How do you advertise your business?

[nhg]

Hi,

As some may have seen/heard, I recently started a business and have already been in contact with some of you for advice.

I am in the process of doing all the advertising yet have heard strong positives and negatives for each type.

Eg:
- Newspaper is pricey and minimal conversion from enquiries,
- True-local is a double edged sword, as some of the best tradies I have worked with say only their very few 'unsatisfied' clients were the ones who took the time to write a review, whilst the happy ones never get around to it.
- Websites seem to range from $100 - $100,000
- Word of mouth by far came first however it takes time to build up a reputation.

If you wouldn't mind I'd like to hear what type, or combination of advertising worked for you?

(meanwhile, massive learning curve, wow, things are different on the other side of PAYG, love the challenge!)

Regards

NHG

 

[devank]

Regarding website - SEO is critical.

It is not too difficult if you know what your doing and spend a bit of time.

Recently I managed to get a two sites ranked high if you search on suburb and field.
Eg1: Search "camberwell accountant". www.proactiveaccounting.com.au comes up quite high.

Eg 2: Search 'Sydney' and 'my area of expertise' and 'expert'. I got my site to be the first 'business' site.

 

[nhg]

Hey, thanks Davank (do you do SEO by chance?)

Yes I'm looking into that.

I know if I sign up to True Local, for that locality and type, it is $360 is for 6 months to be ranked pretty high up.

However I want to make sure I have the website and everything else set up right first.

Newspapers are about $40/week/paper for a business card sized ad. I'm also finding with both pricing and cheap advertising, your get cheap clients who try and drive the price down further.

eg. I can do a quality job for say $9k instead of $12k and still turn a good profit. Suddenly all the calls are asking me to do it for $8k. However when I ask for $10k for the exact same thing, the clients that call are like, HEY, THAT'S A GOOD PRICE. Confuses the hell out of me atm.

 

[S.T]

Don't forget social media too, it all ties in with SEO and helps build your businesses online profile. Can form some really good communities on Facebook too with not that much effort.

 

[devank]

Hey, thanks Davank (do you do SEO by chance?)

I have started getting into it. I sent a PM.

 

[Redwood]

Regarding website - SEO is critical.

It is not too difficult if you know what your doing and spend a bit of time.

Recently I managed to get a two sites ranked high if you search on suburb and field.
Eg1: Search "camberwell accountant". www.proactiveaccounting.com.au comes up quite high.

Eg 2: Search 'Sydney' and 'my area of expertise' and 'expert'. I got my site to be the first 'business' site.

How did you go with the recent penguin update?

Many 'leading' SEO firms failed miserably, with many clients being penalised by Google, with a massive loss of rankings. Adding the link above would have helped proactive's SEO campaign....

 

[jim1964]

www.befoundonline.com.au speak with Peter.

 

[pinkboy]

My business is primarily built on how good our last job was, and word of mouth. I have not spent a single cent on advertising for the past 3 years as I have found newspaper/radio etc to be of no benefit. Its all about getting out and promoting our services to the mines and engineering companies, then backing it up with a good quality job.

pinkboy

 

[devank]

How did you go with the recent penguin update?

Just for non-geaks, Penguin update is basically trying to fix webspam. I think it is a great move. Common sense always prevails.

Here are few major areas it is looking at:
Authority - You can take care of this through the use of Author Rank along with social networks especially Google+. I need to get my client to do more of this. 'Real thing' needs to come from the business itself.

Anchor Text - Avoid having too much keyword used in anchor text to link your site. Too suspicious. Simply use variations of your brand instead. Did a bit of clean up.

Inward Links - Simply don't buy any ?links? to increase your ranking. They should be genuine not 'link spam'. Check who has links to your site. Remove any undesirables. I never had them in the first place.

 

[D.T.]

I like it, its more 'organic', but people will soon be across it and theyll do another fix

 

[devank]

I like it, its more 'organic', but people will soon be across it and theyll do another fix

and that is why SEO is not a static job

 

[ok180]

Organic SEO is a waste of time for anything competitive these days. Google is hell bent on pushing people into Adwords so they keep shuffling the results. You guys applauding the "Penguin" update are just drinking the koolaid, open your eyes.

Don't pay for True Local, waste of money.

Get a website done, register it with Google local results so it comes up when people look for your services locally.

Do some basic SEO on it.

Try Adwords, be very picky with the keywords and areas you advertise.

Put an ad up on Gumtree.

Put an ad up on Ebay.

Register with some home improvement website forums. Put your website link in your sig, get involved. People will start to ring you. Why do you think there is so many Mortgage brokers on this forum?

 

[ok180]

Just for non-geaks, Penguin update is basically trying to fix webspam. I think it is a great move. Common sense always prevails.

lol, no.

As I said, public company trying to grow profits pushing people towards paid advertising. That's all it is.

 

[Singo]

Register with some home improvement website forums. Put your website link in your sig, get involved. People will start to ring you. Why do you think there is so many Mortgage brokers on this forum?

This is some solid advice.

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

If you're in a business where you can do repeat work, build a database of 200+ clients. Keep in touch with them. It's that simple.

 

[devank]

Disagree.Being able to be found through Google is essential to any growing business.
Regardless of what ever Google does (right or wrong), they are the major player in this area. We HAVE TO work with what we got.

 

[nhg]

hey

really appreciating the advice guys, a lot of solid advice here, the SEO is something i've been looking into along with a holistic online presence.

the home-reno sites are something i hadn't thought about, definitely investor sites, not so much reno sites. will have to get in on that later this week.

i'm in and out of home atm, hectic days ahead till next week. i do apologise for the rushed response, definitely looking forward to reading more advice from you all.

NHG

 

[Colin Rice]

Register with some home improvement website forums. Put your website link in your sig, get involved. People will start to ring you. Why do you think there is so many Mortgage brokers on this forum?

There is not that many, well on this side of the world anyway

 

[Colin Rice]

If you're in a business where you can do repeat work, build a database of 200+ clients. Keep in touch with them. It's that simple.

PT_ Bear has summed it up.

We even quote each other

 

[DaveM]

Signature on somersoft. Oh wait..