Thanks Bluey, I live in a very small seaside village so its probably pretty pointless for me anyway. If it was cheap I'd have one made but in my case not a real point...still, I appreciate all the comments from all and sundry, cheers
Thanks Bluey, I live in a very small seaside village so its probably pretty pointless for me anyway. If it was cheap I'd have one made but in my case not a real point...still, I appreciate all the comments from all and sundry, cheers
http://curraronggardening.com/
"All sin is washed away in the Holy goodness of Beer"
Book of Redeye, Psalm 69
This might be a silly question but How do you actually get your business to show up on google maps?
"I'm not alone cause the tv's on yeah,I'm not crazy cause I take the right pills.... everyday" Jimmy Eat World
http://www.dreamlawnsandlandscapes.com
just create an account and add your business
https://www.google.com/accounts/Serv...n-gb%26gl%3DGB
Built my website through Vistaprint cost about $16 a month. Can go in whenever I like and change everything from the font to the colors and for a once off price of about 35 dollars I can upgrade to all sorts of stuff. Not that I will bother at the moment. I do pretty good in my area. Just a matter of having the right keywords and knowing what to do with all the free directories.
Actually, Just had a look...typed in cranbourne lawn mowing. I nearly own the first page. Helps having my username linked to Independent Lawnmowing Contractors Of AustraliaOriginally Posted by Cranbourne Lawnmowing
cheers Bgs,all done.Originally Posted by Bgs
"I'm not alone cause the tv's on yeah,I'm not crazy cause I take the right pills.... everyday" Jimmy Eat World
http://www.dreamlawnsandlandscapes.com
While we are on the subject of websites,,,I have been thinking about adding a survey to my contact page. Would be nice to get a viewers opinion of the site. First impressions can be a huge factor to whether they get in contact or move onto the next one. Does it look like I would be too expensive or too cheap. Do they get the feeling I look professional or like a backyard er, Is there enough information or too much etc, etc.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I used a site called wix.com, It's a cut and paste website builder and they host it for about $12 a month. Get at least 1-2 calls a week from it. Just hook up to all free directories and it works great.
Cheers Rick
Having your own web hosting has a number of advantages. You will get unlimited email addresses so you can set up any email you like with your own address. For instance I have info@ahgs.com.au, sales@ahgs.com.au and bruce@ahgs.com.au. It looks a lot more professional than have a hotmail address or a gmail address. You also get a lot more actual space than some of the bulk packages offered which gives you room to grow.
You should not be paying any more than $110 a year for web hosting and look for Australian based servers rather than those hosted in the States or Europe. Also look for a company who will provide genuine support not an Indian call centre. I can telephone the owner of my webhosting and talk to him personally if needed. Support is the number one priority in my book.
Domain names you should not pay any more than $15 a year for. So all up your looking at around the $125 to $130 a year for hosting and domain name and that is based here in Australia on Australian servers. If you paying more than that you are probably paying too much. You can get cheaper but they are crap.
You have to be really careful about web hosting. Any school kid with a good computer can become a reseller and offer you hosting and then pack our his server with as many people as he can fit in. Servers get over loaded and fail and they have no redundancy plans to back them up.
Do your homework well before even thinking abut building a webpage.
Cheers
Bluey
Adelaide Home & Garden Solutions
http://www.ahgs.com.au
"Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when everyone is watching."
Originally Posted by Cranbourne Lawnmowing
It's not a bad site Cranbourne although for the size of it loads a bit slow for some reason. It does the job you need and is not full of extra crap to slow page loads. I needs a lot of work on optimsation and has some really weird stuff in the page source that would make make Google bots shy away a bit. The big thing I noticed is the meta name is this
"VistaPrint SiteBuilder v21.5"
And this is automatically inserted by their page generator. Not sure if you can even change it but a meta name with your keywords in it is a good tool to get you a higher ranking in Google. Your about us page rank on the third page of results. Unfortunately not many ppl are going to find you from there.
I t looks professional enough and supplies enough info to get them calling you if they get to see it. The Contact Us page needs a captcha script to stop web bots spamming you
Cheers
Bluey
Adelaide Home & Garden Solutions
http://www.ahgs.com.au
"Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when everyone is watching."
bluey spot on having your own domain name with email is so professional..really gets you a long way with business..looks pro for sure..i ofeten get comments on how professional by having that
What did you type in for search?Originally Posted by Bluey
What is a captcha script?
The meta name is something I can change. I think?
Keywords I haven't done a great deal with that side of things yet.
The upgrade will allow me to do a lot more.
Thanks for the imput Bluey
Hi Cranbourne
I used the search terms "lawn mowing Cranbourne" You did blitz any opposition with the Google Local Business Centre though which is great.
A captcha script is the random letters and numbers you have to type in to confirm that you are human. If you don't have one a spam bot will sit there and fire off a heap of spam at you. There are some spam bots that can even override the older captcha scripts nowdays.
If you can change the meta name then do so as that is one of the ways Google indexes you...use keywords that appear in your page in an intelligible phrase.
I use "Adelaide Home and Garden Solutions. Adelaide based property maintenance, gardening, lawn mowing and handyman services." in my page. What happens if someone types in "lawn mowing Adelaide" Google has my site index for those terms so throws it back as a result , hopefully the best.
Key words are vitally imports but don't go overboard. They need to appear in the text of your page and don't have anymore than 25. When choosing your keywords you need to think like your customer. What words and phrases are they likely to type in a search and use them as your main keywords. Also highlight some and underline some of your most important keywords. This shows Google bots they are important to the page.
Do those couple of things and I will guarantee it will increase your ranking in Google. Maybe not No 1 spot because you have to do a lot more for that but it should get you to first page I reckon.
If you want No 1 then you have to pay for the privilige...lol
Cheers
Bluey
Adelaide Home & Garden Solutions
http://www.ahgs.com.au
"Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when everyone is watching."
and if your not on page 1 or 2 you may as well not be there
Anything Ian says may or may not be garbage, it may also be his own opinion or it may not be his opinion at all, it may just be something he felt like stating anyone following his advice does so at their own risk and may be doing something Ian would actually advise against.
And if you don't like what Ian has to say use the ignore function if you don't know how ask i will gladly tell you
I am currently no 1 for lawn mowing Brisbane, If I could work out how I did it and how to stay there I too would charge for the knowledge