how to get more business?

sandhu40 · 11 Jan 2010

i have been browsing google for the past few evenings thinking of how to get more business. its seems that there are lots of ways to advertise free- one i have thought of is getting a decent website up on the go.

for instance, there are 22000 hits per month for the term 'new boiler' on google and and 27000 hits per month for the word 'boiler installation'

if you search for the above term boiler installation in google most of the sites at the top, excluding british gas, contain the actual words in their domain name. eg domain names boiler installation .net, boilerinstallation.o.uk, boilerinstallationlondon dot co uk
so my question is, how much do you use the internet for getting business and do u have a website? i am thinking of getting a website domain name similar to one above... eg boiler installation if ther e is one available.

these days even someone like me with hardly any knowledge of website building can build a site wit the free software available.

I will check and report back.

Any views/?

Johnmelad502 · 11 Jan 2010

Boiler-instalation-wolverhampton.co.uk

Might be a better one as it gives your trade and location. My website is the same, where I am and what I do.

There are also plenty of free advertising websites, these don't necessarily bring in much work but do get you high on google search engines.

WoodYouLike · 12 Jan 2010

Have a look at the website of one of your colleagues - also DIY-not member.

It's the content that counts and using a blog platform to create your website will help you much more in getting ranked than any other website tool.

Make sure your content is suited for both Google as for your prospects, there's a fine line between the two. More about this in an article I wrote a while ago.

sandhu40 · 12 Jan 2010

Yes I definately agree. Someone once said content is king and I remembered that! A site like mike th boiler man ranks really high, its full of well written content- but to be honest someone could write that in a day. He doesnt have a blog (which i agree is critical) and he doesnt update the site that often. What he has done (over many years) is advertise his site in forums etc.

Ive been messing around on weebly.com and advise anyone who wants a web presence to use that site, even a learner like me can make a very good site, like the one you have linked to above, on there. You can add contact forms, blogs and polls. I think the polls charge though, not sure. Everything else is free. You can update whenever you like aswell and some SEO help is available, eg naming pages and adding meta tags. Its completely free but your domain name will be www.yourdomain.weebly.com which is the only draw back, unless you want to pay something like £5 per month and remove that advertisning.

Ive just bought na dpaid for mya new site www.newboiler.co.uk which has around 20,000+ searches made for that term a month on google.

WoodYouLike · 12 Jan 2010

sandhu40 said:
Ive just bought na dpaid for mya new site www.newboiler.co.uk which has around 20,000+ searches made for that term a month on google.

And in the end in just comes down to how many of the searchers end up on your site and more important: take action, i.e. is there a proper "call for action" on your site?
Otherwise it's the old: quantity (number of visitors) over quality (number of visitors actually contacting you and ordering something).

sandhu40 · 12 Jan 2010

I understand what you're saying. It will take probably a year or so to get to the first page on google with good, clever advertising. There is lots of money to be made from boilers and central heating though and I could eventually pay someone to optimise it for me- as long as the money was rolling on. Its a long way off but it can be done. Its a memorable name on the side of a van so should do well.

There are comanies out there selling boiler installation leads for £15 and they sell that lead to 3 companies at a time. It was looking at that that got me into advertising on the net.

edit

I have only had that site for one day, all that crap was already on there!

I had to buy the domain off the guy.

WoodYouLike · 12 Jan 2010

sandhu40 said:
I understand what you're saying. It will take probably a year or so to get to the first page on google with good, clever advertising.

No, it doesn't

Sites I've build for others using Typepad blog platform are being indexed pretty quickly and clever adding of keywords in the content (not just in the meta tags) adds to the chance the site gets listed rather high rather quickly.

Adding content on a regular base with information your reader/website visitor finds valuable adds to that chance too - the more often you are linked too by real human beings. Add buttons like "tweet this" etc to it helps too.

Leadman · 13 Jan 2010

Ive just bought and paid for my new site www.newboiler.co.uk which has around 20,000+ searches made for that term a month on google.
Hi, Can i ask;
How do you know there was that many serches?
Cheers
Dave

sandhu40 · 14 Jan 2010

To see how many searches are made on google for a particular term you need the google keyword tool. You'd need to modify the search for your particular term. eg there will be plenty of searches made for chinese restaurant but the one that you'll be interested in is chinese restauarant birmingham, or chinese restaurant harrow. If you provide your services to the whole of the UK then it's different. you can filter by using broad, exact, phrase, negative etc. You'll find explanations.

woodyoulike, how does an RSS feed work? Does it just email people when you've posted new blogs on your website. Will it help rank you website better?

Thanks

WoodYouLike · 14 Jan 2010

No, it does not work automagically. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and most blog platforms have it standard in them.

All you have to do is use the RSS feed of your site/blog and use a software program that readers can subscribe to. (AWeber autoresponder comes to mind).
Readers can also decide to put your RSS feed into a RSS reader (google blog reader for instance) without having to subscribe to any other program (so you don't know who they are).

Feedburner (now part of Google) makes "burning a feed" more versatile - you can use it to add various widgets on your blog to increase links etc.

It will rank your site better because of the feed (it gets picked up automagically by various tracking systems like Technorati)

I use feedburner in combination with AWeber. Placed a webform on the blog and now when ever I publish a new post AWeber (through the feedburn connection) picks it up and sends out an email to everyone who subscribed to the "alerts". My emails contain a link to the full article, so more chance my readers read the post etc.

sandhu40 · 14 Jan 2010

Thanks for the post.

weebly, the free website maker I use has a free blog and a rss feeder, although i dont know fully how this works yet. would I need to put this feeder on my home page or blog page. also where should i put the blog? homepage or its own blog page?

thanks again in advance

WoodYouLike · 14 Jan 2010

Not familiar with weebly so can't help you there. Any proper platform has an automated rss on any blog and an explanation/help page about it.

how to get more business?

Johnmelad502

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