This is my first post here. I went live with Mark's Challenger kit about 7 weeks ago. In the first three to four weeks I had nine jobs. I thought growing the business was going to be easy!
But that was followed by three weeks of silence. My cell phone couldn't have been more dead if it was resting in the bottom of an ocean trench.
Then I made subtle changes in my Google Adwords and Website. Over the next two days, I had about four internet queries and four phone calls, resulting in two hires. The silence suddenly broke in a consistent way after making the changes. The activity was sudden and immediately after my ad changes, so I don't think it was coincidence.
Lessons learned? "Child Safe" and "Non toxic" work better than "Green" for advertising in my area. Also, I changed my website in subtle ways to emphasize what my CUSTOMER CAN GET, instead of what my COMPANY DOES. I added a very tiny bit of humor too.
I have a long way to go in my marketing, but I am hopeful now that there are concrete things I can do to grow my business.
Hope that things proceed on an up-track from you hereon out, Jon. In marketing copy, people look for, and respond better to, what the benefits are for them, rather than to the technical features of your machine or process.
All this is great information. What are your inputs regarding website site layout/content? My business also does commercial "green" cleaning, recycling, and carpet care.
I want my flagship service to be carpet and tile for both residential and commercial so I want to construct my website to reflect this fact. Thus how much content is enough? Do you recommend merchant services be integrated into the site?
I am no advertising expert, but I would suggest looking at a dozen or more carpet cleaning websites. Immitate what you see that appeals to you and leave out the features you don't like.
My web site is a little bit campy and does not have that real professional commercial gloss. Many folks have said that they like it (customers). It comes from me (a person) rather than some abstract and slick "professional service". The problem I am having is that I can't get enought folks to my site to begin with. Once they see it, more people like it than not.
www.greenhomescarpetcleaning.com
Write what you would like to read yourself if you were a customer, not what you think others would like. Chances are that your customers will respond to what you like. Think about your customer's needs rather than your company's resume.
That's my inexperienced advice for what it's worth!
Your website is great. Getting people to your site is a function of keyword usage, links, how many web crawlers find your site etc. Hire a SEO expert. Also add a blog if you'd like. Page refreshs/updates get picked up by Google. Besides BLOGS give you the ability to strut your stuff and let customers get a personal glimpse of your talents.
