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SEO and wordpress seem to go hand in hand lately. Google just loves to be fed and what better way to feed google then with a RSS feed? Yes it seems cliche, but its true! Give google what they want and they will be more likely to return the favor! So if your not using an RSS feed on your site then try a wordpress blog!
It is really very simple and you can easily do it yourself…. visit www.wordpress.com to sign up.
But just a word to the wise, in order for your blog to be really sucessful you need to add food to the feed and you need to do it regularly. Just like your pet doesn’t want to be feed on a spartic schedule, your readers and google want consistent food. So start slow, maybe one or two posts a month, then make it consistent. If you are little more ambitious then try a post a week.
But don’t get too excited and start by posting daily! If you do and then you actual get subscibers they will be disappointed when you loose steam and can’t keep up…. and ultimatley they will become disenfrancised and leave.
The best bang for your buck is your customers. Just read “Purple Cow” or “Satisfaction: Every Good Company Listens to its customers.”
Before you spend $1000 a month on another marketing tactic why not look at your current system and find a way to take that $1000 and improve your product or quality of service. Its a slower burning fire but the results are much more far reaching.
Check out how well Bulwark has done with its Las Vegas Pest Control reviews.
Not only do these reviews get traction but they show up on Google. Try a search for Las Vegas Pest Control. You will notice that next to Bulwark’s map listing there are 9 reviews. More reviews then any other Las Vegas service in that area. And their average review is 4 stars or better.
This question is as widely based as the public itself. This question hits the core of marketing. How do you get your product or service in front of the masses when they are looking for you? Yellowpages have a great argument, “customers only pick up a phone book when they are ready to call someone.” This is a great selling point and its probably accurate. Its also close to accurate that 60% of the phone book users already know who they are looking for when they reach for that phone book (Stat pulled from a DEX media packet). The phone book is used as a directory.
Search engines or online searches on the other had are different. If someone knows who they are looking for, say Bulwark, then they don’t search for a generic term like “Exterminating” or “Pest Control“. They search for Bulwark. If they are searching for “Pest Control” then they are shopping or information gathering. But since they are window shopping, conversions for online visitors is very low.
Still the best way for people to find a service is through referrals. Most people will ask friends or family members for recommendations when it comes to common household services or products.
In the end, searching for a business probably covers all the above methods and more. Many people will use a combination approach. They will take their friends recommendations and then do a little more online research. Or they will pick up a phone book and remember as they are turning the pages that Joe next door uses Bulwark Pest Control….
Which brings up the next point, Branding. Is branding effective?
What works and what doesn’t work in pest control advertising?
I am constantly bombarded with phone calls and emails for advertising. Now isn’t that just a little ironic? If your a marketing company or advertiser then shouldn’t you be able to reach me through your advertising methods???
If your advertising is that effective then why are you calling me instead of advertising to me?
Just food for thought.
Our most recent call was for yet another phone book directory. Paper must be getting cheaper. What a phone book company doesn’t see is this:
GENERAL PHONE BOOK STATS-
100 calls=
5 bogus calls – Solicitors/wrong numbers.
48 Existing customers – No New money just one of our local customers looking for us and happening to find us in the phone book directory.
24 referrals calls- Looking for us, if they don’t find us in your directory then they will find us somewhere else.
23 Sales Leads- (Potential new customers, shoppers) Dex quoted me that pest control closes at 33%.
So out of 100 phone calls you might close 7.59.
Now this is just an average, and perhaps it has little real bearing on if the phone book works for you. But for me it shows you what a sales guy doesn’t. “Oh, Billy Bob’s Pest Control got 300 phone calls last month. At $3000 and closing half of those that’s only $20 a new customer!!!”
Wrong, your pest control service might get new customers but I doubt you are really bringing in even close to 50% of those calls. Run the numbers yourself. Then ask yourself should I be working to pay the phone book? That’s what happens when your phone book advertising breaks even. You do all the pest control work the phone book steals all your profits.
Is it possible that the economy struggles but online businesses thrive? If so, why?
In these times of economic difficulty one must consider how these challenges will be meet and what the future holds. I believe that the economic crisis will hit certain industries harder then others. I believe it will hit different parts of the country harder then others. I believe California is hurting the most right now. I just read that unemployment in California is up above 12%. That is highest its been in years. Perhaps the highest since the great depression, which was around 25%. If California is the trend setter for other locations in the US then we are in for a bumpy road.
Yet, online searches and businesses are not as impacted, Why? Is it the business model? Could the online, buy direct, wholesale model thrive in a time when people are looking to cut cost? How couldn’t it? For example, the pest control industry could see some declines due to consumers cutting costs, but the do it yourself pest control companies will be there to pick up the scraps by offering a cheaper pest control solution. And when the economy swings back… the guys that don’t really want to do it themselves will switch back over to their local exterminating guys.
Further, online marketing and advertising is cheap compared to mass media marketing. 20 million impressions online won’t cost you the same as a superbowl commercial. So it may even be that the online business model is more effective. Imagine that, technolongy advances and produces more effective solutions. That should be the way of the wheel.
Either way, brace yourself for an fun, exciting, dangerous, and scary economic rollercoaster. I guess it all depends on where you sit on the ride that makes the difference.
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