602rwtq
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Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/06/09 at 08:03 PM | Reply with quote | #1 |
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Since the decline of print advertising (Yellow Pages and newspapers), the fate of small businesses has been greatly influenced by their success marketing themselves on the Internet. It's such an important subject that some companies have flourished and others have gone out of business based on their ability to get customers from their website.
Auto detailing happens to be an excellent fit for online marketing. It's a niche service (the Internet is all about niche marketing) and quality of service varies widely, so it's worth researching and comparing companies (there is no quicker and more thorough way than the Internet).
Hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people are searching for detailing services in your area, and there is a lot of money to be made and lost. You need to be a player in this game.
A lot of discussion on this board has been about site design and quality. Small business owners and detailers in particular get very focused on design. I'm going state something that will probably challenge your ideas about Internet marketing: design has about 20% influence on the success of your website; 80% of your website's success is determined by the amount of traffic it receives.
Traffic, traffic, traffic. Traffic = sales. Sales = profit. You must be focused on traffic. Traffic is why businesses pay premium money to be on the busiest streets in your city. It's why they pay premium money for signage. Traffic is the opportunity to earn business.
Building your website and not putting effort into getting traffic is like having a world class sign made and putting it in your closet.
In this thread we're going to explore the many methods to build traffic to your site. They include:
1. Google free search (Search Engine Optimization)
2. Google paid search (Google Ads)
3. Google Local Business (Google's free local business directory)
4. Craigslist
5. Angies List
Who am I? I used to own a detail shop in a very hard to find location. Rent was cheap, but there was literally no drive by traffic. I had to draw customers from online, and over 5+ years, I had great success growing the business year after year largely because of online marketing.
I now build and promote websites (SEO) for a living and will share what I know with you here. If you seek out a message board like this, you're obviously passionate about your craft, and I want to help out detailers when I can, because I know how hard you all work for your money.
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/06/09 at 08:20 PM | Reply with quote | #2 |
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Okay, let's start with something that you should take 15 minutes to do today: create a Google Local Business entry.
Have you ever searched for local businesses ("Boston electrician") and wondered why certain businesses appear near a map on the first page? It's because they created a Google Local Business entry. It's free, and it's a method Google uses to recommend small businesses in your local area.
Take a look at the results for the search "Portland Car Detailing."
The business with 65 reviews is the busiest shop in Portland largely because of its Google presence. Getting a listing on Google Local and getting lots of positive reviews has created a momentum that is almost impossible to stop.
Why do certain businesses reach page one? Three reasons: age of directory entry, number of reviews, and search engine ranking. You can't get to the first page quickly in most major cities, but with some work you'll get there. The first step, of course, is to create the entry.
Here's how to create your Google Local Business entry, step by step:
1. Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ and click on "Create an Account Now."
2. Follow the directions to create an account.
3. Once your account is created, go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ and log in with the account information you created in step 1.
4. Once logged in, go to Google.com/LocalBusinessCenter
5. Click Add New Business.
6. Complete your contact information. If you are a mobile business, do not put your home address under Address. Instead, put an address at the center of the city you service most. So, if you live 20 min. outside of Chicago and put your home address you will not appear for the search "Chicago car detailing." Mobile businesses should mark the center of their service area as their address.
7. Under "Category" be sure to type in Car Detailing Service (exactly as I typed it there, with capitals). I also like to type in Car Wash, as car wash shoppers are often detail buyers.
8. Enter your hours of business, payment methods, and photos of your business if you have them. A photo of a car you finished is a good thing to upload, as Google prefers businesses that provide photos.
9. Google will call the phone number you list and give you a verification number. Once the code is entered, the listing will go live within 24 hours.
If I were opening a new shop or moving to a new town, the first thing I would do is create a Google Local Business entry. It's a free way to get on the first page of Google in the city you service. That's a lot of people you've just presented yourself to, because as you know, this Google thing has quite a following.
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602rwtq
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Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/06/09 at 08:24 PM | Reply with quote | #3 |
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Jake of Bright Dynamics Auto Spa has recently moved to a new city and needs to get the phone ringing.
I will be helping him build traffic to his site and he has agreed to allow me to post the process here on this board.
We recently made a small change to his site that got him on the first page of google.
Here's what we did. His site used to have the title "Welcome to Bright Dynamics Detailing." But customers don't search for "Bright Dynamics Detailing." They search for [city name] [detailing]. Because he lives in Greenville, SC, they search for "Greenville Detailing."
He changed his title to include "Greenville" and "Detailing" in it. Now it looks like this:
Within a few days, Google ranks him on the first page for the search term "Greenville Detailing" because it sees that this term is so important to him that he placed it in the title of his website. The title of your website should contain the search terms that are most important to your business. "Welcome to..." or "Thanks for visiting..." are useless in terms of SEO and a wasted opportunity to rank high on Google.
How do you change your title?
Go into your HTML files, and open index.html.
At the top of the page will be your title:
Change your title, save your index.html, and upload the file to the server. Or simply contact your web designer and have him change this asap.
Note: Your title should say "[Your City] Auto Detailing" instead of "[Your City] Detailing" because my research has found that "[Your City] Auto Detailing" is the most requested detailing-related search term.
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trusted
Senior Member
Registered: 11/02/07
Posts: 682
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Ron
Moderator
Registered: 10/10/04
Posts: 1,234
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| | 12/07/09 at 08:54 AM | Reply with quote | #5 |
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I would really like to know more info about the report that google will start penalizing sites that use links to boost their rankings?
I have really been on the fence about doing it.
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WorldFamousSuperiorShine
Senior Member
Registered: 12/30/03
Posts: 2,633
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| | 12/07/09 at 10:30 AM | Reply with quote | #6 |
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Man is this a weird science. For years I have enjoyed top ranking on the first page and usually the first 5 listed. Recently within the last year or so something screwy has been happening.
If I do a google search for "mobile auto detailing" I will be on top. Do a search a few days later and I am no where to be found. On days my site is gone I have searched 7-10 pages back and still nothing.
A week or so later I will check again then I am on top again. ?????????
I service an area with 80 cities. I can't put all in my title but I have them listed on my home page. If you do a search for mobile detailing and MOST of those cities I will be on the first page.
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/07/09 at 11:42 AM | Reply with quote | #7 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Ron
I would really like to know more info about the report that google will start penalizing sites that use links to boost their rankings?
I have really been on the fence about doing it.
Links will always be the most important factor for your search rankings. This has caused companies to create "SPAM links" in the 1000s, even tens of thousands. This involves creating links from relatively useless and even unrelated sites. I once checked the links of a detailing competitor and found that he had many links from French cooking site and even some adult sites.
That worked 3 years ago, but Google now checks the quality of your link. Is it related to your site (detailing, automotive)? How old is the site that is linking to you? And most importantly, what is the search ranking of the site linking to you?
Links are the foundation of your SEO, and you should be pursuing every quality link possible.
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/07/09 at 12:46 PM | Reply with quote | #8 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by WorldFamousSuperiorShine
Man is this a weird science. For years I have enjoyed top ranking on the first page and usually the first 5 listed. Recently within the last year or so something screwy has been happening.
If I do a google search for "mobile auto detailing" I will be on top. Do a search a few days later and I am no where to be found. On days my site is gone I have searched 7-10 pages back and still nothing.
A week or so later I will check again then I am on top again. ?????????
I service an area with 80 cities. I can't put all in my title but I have them listed on my home page. If you do a search for mobile detailing and MOST of those cities I will be on the first page.
I looked at your site on http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
You have over 4000 links! That is one of the strongest detailing sites I have seen.
And VERY smart move by listing all the cities you service on your home page. Google will only rank for the names of cities that actually appear on your website. If you work in a major market, you should list all the suburbs and surrounding cities that you service. Have a look at how Dent Time (denttime.com) does it at the bottom of his website.
Why is your site bouncing up and down in Google? Because Google changes its ranking criteria frequently. They may place a high value on certain links one day, and penalize them the next. It's just part of the game, unfortunately.
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WorldFamousSuperiorShine
Senior Member
Registered: 12/30/03
Posts: 2,633
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| | 12/07/09 at 05:24 PM | Reply with quote | #9 |
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Thank you for your reply and taking your time to look into it. I just checked and I am back on top at #1 on google.
Thanks again
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RennyDoyle
Moderator - Attention to Details Vendor Forum
Registered: 11/17/04
Posts: 3,015
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trusted
Senior Member
Registered: 11/02/07
Posts: 682
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| | 12/07/09 at 11:49 PM | Reply with quote | #11 |
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Joe,
Your forum sigs could be hurting you ?
You took out mobile auto detailing and changed them to something else ?
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/08/09 at 01:07 AM | Reply with quote | #12 |
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Before we start to move Jake's site up the Google rankings, we have to start monitoring where the clicks are coming from and how many clicks we're getting.
Google has a program called Analytics that emails you this information every day. It takes about 30 seconds to monitor your traffic daily, and it's 30 seconds well spent.
Here's Google's instructions on installing Analytics:
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66983
It is not an easy process, but worth the effort for the daily reports.
If you don't want to install Analytics, the company that hosts your website has software to track your traffic. Ask them how to log in and get this information.
Here's a recent Anayltics report about Jake's site:
We can see here that the site has essentially no traffic. There were 7 visitors, but only 54% were new visits. Jake and I have been checking on the site frequently, as have a few graphic designers I work with. But, 3 or 4 new people did take a peek.
Average time was just 17 seconds per visit. This will go up as we get more, real visitors.
Bounce rate was 54%. Bounce rate is the number of visitors that read the home page and don't click on any of the other pages in the site. A bounce rate of 60% is about normal for a small business site. Remember that your visitors plan to visit a lot of detailers' sites, so they're not staying in any one place for long. But give them incentives to stay on your site. Entice them to look at new pictures, new services you have, and specials you are running. Keep them on your site as long as possible.
Later in the Analytics report we see his traffic sources:
It's important to monitor this data so you know where to concentrate your SEO efforts.
The site is fresh, so we don't have a lot of data yet, but we can see that he got 3 visits from Google's search engine, so it is likely a promising resource. Note also that his best performing keyword was "Greenville Detailing."
He had 2 direct visits. Direct visits are when the user simply types his website manually into his browser. Common sources of direct visits are flyers and business cards.
The last data we'll examine is "top pages":
Keep an eye on your site's most popular pages. Your most popular site will always be "/". This is your homepage.
You'll find that some pages get ignored while others get a lot of clicks. Put your best information in your most popular pages (prices, services, specials) and keep your content there fresh.
Ideally, use Google Analytics for daily reports emailed to you automatically. At a minimum, check your traffic stats on your hosting company's computers weekly so you can track the progress and performance of your website.
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/08/09 at 01:45 AM | Reply with quote | #13 |
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Let's take a look at Jake's current position in the search engines.
Naturally, Google is the king of the search engines and we'll be monitoring his progress there. If you are doing well in Google, you're doing well in Yahoo, MSN, and Bing.
I've found that the most popular car detailing searches in local areas are:
1. [city name] auto detailing
2. [city name] car detailing
3. [city name] detailing
Thus, we'll want to rank Jake for:
1. Greenville auto detailing
2. Greenville car detailing
3. Greenville detailing
Let's check where he ranks for "Greenville auto detailing":
He has the 27th spot on page 3. This is not a hot spot to be, as searches rarely look beyond page 2.
For "Greenville Car Detailing" he is on page 2 in the 15th spot. A good spot, but we'll aim higher.
Here's the result for "Greenville Detailing":
Page 1 spot 4! This is where he wants to be, and where he wants to stay.
As I noted earlier in the thread, he got this spot on page 1 simply by titling his home page "Greenville Auto Detailing."
I should note that Greenville is relatively uncompetitive and that small changes will result in big gains. In big markets like Miami, Dallas, Seattle, San Diego, and Las Vegas, it can take months to reach the first page. Until you get to the first page in the search results, I recommend you pay for advertising there on Google's AdWords network, which we'll discuss later.
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/08/09 at 02:46 AM | Reply with quote | #14 |
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Now we'll go about getting Jake to the first page for the two keywords he is struggling with: "Greenville Auto Detailing" and "Greenville Car Detailing."
What determines his position in the search engines?
Lots and lots of factors, but I'll summarize 4 important ones below.
1. Links (75% influence). The number of other websites that link to yours, and the quality of those websites, is the most important factor in your search engine position. Google sees a link as a "vote" as to the quality and relevance of your site. The more votes it sees from other websites, it assumes that 3rd parties trust your site enough to link to it and therefore it is likely to recommend it to Google searchers.
2. Frequency of updates (15% influence). Google likes to see that your site is updated with fresh information as often as possible, as it wants to recommend sites to its users that are current and useful. Google checks your site every week to see if it has been updated and gives a boost or penalty based on what it sees. This is why I strongly recommend you add a blog and updated it twice a month. Any kind of update or addition gets noticed.
2. Keyword density (10% influence). Do the words you want to rank for (Greenville auto detailing; Greenville car detailing) appear on your site? Take a look denttime.com, one of Southern California's busiest dent repair services. Look at the bottom of every page. Because he lists every city he services, he's going to appear in Google for the many cities in dense Southern California.
Obviously, most of our focus will be on getting links to Jake's site, as this is easily the most important ranking factor.
But what links should we get?
Have a look at your competition's links to discover where you should be getting links from.
One of Jake's major competitiors is adamsautowash.com.
Let's take a look at the sites linking to adamsautowash.com on Yahoo's Site Explorer:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Here's how to use Site Explorer:
1. Enter in the site you'd like to investigate and click "Explore URL"
2. Click InLinks.
3. Click From All Pages, then click Except from This Domain.
4. Click Only This URL then click Entire Site.
Now we see all of Adam's links:
Adam has 48 links, but when I look at them all, there are only 3 sources:
1. A car wash in Virginia. I looked at the site, and it's owned by Adam, so I doubt we'll get a link if we email this site requesting one.
2. Yahoo Local. We can register a link on Yahoo in Greenville.
3. Yellowpages.com. We may be able to get a free listing on yellowpages.com and get a link back to our site.
Thus, we have only learned from Adam's site that we can register on Yahoo and Yellowpages.com to get links.
If you look at your competitors in your area, who is linking to them. If it is a directory like Yahoo or Yellowpages, you can usually create a free profile to get that same link. If it is a message board, you can always create an account there and put your website in your signature. If it is a website, you can email the owner requesting a link, but you should have something to offer them. Maybe solve any of their personal detailing problems (waterspots, odors, stains) or offer to write a brief article for their site that makes their site more interesting.
Whatever or wherever you can get them, you other sites to link to you.
Link building is perhaps the hardest part of SEO. Seobook.com (a superb SEO resource), has 101 ways to get links listed here:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml
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602rwtq
Member
Registered: 11/01/04
Posts: 163
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| | 12/08/09 at 02:57 AM | Reply with quote | #15 |
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Let's take another look at the results of searching "Greenville Auto Detailing"
The top 5 spots are not occupied by competitors, but rather, directories:
1. Yahoo
2. Kudzu
3. Yellowpages.com
4. Magicyellow.com
5. Mapquest.com
I investigated all 5 and all but Mapquest allow us to create a free profile. This profile could be counted as a backlink, but just as importantly, will generate more traffic to our site via clicks and calls from the profile itself.
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