Are You Fed Up Of Larger Companies Getting Work Local To You?
What Can You Do To Stop It?
Let me tell you this now. You will not have enough money to out-bid them on Google Ads. They spend a fortune on pay per click advertising to ensure they’re at the top of the list when someone searches for a plumber or heating engineer in your local area.
If you want to know how to compete with larger companies then read on, but be warned, you will need to spend money.
Yes Word Of Mouth Is Great.
But it will only get you so far, and if you want to start competing locally with these bigger companies word of mouth isn’t going to cut it.
Social Media will get you a step of the way, but how often do you pass by ads when scrolling through Facebook and not pay attention to what they’re selling?
What you need to focus on is Search Engine Optimisation / SEO.
STOP HERE.
If you’re not interested in a long term strategy, where 3-6 months work can produce 18 months + of new organic customers then stop reading, delete this email and carry on struggling to find new clients when work starts to slow down.
What is SEO?
In short, it’s the back end work done on a website that is required for your website to rank well on Google and other search engines. First things first, you need to answer one question and it’s not how to compete with larger companies, it’s;
What’s the point in having a website?
If you’ve spent £100 – £2,000 on a new website and nothing on SEO then guess what? You’ve got an expensive piece of internet real estate with no tenants.
What I mean by that is this; if you buy a house, you have costs involved in owning the house i.e. council tax, bills and general upkeep/maintenance, mortgage etc.
What you need are tenants in that house to pay for the costs + a bit of profit.
Think of your website as a house with no tenants. It costs you to build it and it costs you to keep it up and running, but no one is finding your website. You have no tenants.
By improving your websites ranking on Google, you’re getting more monthly visitors (tenants) who are finding your business online and contacting you for work.
Your website is now an asset to your company, not a liability.
“A Website with no SEO is an expensive piece of internet real estate. It’s a liability instead of an asset”
Search Engine Optimisation For Plumbers & Other Tradespeople
First off, as previously mentioned this isn’t a miracle solution that is going to have the phone ringing after the first day. SEO takes time, there is a lot of work involved and you’re reliant on Google getting round to viewing, assessing and ranking your website and let me tell you this, Google isn’t in a rush.
Secondly, it’s an investment. 3- 6 months of SEO work on a website can result in your website ranking well on Google and attracting hundreds of new customers every month for the next 6 – 18 months depending on your local competition.
If you’re unsure how your website compares you can use useful tools such as Google Analytics or Ubersuggest, both are free to use.
So What’s The Catch/Cost?
As with everything in life, things cost money. SEO is no different. However, an investment should pay out over time, which is exactly what SEO does.
I charge £500 / month for my SEO services and I recommend a minimum of 3 months for you to start seeing an improvement in your web rankings and monthly visitors. I do however offer a 20% discount if you want to bulk pay for these services i.e. 3 months of SEO for £1,200 instead of £1,500.
What Results Can We Expect?
Over 3 months you can expect an increase in monthly visitors. For example here is the statistics for a client of mine, a plumbing company in Bristol who had a new website built by a local web design company for well over a year with no SEO work done on it. They spent £1,500 on a website that wasn’t attracting any new clients.
I started the SEO work back in March and as you can see the organic monthly visitors have increased month by month.
Why Work With Me?
For starters I’m an ex-plumber who, after years of doing my own web design and marketing for my plumbing company decided it was time to get off the tools and off my knees and do something else. Digital marketing appealed as it meant I could spend more time travelling as my partners parents live in New Zealand, as all I need is my laptop.
Because of my trade history I work well with other tradesmen and women as I know the industry and understand the business better than a marketing company who deals with everyone.
Secondly my work speaks for itself. If you were to google “SEO for tradesmen” or “websites for trades” or “web design for tradesmen” chances are you’ll find me somewhere on page 1 of Google.
Bear in mind that these keywords I’m ranking highly for are against fellow digital marketers, so I’m competing against other companies who also know how to rank a website.
And third, I actually want you to succeed!
Because of my background as a plumber and the fact that The Successful Tradesman is just me, I don’t hire other staff or contract anything out, you’re dealing with me and me only. My job is to help improve and grow your business and I have a limit on the amount of companies I work with in any given month.
A lot of marketing companies are large, with multiple staff and see their clients as regular monthly income, not as a person who is running a business to the best of their ability so they can provide food and a home for their family.
So if you want to grow your business and find a way to gain a steady flow of regular work then you know what to do.
