Trying to revive my dad's failing business...
- Thread starter wttldt
- Start date
angelas111
Elite Member
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2009
- Messages
- 1,648
- Reaction score
- 1,051
how about some craigslist spam. that should increase business.
Scotland
Regular Member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2009
- Messages
- 379
- Reaction score
- 207
Hey buddy....
First off, well done for taking interest in helping your father out, for someone your age who should be out partying and all the rest of it, i admire your maturity and sincerity in helping out your dad, he should be proud.
Second, i understand your, and your fathers frustration at business not going too well, but i think you've a little tunnel vision relying on the internet to change the business. The website/internet will create more awareness of the business, but it sounds like you's need to determine who your target audience is first....There was a comment made earlier about getting out and about with business cards, which i do believe to be a good idea.
Ive no previous experience in moving/storage, so i cant turn around and give you the magic bullet, but an approach at expanding the customer base and redefining who the business is aimed at might reap some rewards...
I'd suggest perhaps the two of you sit down and have a little brainstorming session about which companies/organisations/individuals currently use, and could potentially use your service. Look at competition locally and further afield.
Look for similar businesses, preferably the successful ones, perhaps your fathers competition, and see where they are advertising, what their doing, who their customer base is, what services they offer, who is using their service...do a search on them in google, see what results come up.
Using google, and choosing the keywords you are trying to rank for, should bring up the competition, or at least the ones using websites to generate customers. From this you can analyze their website and see what their doing to rank above yours...pretty basic, but you'd be surprised at how people overlook the business stuff.
I wish you luck, and should you require any help, id be happy to assist.
I wish you and your father all the best.
John
First off, well done for taking interest in helping your father out, for someone your age who should be out partying and all the rest of it, i admire your maturity and sincerity in helping out your dad, he should be proud.
Second, i understand your, and your fathers frustration at business not going too well, but i think you've a little tunnel vision relying on the internet to change the business. The website/internet will create more awareness of the business, but it sounds like you's need to determine who your target audience is first....There was a comment made earlier about getting out and about with business cards, which i do believe to be a good idea.
Ive no previous experience in moving/storage, so i cant turn around and give you the magic bullet, but an approach at expanding the customer base and redefining who the business is aimed at might reap some rewards...
I'd suggest perhaps the two of you sit down and have a little brainstorming session about which companies/organisations/individuals currently use, and could potentially use your service. Look at competition locally and further afield.
Look for similar businesses, preferably the successful ones, perhaps your fathers competition, and see where they are advertising, what their doing, who their customer base is, what services they offer, who is using their service...do a search on them in google, see what results come up.
Using google, and choosing the keywords you are trying to rank for, should bring up the competition, or at least the ones using websites to generate customers. From this you can analyze their website and see what their doing to rank above yours...pretty basic, but you'd be surprised at how people overlook the business stuff.
I wish you luck, and should you require any help, id be happy to assist.
I wish you and your father all the best.
John
adbot
Power Member
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2011
- Messages
- 512
- Reaction score
- 548
Spot on. Autumn has covered most of the bases here. Follow this and you will see results.
Graemyx
Junior Member
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2009
- Messages
- 101
- Reaction score
- 17
Yeah, if it's a legit business I would stray away from real BH techniques to be honest. I would suggest doing media buys here too, in related fields that are high-traffic. I'm sure sites have plenty of traffic to send you.
People consistently throw around the term "media buys" here, what exactly does that mean
I did, but what keywords do you think I should aim for?
You did all this SEO w/o targeting any particular keyword? Damn...
If I were you I would go to google`s keywords tool and try to check something like "furniture moving <yourcity>" - you will get the most targeted users from this type of keywords with your city mentioned. But don`t go for the if the search volume is really low. Good luck to you and your dad.
If I were you I would go to google`s keywords tool and try to check something like "furniture moving <yourcity>" - you will get the most targeted users from this type of keywords with your city mentioned. But don`t go for the if the search volume is really low. Good luck to you and your dad.
Last edited:
Shhhocker
Junior Member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2010
- Messages
- 101
- Reaction score
- 19
Yeah, I'd start by doing some in-depth keyword research on some keywords that are a little more targeted than "southern california storage." I'd try something like "storage in your city/town", and then go from there with related searches, etc. Storage seems like something that would be searched for with location specificity. If you're not seeing a lot of exact match results, I'd consider some of the offline methods that have been proposed.
What part of Socal is he in ?
Look for all local cities and type in "self storage los angeles" or other cities.
Also have you tried craigslist ads? Those might work.
Get reviews on Google places
I am willing to help for free because you live in SOCAL so if you need any input/ some one to bounce Ideas off of just send me a PM
Look for all local cities and type in "self storage los angeles" or other cities.
Also have you tried craigslist ads? Those might work.
Get reviews on Google places
I am willing to help for free because you live in SOCAL so if you need any input/ some one to bounce Ideas off of just send me a PM
This is easy and doesn't really need backlinking. Just imagine you're a customer ... now what do you type into Google?
"Removal company southern California" or similar.
1. Optimise your home page for the main keyphrase. Now, create other pages for similar location based keywords;
dot-com/removal-company-mytown.html
dot-com/removal-company-yourtown.html
2. Essentially copy the page, but re-write the text and move things around ... each 'sub-page' will get ranked in google.
3. Now get your sitemap submitted to Google via Webmaster tools.
4. Ping the site using Pingler.
5. Register the business with Google Places.
6. Register the site/business on ALL the local directories.
7. Go back to (2) and create other pages for a different keyword/phrase.
8. Search Google for blogs about removals (you can use scrapebox) - find those with PR3+ and post GOOD comments (to ensure they 'stick'). Now you have some free, relevant backlinks. Ping the blog to Pingler.
Using the above process, I can get local businesses on P1 of Google within days here in the UK (ok, so the comp isn't as high, but the principle is still the same).
If you need guidance when optimizing the homepage, sign up for the free trials of MySEOTool and SEOMoz ... if you act quick enough with the former you can follow their guidance within the 5 day trial. Then work through the guidance on SEOMoz ...
Only now should you be concerned with buying backlinks - get ones from places such as onhourbacklinks, postlinks or backlinkhelp (these guys provide PR3/4/5/6/7 links at good prices). For a longer term strategy, the backlinkfuel guys here on BHW have some great SENukeX powernetwork packages.
"Removal company southern California" or similar.
1. Optimise your home page for the main keyphrase. Now, create other pages for similar location based keywords;
dot-com/removal-company-mytown.html
dot-com/removal-company-yourtown.html
2. Essentially copy the page, but re-write the text and move things around ... each 'sub-page' will get ranked in google.
3. Now get your sitemap submitted to Google via Webmaster tools.
4. Ping the site using Pingler.
5. Register the business with Google Places.
6. Register the site/business on ALL the local directories.
7. Go back to (2) and create other pages for a different keyword/phrase.
8. Search Google for blogs about removals (you can use scrapebox) - find those with PR3+ and post GOOD comments (to ensure they 'stick'). Now you have some free, relevant backlinks. Ping the blog to Pingler.
Using the above process, I can get local businesses on P1 of Google within days here in the UK (ok, so the comp isn't as high, but the principle is still the same).
If you need guidance when optimizing the homepage, sign up for the free trials of MySEOTool and SEOMoz ... if you act quick enough with the former you can follow their guidance within the 5 day trial. Then work through the guidance on SEOMoz ...
Only now should you be concerned with buying backlinks - get ones from places such as onhourbacklinks, postlinks or backlinkhelp (these guys provide PR3/4/5/6/7 links at good prices). For a longer term strategy, the backlinkfuel guys here on BHW have some great SENukeX powernetwork packages.
Each time Google displays a ranking list it is based on what the searcher types in.
Insurance is a rubbish keyword - no one ever expects a decent or sensible result from that. Better, is Car Insurance. Best, is Car Insurance for over 55s
removals = poor
Removal company = still poor
removal company in southern california = much better
removal company in [your town] = best
moving house and need a removal company in southern california = ultimate, but prob very low search volume (high conversion?)
Log into Google Analytics and check the number of searches (broad and exact) and select the most lucrative keyword.
BTW, if you guys call your company differnet in the US, then use that ... the KEY is to BE THE CUSTOMER !!!
hollaholla
Newbie
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2009
- Messages
- 38
- Reaction score
- 14
- Age
- 40
Great thread, love seeing stuff like this... and some really good offline marketing advice in here.
You could consider buying a separate domain to optimize just for lead generation. That way you could blast the shit out of it with no worries.
You could consider buying a separate domain to optimize just for lead generation. That way you could blast the shit out of it with no worries.