How do you advertise your business?

[Jen_PFR]

Definitely, definitely definitely you need a web presence. I have found my three latest music students simply through Gumtree. One of my student's mums was despairing, she said she didn't know what to do about her daughter and getting her another flute teacher (current one is going on maternity leave) so in desperation she googled, and found me That said, I do also have a dedicated site which contains more details on my flute teaching. I also use google adwords with my sites, I consider it a reasonably cheap form of targeted marketing.

With the properties, we've had our site for about three years now. I very rarely do any advertising any more, we get about 30+ new visitors to the site daily. It doesn't sound like much, but you only need one of those to be interested enough to enquire, and there you go

 

[Rentwithpets]

Congrats on your new business! I'm in the same boat as you. Recently launched my web business in beta and getting boggled down by the SEO stuff. There is so much great advice out there, and yet I am finding it hard to rank well by organic results alone. I've registered it on the 3 major search engines, but it is not coming up very high on searches. I also have social media pages linked to the site, but I must admit that I'm not utilizing the social media as much as I could - it is a work in progress.

I tried google ad-words, it comes with insights on impressions and conversion rates. Cheapest paid advertising so far and I am very happy with it. Need to tweak the ad word campaign though.

I meet lots of people and they are all taking my cards excitedly, but not many have visited the site to do what I would like them to do. Friends are great advocates for my business, but most people are not in the market to use my services every day (or at least I hope my friends don't need to use them everyday). Mind you my business site has only been up for 3 weeks, and we are still fixing a few bugs...

For a renovation business referral is key. An online brochure website is great for showing clients the type of work you do. Before and after pictures are good. If a website is not within time or budget constraints, I would recommend at least having a facebook page to show off the pictures of your work. Another place where renovation companies get clients is serviceseeking.com.au where clients post jobs and companies get the job leads. Wish you all the best with your new business!

 

[Redwood]

There are so many view about SEO, and personally my business has struggled with 'web' presence.

SMSF is such a competitive area now with SMSF now ard $40 CPC when it used to be $2. I was advised to go SEO, however, the penguin update hurt the rankings, and speaking to other SMSF guys, many others suffered the same fete. Yet the SEO companies here continue to charge their fees.....they are struggling to respond to Google's changes which may definitely put some pressure on this space. When you search SMSF its usually the corporates who are on top.

I am looking at changing SEO providers, however, with the two leading SEO companies that I have been in contact with over the last year, when I done a reference check they failed miserably (actually the whirlpool forum also helped in assessing a provider), so I did not proceed and will be spending Christmas working through a strategy going forward.

As someone mentioned above, nothing is more important than repeat business, and referral networks. These we have developed over recent times and will continue to.

By all means if you have a great SEO provider, do let me know direct.

 

[devank]

the penguin update hurt the rankings, and speaking to other SMSF guys, many others suffered the same fete.

Well... Google is penalising abusers. I even remember the days when people put massive amount of unrelated keywords in HTML's comments tags (so it won't appear at the front end).

When you search SMSF its usually the corporates who are on top

It is hard to beat big companies who has big budgets and dedicated marketing teams. I guess the trick is to have something 'unique'.

For example, I developed a site for an accounting company. I could never get them to appear at the top. However, we started promoting the suburb's name together. Now, they are at the top if you search for their 'suburb' & 'accountants'.
Similarly, I developed my own professional profile as I'm finishing up soon at my place. You can never find me if you just search for 'modelling'. However, if you search for the software I use and 'expert Sydney' then I'm the first person or company. This site's name is 'mylastname.com' but my site doesn't come up high if you search for my last name! That is because the SEO didn't target that name.

 

[Redwood]

Well... Google is penalising abusers. I even remember the days when people put massive amount of unrelated keywords in HTML's comments tags (so it won't appear at the front end).


It is hard to beat big companies who has big budgets and dedicated marketing teams. I guess the trick is to have something 'unique'.

For example, I developed a site for an accounting company. I could never get them to appear at the top. However, we started promoting the suburb's name together. Now, they are at the top if you search for their 'suburb' & 'accountants'.
Similarly, I developed my own professional profile as I'm finishing up soon at my place. You can never find me if you just search for 'modelling'. However, if you search for the software I use and 'expert Sydney' then I'm the first person or company. This site's name is 'mylastname.com' but my site doesn't come up high if you search for my last name! That is because the SEO didn't target that name.

Hi Devank, yes 'geography' will help, found this out through my own research rather than my SEO provider.....i.e SMSF Melbourne....tricks of the trade hey!

Re penalising one of my competitors was blacklisted, had to move his domain name and start again, I never want to be in that position....

 

[nhg]

Thanks for the advice guys.

So far from my experiences...

Word of mouth is No.1. Am getting some recommended work now which is great.

Facebook seems to be the go for a free, mass advertising tool.
Followed by just about every other online advertising method.

Newspapers/Magazines and all the other methods are either too expensive for small business or completely ineffective.

Advertising on my vehicle I've been warned against. From the few people i've talked with, all it does is get your car broken into.

Anyone have experience in putting up banners whilst doing work? That seems to be a good idea too for exposure.

 

[Peter_Tersteeg]

A lot of people in trade and home improvement fields will put a sign out the front of their current job, and do a semi-personal letterbox drop or even door knock the rest of the street.

 

[moyjos]

Hi pages has been reasonably successful for us. http://www.homeimprovementpages.com.au/

We don't pay for their premium listing and I would say we get 2 or 3 leads a week from it. Then it is up to hubby to make the sale (which he does over 80% of the time )


The work ute has always had signage on it (magnetics on the doors and a metal sign on the rear tailgate). We have never had anyone attempt to break into the cab or the tool box in close on 20years. My car used to have magnets on the doors too, but I made the choice to not put them on the BMW. I think a lot of people may get the impression that we might be too expensive if we can afford a Beemer .

Networking, In the early days of business, hubby would spend at least an hour every Friday at the local pub having a beer and chatting (tough I know) but he met a LOT of local builders and do a lot of work with them. A few of those guys are now estimators for larger building companies and we do their work.

Get into the habit of always asking a new customer where they got your name from. If it came from a previous customer, send that previous customer a thank you letter and a $1 scratchy . You would amazed how far that will get you

 

[beachgurl]

If you don't have them already, get a few shirts printed and wear them whenever you are out and about. I've spoken to a few tradies when they were sitting at maccas or at a coffee shop.

Meet a few of the local real estate agents and ask if you could be added to their trade list.

Put your business card up in the local coffee shops or community notice boards. People love talking to baristas so by becoming friendly with a few may see a few leads come your way too.

 

[pod86]

A few have already mentioned SEO for better keyword placement on google
make sure you have set your business on google place (very important)
use all the google product as most of them are free and will get you good results in placement and free marketing.

put your business info in your local community forums for example somersoft, make sure you have a signature with your business details.
Do that with all forums you are actively involved as they trust their local users.

post your business details on free business directories and classified ads, some mentioned gumtree.. there are plenty around so utilized them as they are free to post.

 

[impala67]

- Newspaper is pricey and minimal conversion from enquiries,

Re: newspapers - most suburbs have at least one local paper and this was successful for my mate's tradie business. Not sure if already mentioned.

 

[Redwood]

We have discussed SEO, I am now about to engage a new SEO provider as the previous one has stalled.

During December I used a email marketing company. It was expensive and under performed.

I am now looking at another online email marketer to execute email campaigns using a topic of advertisement and sending out the email to educated consumers on their database. In the previous campaign we designed a 'landing page' which was a flyer with a call to action and the consumer would respond and enter their email and contact number.

I am looking for a new provider similar to the above, any recommendations?

 

[Jen_PFR]

I just thought of another way I advertise - I take A5-sized flyers along to the various exercise classes I attend (mostly zumba) and leave them at the front table, where people (and most of them are mums) sign in. This would only work for certain service based businesses - I do it for my flute teaching, but not for our properties - but it's a useful market to tap into. This would be good for work like cleaning, babysitting, beauty services, tutoring of any description etc.

Apart from the printing costs it's basically cost free, and it isn't intrusive - people only pick up flyers if they have some kind of interest.

 

[nhg]

We've just started investing in banners to put at work sites.

Haven't bought any vehicles yet (though looking into it) so thinking of magnetic stickers and putting them on the side of the utes we hire/borrow at job sites.