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My Adventure with SEO

49K views 209 replies 65 participants last post by  Aidan Lorse 
#1 ·
Six years ago I stated Tried & True Services. I strongly believed that a company should have a Web presence. However, I never understood why guys spent thousands on their sites and SEO.

I used Service Magic to help get leads before my WOM would be of any use. I didn't understand, nor really wanted to understand, the idea and concept of the ever changing SEO landscape. It seemed that I would have to spend several hours a week just to keep up. I often referred to it as chasing my SEO tail.

So I just let my site represent us on its own. I may have received 5 leads in 5 years.

A year or so ago I met Brian with MyOnlineToolbox. We had a "discussion" about SEO. Brian reached out to me educating me on LGS and encouraged me to look into his introductory SEO course. I did, with a little hesitation.

A weird thing happened. As I was taking each section all I wanted to do was stop the session and fix my site.

By the end of the course I had some work cut it but the instruction and explanation on the videos made it super easy and fairly quick.

I spent about a week in the site getting the basics down and then spent the next few months honing and sharpening each area.

It's been a bit over six months and I have to say the results are amazing. For my target let words I'm first page from third and forth page. Google places shows up on 80-90% of my key words. I'm getting 5-10 leads a week on average from my site.

I can't wait to get some time to take the Advanced course this Fall.

If you are looking at improving your site or just educating yourself on the basics of SEO, you have to check out MyOnlineToolbox.com.

Thanks Brian!
 
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#129 ·
Hello,

We purchased this basic class and had our services broken down to start.
We work as a husband and wife team and are interested to jointly understand these marketing topics. Been in the industry since 2005 and with our own business since 2010. We moved to a new town and are looking for a fresh approach. Was just about to upgrade to the advanced class and noticed how you teach to participate in places like this. We decided to give it a try and could you mind looking at our site before we upgrade? It is www.badencontracting.com. Not sure if we will upgrade to the advanced or maybe the marketing plan or both. Anytime would be appreciated. Thank you.

Corey & Megan
 
#130 ·
Hi Corey & Megan,

I verified your account and also see some nice starts with your site.

I see you created individual service pages, but there are numerous areas for improvement. For example, you have a Kitchen & Bath Remodeling page, but I much rather you have a dedicated Kitchen Remodeling page and a separate Bathroom Remodeling page. There will be times some people may be looking for both services at the same time, but most of the time people will be looking for one or the other. Therefore we should target them as an individual service.

And it is nice to see you have a mention for a Lead Generation service without a link to their sites (so I guess you picked up on the negative topics to avoid too).

Also nice to see you learning about social connections, both with the use of Facebook as well as places like this forum.

I will reach out to you before end of week in order to discuss some other observations I see so we can position better for whatever upgrade options would be good to consider. Not sure how much you are already working on or not, so I prefer to speak so I do not overstep on what your already planning.

Thanks and glad to see you moving forward with your marketing.
Brian
 
#131 ·
Hi everyone,
My new site came out very good. It is www.OriginalBuilders.com. I was showed to be using my company name even with capital letters to help it stand out better. Thanks for that. Also got services and locations set up separately. Was little hard for me to get customers to send reviews to add to the site but toolbox gentleman helped with wording to send emails to customers to help out. Service areas was probably the hardest for me to organize but it came out good for new customers to see. Now working on getting my facebook going better. Was a lot of work to get done in short time but worth it since bidding on new projects and want to show a better image. Will be adding more content soon to help with the rankings for leads. Glad I am very busy now so the leads not as important but wanted to get it started before I slow down. Thank you motb for helping me understand. Whenever you see my note please remember about the linkedin things you wanted to show me after site was built. Not sure what it was and just remembered.
Vladimir Kolarik
 
#132 ·
Thank you motb for helping me understand. Whenever you see my note please remember about the linkedin things you wanted to show me after site was built. Not sure what it was and just remembered.
Vladimir Kolarik
Hi Vladimir,
Just returned from vacation and did an audit of the new site. Happy to now represent your image so much better. I am sending you a separate communication including the reminder for LinkedIn as well as the Citation Building.

To others following this thread,
Traditionally I focus on Facebook for Social Networking, mostly for the Residential marketplace. But I expand on it using LinkedIn when a contractor also works in the Commercial space since that tends to attract a different networking opportunity.
 
#137 ·
Hello motb,
I have seen you here and linkedin too. We signed up for this basic class for our roofing company. The site is http://www.allseasonsroofingllc.com/. The class helped me better see many of our mistakes but I think I need some guidance. Was about to sign up for the next class but wanted to ask you to check out our site and please tell me if you think I am ready or anything else I should think about. We specialize in commercial roofs. Thank you much.
Rach
 
#138 ·
Hi Rachel,

I had a chance to review your site and sent a note via your site to coordinate a time to follow up.

Commercial Roofing has a few differences than the Residential Roofing and I would like to first guide you how to better separate the specific services to add more firepower to your inbound marketing.

For example, in the Residential Roofing markets, one may want to better isolate whether they are doing shingles, tile, slate or even copper roofing.

And for your situation, we may want to summarize the Flat Roofs and then better promote options of EPDM, PVC and TPO. An analogy is someone saying they are a Remodeling Company but we need to break down the specifics of Kitchen Remodeling, Bathroom Remodeling and Basement Remodeling.

Thanks for reaching out.
 
#139 ·
SEO help

Hi motb,
I am reaching out on behalf of myself, husband and daughter. You should see our company website (www.calfayan.com) already in your customer list but under the name of our daughter who is the one technically inclined. We have been in business 20 years and have decided to make a major change in 2018 including running the company efficiently and also focusing on better marketing. We were referred to you from a group you are affiliated with. The teacher is Michael Stone from Construction Programs & Results. It seems you have worked with many of the attendees of his classes and we were planning on reaching out to you for a marketing overhaul. We mentioned it to our daughter and then learned about the seo topics here and she already signed up. Figured I would share that story and ask that you contact us when you have a chance since we would like to approach this beyond just the classes.
Thank you.
Laura
 
#140 ·
Nice to meet you Laura,

I did find the sign up and will reach out to you shortly. What I like most is the cosmetics of the images and even the video is very cool.

But I can tell the company who probably had their first start with you didn't have the marketing experience they promoted. Going back to that cool video on your home page, look at the label on the top left and you will see it say "Untitled". YouTube is a fantastic marketing opportunity that can easily support your company branding or your services or your locations. Many of us marketing folk may offer varying comments about how best to title it, but it is easy to agree that "Untitled" is not beneficial. Putting that aside, there is a good starting point but I do have many questions better left to our conversation.

Feel free to come back to offer whatever comments you feel would be helpful to someone new to this so they can see how someone progresses from the early stages of interest to understanding to implementing.

Brian
aka motb
 
#141 ·
I follow Dean from Backlinco and it helps me a lot with creating content - blog posts for our website. Also, Neil Patel is pretty great, too. We pay a lot of attention to anchor texts, alt image descriptions, titles, h1's h2's, product and blog post optimization. And there is always room for more improvement. It's amazing how learning process never ends and how things change.
 
#142 ·
Hi MOTB,

I posted something similar in another DIY SEO topic so forgive me for any duplication. I’m not really sure what you read on the forums. Feel free to glance at the other topic of a Simple Weekend Guide (post #9) if you need more info. I explain the situation in a little more detail there.

Basically, a couple years ago I started a handyman & light remodeling business on the side (my day job is electrical engineering). Now I am taking my business more seriously. I’ve spent a few months learning how to build a website, and recently finished my first draft. The site was good enough to publish, but by no means perfect. I chose to do it myself because I’m somewhat tech-savvy and I enjoy learning. I’m sure there’s a case to be made for hiring a professional website company, but for now I have the desire and enough of a background to do this myself.

Anyway, I needed some direction regarding fixing my SEO issues so I purchased your Basic and Advanced classes. I’ve begun watching the Basic class but haven’t made it to implementing any changes yet. My website is www.simplyrenewedspaces.com. If you happen to have a couple spare minutes and want to shoot it full of SEO holes, I’d appreciate the feedback.

Thanks,

Steve
Simply Renewed Spaces
 
#143 ·
Hi MOTB,

Anyway, I needed some direction regarding fixing my SEO issues so I purchased your Basic and Advanced classes. I’ve begun watching the Basic class but haven’t made it to implementing any changes yet. My website is www.simplyrenewedspaces.com. If you happen to have a couple spare minutes and want to shoot it full of SEO holes, I’d appreciate the feedback.

Thanks,

Steve
Simply Renewed Spaces
Hello Steve,
I saw the sign ups. Thank you. Yes, I will give you more than a few spare minutes, but prefer you to think of it more along the lines of "Marketing Holes followed by SEO Holes". I made a handful of promises for existing customers to deliver before Thanksgiving. Let me put those behind me and I will reach out to you directly using your sign up information on either Friday or by early next week. You can feel free to come back here to express what you learn, but I prefer to allow you to decide what most appropriate to share. Have a nice holiday and looking forward to helping through a marketing transformation.
Brian
MyOnlineToolbox
 
#145 ·
Hi everyone,
I came here around July when just getting started working with myonline toolbox to learn and get organized to build a new website.
I got the new site and I wanted to show off my most recent job and even got my first customer review on video.
It was impossible to visualize me doing this before and it was a great job.
http://www.originalbuilders.com/area/georgia/dunwoody/stone-mountain-kitchen-remodel-2018/
Any comments? This is good to show how you can change by learning and focusing.
Thanks toolbox and I have more coming.
Vladimir
 
#150 ·
Hi Vladimir,
Nice to see the actual job come out the way it did, as well as you now enjoying being able to show off your work so professionally. There are some things for you to also know that I was going to share offline but it doesn't hurt to make others aware here too. Your new website was launched and you had a Domain Authority of 1. And all your services and location pages also had a Page Authority of 1. As of this email your Domain Authority is 11, and the Services pages have a Page Authority of 17 and the Area pages have a Page Authority of 15. We also have some nice keyword ranking diversity which I will share with you offline. This is a fantastic job with fantastic marketing work and I know the site and the other items we are working on will be great for your future marketing goals. Looking forward to more of the same.

To the others who are not aware,
I met Vladimir just 1/2 year ago and he had no idea about websites, and most other marketing topics. We had a goal to be able to capture his jobs exactly like he shows on the above page he shared. There is something missing that he may not have offered (and I will be a little restrained to ensure to not give away the store). When Vladimir first asked me to review the project, we had a shared folder that was organized really well (by Vladimir). Then I repackaged the information in order to maximize the website and SEO topics. It may take a moment to see what his true marketing objective is with the page, but working with him on this was rather easy (compared with those who just send their programmer pictures and a video and then hope the results come out good). My point is, he took a little time to learn and organize himself, and now we can strategically focus on entrenching certain services and certain locations. Very nice to see how someone can change for life in such a short time. I will use this example to cover many aspects of word content, picture quality, video quality, picture and video SEO, and linking too. Thumbs up. :thumbup:
Brian
 
#151 ·
SEO help needed

Hello myonlinetoolbox,

A guy from markup and profit mentioned you some time ago. I decided to make a big change this year so please do not judge me by how the site looks now. I work with a programmer who seems to be better at creating websites but it does not generate me any activity. Our business dates back to the late 70s and do well with local word of mouth but do not want to just rely on that. I think my business is not reflected well from my website. I want to sign up for the class or classes, but would like to speak to you since I may want to have a more detailed plan in place and want to understand the differences. My site is www.miltonconstruction.net. Please look at the video on the home page before calling me so you can get a sense of the work I do. Thank you.

Todd
 
#152 ·
My site is www.miltonconstruction.net. Please look at the video on the home page before calling me so you can get a sense of the work I do. Thank you. Todd
Hi Todd,
So glad you mentioned the video since I made an assumption when I first saw the Lego Building before I got interrupted when first going to your site. I came back and went through the video and see a big disconnect between the type of company you really are versus how you are projected to the outside world. The inbound lead generation topics are a separate issue too. I will connect shortly before the week is up. Thanks for reaching out.
Brian
 
#155 ·
Hi all,

I got started in December-January with MOTB Education and Strategy Planning. Have been working hard to re-do my site and recently got my first new customer strictly from the organic search. That was pretty exciting. He turned out to be a web developer and had some really positive things to say about my website. That was very encouraging.

To date I have done a handful of MOTB tasks such as re-architecting the site per Brian's recommendations, beefing up my internal links, adding content (i.e. project write-ups with photos, etc.), getting a business Facebook page, etc. There have been many cosmetic changes and other changes as well.

Next up is some video marketing. I'm getting busier so it may be awhile, but I've begun planning for it.

I just wanted to let others know this works. It just takes some focused attention to make it happen. And it doesn't all have to be done overnight. Chip away at it and you'll be glad.

Just now I did a search on "Mill Creek Handyman" - probably my primary search term - and two of my pages show up. They're in the #1 and #2 spots for organic search results. I'm also in the Google 3-pack. These results vary a bit by time of day, but I'm always on page 1 with at least one of my pages.

Anyway, have a good one!

Steve
Simply Renewed Spaces
 
#156 ·
Thumbs way up for the basic class

I recently signed up for the basic class. I'm about half way through and find the content very valuable. I was just overwhelmed before with how to really make the website work for us instead of just working me. :eek: The material is very focused and direct. It's such a relief to not have to dig for information but instead have the information presented in a logical manner that I can follow and apply to our website while I'm going through the training. Our site www.ozworx.space is coming along, and we are preparing to present our latest business processes at our local chamber meeting next week. Plus we got our first Google review! I feel confident we're on our way to more and better leads.
 
#157 ·
Hello ozworx ... I went to your site to learn the meaning of what the name is. I see you made a handful of changes and want to remind you to also tackle the Title Tags, starting with the Home Page. I do not know what the limitations of Squarespace are, but please ensure to focus on that as well as the Meta Descriptions to support the individual page indexing. Hopefully you are aware of what I mean from the classes :thumbsup:
 
#158 ·
Success!

Yes! Thank you. I was able to find a way to suppress the meta description displaying across the banners in my squarespace and have updated all the title pages based on your guidance. It's amazing how many nooks and crannies there are. It takes some diligence to address them all. I'm already seeing a big difference in search results. :thumbup: Thank you!
 
#159 ·
Fantastic Information - Wish I'd Found The Training Sooner!

There’s a lot of great practical information that I’m very grateful to find in both the beginner and advanced training. I have been going through the training and focusing on applying the updates in the training as I go. It would have been fantastic to start with this information first meaning I wish I would have found the training earlier. Fantastic information and I’m very grateful for your training! Getting everything sorted takes some dedication, and I’m grateful to have had the guidance of your training to do it. I appreciate any tidbits you’d like to send my way! My site is https://www.ozworx.space/
Ginga
 
#160 ·
I appreciate any tidbits you’d like to send my way! My site is https://www.ozworx.space/
Ginga
Hi Ginga,
Welcome back. Yes, I see you went through the Basic class and that you recently signed up for the Advanced too. That is great, not just for signing up but I see you are implementing changes. I will send you a private reply within a day or two to give some suggestions while being in sync with whatever you may already being doing. Appreciate you coming here to give the feedback. Have a nice day and I will ensure to get back to you shortly.
Brian
 
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