roofs.
He is SO busy, he cut his ads back!
Just Internet now for him, left Yellow Pages, too many shoppers he said.
Thanks for sharing your experience

I HAT paying the bill for all those ads too

Aiken Colon · 07-17-2008, 11:32 PM

The other SEO guy (Carl) in this thread would more than likely agree with this as well.

All you guys have a major resource here, you can all backlink to each other. Make sure you use anchor text and not http://xyzconstruction (not a real link) . Instead use XYZ Construction try to use at least one keyword in your anchor txt.

When doing backlinks just don't do random ones, the more relevant the link the more it is worth in search engine ranking pages (SERP). Since your all in the construction field your links to each other would be worth more. Stay away from link farms etc. They are big time negative. Make sure you submit your site to www.dmoz.com that one is huge. It takes months to get listed but it is big, many other good directorys use dmoz's database for their own. So the dmoz directory gets you tons of backlinks. Also www.alexa.com www.alltheweb.com www.altavista.com . Submit to their directorys. Those are all free. You should also consider submitting to the yahoo directory. It cost $299 a year, but is well worth it.

I have self taught myself SEO over the past few months, there are a lot of other "clean" tricks. If any of you are considering hiring an SEO make sure they are "clean", the SEO industry calls it white had SEO vs Black hat SEO. Black hat guys will get you good rankings fairly fast, but you can get perma banned from google and then its all over.

There are tons of resources on the web about SEO. If you plan on hiring it out check the companies home pages page rank with google. Download google toolbar and use the page rank feature. If it isn't at least a 4, and even that is low for someone that is in that business, then they probably do not know what they are doing. And if anyone guarantees you fast ranking, guaranteed rankings, etc they are a sham. SEO done today could take several months to effect your google ranking.

best single resource I have found for ranking your sites is this http://www.xinureturns.com/ put your site in and you get all kinds of stats.

Good Luck

JJ

carlsore · 07-22-2008, 02:25 PM

Quote:

All you guys have a major resource here, you can all backlink to each other. Make sure you use anchor text and not http://xyzconstruction (not a real link) . Instead use XYZ Construction try to use at least one keyword in your anchor txt.

I would definitely agree with this statement. Exchanging links with contractors providing the same services in other states, counties etc.. is a good strategy. They are highly relevant backlinks that Google and other search engines will adore.

Instead of submitting your website to search engines it's better to just have your link on a website that is already being crawled frequently. You'll get indexed much faster then by submitting. This works for ALL search engines.

Quote:

if anyone guarantees you fast ranking, guaranteed rankings, etc they are a sham. SEO done today could take several months to effect your google ranking.

Yes... Usually they'll telemarket you which is a dead give away whatever they do isn't working for them...!

For new websites 10-14 weeks for SEO and Indexing would be common. For established websites it could be 6-10.

Hope this helps!
Carl Sorensen

mrhmm · 07-24-2008, 08:50 AM

speaking of backlinks, what is the value of social networking sites like facebook or trulia for relevance?

Aiken Colon · 07-24-2008, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoGlobe.org

speaking of backlinks, what is the value of social networking sites like facebook or trulia for relevance?

SEO is a lot of guesswork for the most part. Backlinks are backlinks is my feeling. Then there are relevant backlinks, which I believe, are even better. Then there are authorative backlinks (big companies mostly), these are the best. Those are just my opinions. No one truly knows googles algorithm. There are tons of resouces out there though with a lot of much, much smarter people than I am, that can make very good educated guesses.

You can get backlinks from social networks. But you might want to try to release some press releases or write articles. Submit your articles to the social sites. As far as press releases I highly recommend market wire. But they are expensive. You can do a local publication (it still goes out everywhere as far as internet goes) and the SEO package for $205. Use promo code freeseo once for free seo package ($75). Here is the one we recently released. Just like anything else though, do not spam it. Make your content relevant and good.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25802737/

If you google "AC Tool Supply & SafeWaze Fall Protection Team Up" you can see where it ended up. Big time places like Fox Business, Yahoo Finance, Google News, MSNBC, Reuters, AP, Denver Post (and other online newspapers), marketwatch, Investors Business Daily, and more.

You can use free press release services as well, but the penetration marketwire gets is very impressive. And the amount of backlinks on that one page is pretty insane. Not all the places it ends up make the hyperlinks active, but about 50% of the sites are "do follow" and make the links active. The real beauty behind it all is all those internal links. Those are pages that normally are not easy to SEO for.

Also here is another trick. Get a flickr account. There are several construction groups in there just search for them. It is a picture sharing site owned by yahoo. All the links are "do follow" types. Post pics up of your work you have done, or whatever is pertinent to your company photo wise. Join those construction groups and hyperlink your picture descriptions to a page on your site. That is another great way to get internal backlinks.

Hope that helps.

JJ

mrhmm · 07-28-2008, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aikencolon

As far as press releases I highly recommend market wire.

yeah, thanks a bunch! i checked out Market Wire and it looks like they have something there. i'm sure i can find free ones out there, but using the old adage "Time is Money" i'll be at least trying it out.

thanks again for the advice.

Murphy Stout · 07-30-2008, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teetorbilt

I had one for 3 yrs. (contract deal). Didn't do diddly and cost a total of around $600.

Wasted money IMHO.

With all respect, it's wasted money because you didn't put enough effort into it, I assume.
$600 over 3 years is nothing, if you get 2 people giving you business through the site, it's paid for itself plus some.
You need to build a website thats able to be spidered by search engines (no flash, no javascript, no form submit buttons), geared toward your locality, and take efforts to promote the site, place it in directories, get other sites to link to you.
There are Search Engine Optimization services and information available all over the net, you don't have to pay, just get some information, and think about what your doing.
Billions of people search the internet everyday, how can 600 dollars be a waste of money when it exposes you to this market, even while you sleep.

Roof Cleaning · 07-30-2008, 02:18 PM

A web site MUST show up in searches.
IF they show up on page one or two, they work.
If they don't, they don't work.
You MUST do the SEO, or pay someone to do it for you ?

Aiken Colon · 07-30-2008, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murphy Stout

You need to build a website thats able to be spidered by search engines (no flash, no javascript, no form submit buttons)

Actually, Google and Adobe worked together and Flash is now "indexable"

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...-indexing.html

A good sitmap also helps. Even before google and adobe fixing the issues, it was still possible to index a site with some flash on it. YOu just had to have a well organized sitemap.

That should be great news for you guys. In my opinion you have to have a great looking site for your customers. They are buying something they have to live with everyday of their lives.

JJ

jwhammond20 · 08-06-2008, 02:59 PM

i've had my website halfway running for about two weeks now. I've already had a few quality leads from it. I've read a lot of articles on SEO. Visited websites that had top rankings and through trial and error i've got my site to be on Google's top two pages.

Its definitely worth my time and money!

mrhmm · 08-21-2008, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwhammond20

i've had my website halfway running for about two weeks now. I've already had a few quality leads from it. I've read a lot of articles on SEO. Visited websites that had top rankings and through trial and error i've got my site to be on Google's top two pages.

Its definitely worth my time and money!

you must have a good site. it seems like a lot of attention is spent on SEO these days, but the sites that are really relevant for certain search terms have an easy way of trumping all SEO efforts.

i put my site up for a couple different keywords that really matched my content well, and beat out some top companies on search within the first week! i guess quality content really is king!

SethHoldren · 08-27-2008, 08:54 PM

Here are some of the most valuable things you can work on to get your site higher up on the google rankings:

1. LINKS

Relevant backlinks are by far the most effective way to rocket up the google rankings. Especially if your links come from other high ranking sites (such as forums) and if your links contain anchor text with the keywords you are optimizing for. You can find creative, non spammy ways to get links, and do one or two per day. By the end of the month you will have more backlinks than your average contractor will ever have. Forums, social bookmarking sites, and online article submission sites are great ways to get links.

2. Domain name keywords.

If you currently don't rank, and don't have any traffic, consider registering a keyword-relevant domain name. Nameboy dot com will give you tons of ideas. (For example, NashvilleContractor dot com would be a good keyword in my market. It happens to be taken, so I could go with ContractorNashville dot com instead. Then forward YourCompanyName dot com to your new keyword relevant domain name.)

3. On site optimization

Put keywords in your title, description, and header.

4. Pay to register in the Yahoo directory.

It helps a lot. Sorry but it does. This is the only place i would pay to get registered.

5. Use a blog style site (like Wordpress)

This will make it easier for you to post more keyword relevant content. Simply make your company homepage content "sticky" so it stays at the top of the page. Then, you can post (or get someone who knows how to write well to post) content that makes your online footprint bigger. You will be posting tips, articles, helpful info, or anything that is relevant to your industry and your area. Each page is "internet real estate". Expanding your online footprint this way will help your rankings. You will, in essence, "own more of the internet."

If you do all these things, you can really make some progress. Especially in local markets.

In some markets, you could get ranked within a day. Other tougher markets may take 6 months. It just depends.

If you do nothing else, put your keywords in your signature here on this forum, and link them to your site.

For beginners:

To do this, simply go to "edit signature."

Then, type in your keywords: "Springfield Contractor" (or whatever)

Next, highlight those keywords and click on the little "globe with a chain link" picture and type in your website address after "h t t p : / /"

Test your link, and you're done.

Good luck, and higher ranking to you!

Kenny K · 08-28-2008, 02:37 PM

good info. Just applying it is most difficlyt. It weems like this could be a full time job almost or at least a good 20 hours/week? what do you think?

SethHoldren · 08-28-2008, 04:41 PM

Quote:

It seems like this could be a full time job almost or at least a good 20 hours/week? what do you think?

Yeah, it can take up a lot of your time if you do it yourself.

The initial set-up is the big time killer. Then the maintenance can be done in just a couple hours a week.

Doing it for multiple sites sometimes seems like more than a full time job. But I enjoy it.

calibuilder · 10-14-2008, 03:46 PM

Hi... Newbie here. At present, I am trying to build my website.

villanuevaconstruction.com

Its a work in progress...

So far... the metatags seem to be eluding me.

I checked out the websitegrader.com site, great info.
I found this post very helpful.

SLSTech · 10-14-2008, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by calibuilder

Hi... Newbie here. At present, I am trying to build my website.

villanuevaconstruction.com

Its a work in progress...

So far... the metatags seem to be eluding me.

I checked out the websitegrader.com site, great info.
I found this post very helpful.

Welcome to CT - you might want to post an Introduction in the Introduction section & list your location in your profile.

I would also list on your website what area's you service, etc... According to the drop down list in your Contact us page - it shows all 50 states.

renet · 11-03-2008, 02:34 AM

You must have a well optimized website and a great inbound link campaign.

So, you are getting great inbound links but do they link to a site that tells the serps what it is about in a way that will make the spiders happy?

There is much to be said on the topic of on page seo and there are well written articles regarding link building that delves into the most important issues of How To build quality inbound links to your website.

Also, pay attention to keyword permutations in your site design and addition of content. I will not go into the details in this post accept to highlight what the term means. A blogroll exchange would be considered if you have a well optimized site with some pr and is topic relevant. (pm me with your site details).

Keyword permutation results in various keywords on your site joining together and in essence becoming an unintentional long tail keyword. However, if you learn how to implement a good keyword permutation strategy in your site design and content you will find that they become 'intentional' rather than 'unintentional'.

renet · 11-03-2008, 03:11 AM

Thanks for the tips regarding press releases, marketwire, facebook and dropping articles into social sites.

Also, it's nice to see someone tuned into the value of relevant link exchanges. I mean.. look no further. Forget all the fancy internet searches to find sites related to your construction keyword...

Just go thru this site and meet members, develop relationships and start swapping links.

3 sites I am currently managing are open to a blogroll exchange so please pm if interested. They are all related to home building, construction and real estate. Also, would be interested in article exchanges and site reviews. pm if interested.

AnthonyArrigo · 11-15-2008, 01:50 PM

There was a question earlier in the thread as to whether the web would replace the yellow pages in 10-15 years

This has already happened. More people currently use the web to search for local companies than the yellow pages. YP isn't dead, but its no longer the big dog it used to be. It will continue to diminish in importance over time.
If you are expecting to have a successful business in the future, you absolutely must be on the web. If you are expecting to succeed on the web, you must devote resources to placing well in the search engines. It doesn't need to consume your life and all your finances, but it won't happen without being treated as a priority.
We're making it work in our market... you can too!

Anthony
StarryNightLights.com

mrhodus · 11-16-2008, 02:19 AM

I had www.resutlimaging.com build my website (www.twobrothersbrickpaving.com). I rank for a about every kind of search term imaginable regarding Brick Paving in the 3 metro cities I service Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton Ohio. Oh, and its a pretty nice looking website too. Just a couple hundred bucks a month, and it generates some good quality leads. During the busy season I get about 10 leads a week from it.