I need marketing assistance

[Blownlc]

Gday all!

Calling all marketing consultants and IT guru's.

I am hoping that someone can offer me some assistance with the advertising of my fathers business. I'll start off with a little background of the situation.

March this year I was made redundant after returning from my long service leave, not wanting to return to my trade or industry, I sat down with my father a discussed jumping on board with him to build his business, with the intention of getting him of the tools (as this kind of work is hard on the body) and creating a profitable future.

Since march I have been working for free, I'v been keeping the mortgage paid and the kids fed through the spending our our savings. But come september 1st the savings will be gone.

We have had a steady stream of work through existing customers to date. However it is not enough to sustain both of us or an expansion.

Part of my role within the business is to promote and create awareness of what we specialise in and the services we offer with the very limited budget we have, along with working on the tools.
I built or website myself to save money http://www.amtindustries.net/ however I am having trouble adding search terms that link to our website so that we can be found.

I have paid a company $500(for 6 months) to set up a google places page which comes up when users type "underground boring" in the google search bar. However they were suppose to have added another 8 key words but haven't. It is also linked to a google+ page where they have written the business description wrong. Now that I am an 'existing customer' I am having a great deal of difficulty in making contact with them.

I have since found out that I could have done this all myself and for free! However I am unsure how.

Would anyone be willing to offer me their assistance in setting this up so that we can get as much exposure through search engines as possible.

Many Many Many Many Thanks

Stu

[AB]

I'll get back to you on this tonight with the basics and hopefully other members can use this information to better their exposure online as well.

[MEGOMONSTER]

I'll get back to you on this tonight with the basics and hopefully other members can use this information to better their exposure online as well.

Forum owner and community support service, aren't you piece of work. Lol

[AB]

Ok...

First off by "Search Engines" I'm just talking about Google because majority of users will be searching for your business through Google so best to focus your energy using their services rather than Bing, Yahoo, etc....However, your efforts will follow with them anyway so all good.

I don't understand why they charged you $500 for 6 months as It's a free listing not a monthly directory charge or anything and a lot of the times Google pulls the data from YellowPages.

Step 1 = Get a Google Account
Step 2 = Try and add your business to Google local like that business has done for you. However you may struggle as they have already done this but see how you go first and if your local listing does not get accepted for some reason then you may need to contact Google and tell them what happened and how you "want to link the Google local business listing with your Google Account so you can update it, etc.

Google is becoming very localised on certain keywords with search results these days and it applies with your keywords you want to target consumers with "Underground Boring" as you can see by typing that into Google.com.au it does show local businesses based on their IP address location. It does have 3 x organic listings above the localised Google Places results which is where you want to be eventually....AKA "Above the fold"

Once that is all done....

You need to decide on what Keywords you think your potential customers will type into Google to find your services and optimize your website to rank for those certain keywords.

Maybe keywords like...

"Underground Boring"
"Underground Boring Melbourne"
"Concrete Cutting Melbourne"
ETC

Each page of your website has individual potential to rank for those keywords above. I would aim individual pages to rank for individual keywords...

Google's algorithm is a very complex system to determine what websites are relevant for the user who searches for certain keywords.

CREATE AS MUCH RELEVANT CONTENT ABOUT YOUR INDUSTRY AS POSSIBLE - But do not steal the content off someone else. Google will find plagiarism and penalize you!

As a basic rule of thumb the more "UNIQUE" content you have on your website with content within that site that has those certain keywords throughout the website/pages then the more chances you are going to rank higher in Google for those certain terms.

Example: If I had two websites about "How to drive a 4wd".

Site 1 has just pictures of 4wd's and little content about actually "how to 4wd".

Site 2 has a full instruction manual and shiploads of content about how to 4wd. It has pages and pages of certain types of terrain and what gears to select based on the terrain, etc.

As a basic rule of thumb the end user would much prefer to visit Site 2 because it is an informative website with shiploads of content about "how to 4wd" and in Googles algorithm it would most likely see that site 2 is more relevant to the user so will display that website above site 1.

You and your old man know your business....Build as much content as possible around your business...

Talk about what the machinery you have and what it does
Talk about your services in great depth
Talk about the danger of underground services
Talk about how you lay the fiber optics
Talk about everything relating to your business...

I would create a dedicated page about "Underground Boring"....Talk about what you do within that page with strong emphasis on the keywords "underground boring" without being too spammy though. I would probably mention the words "Underground Boring" once maybe twice in each paragraph. When you have a dedicated page named "Underground Boring" with those keywords all throughout that page then Google will know what that page is about and rank you accordingly....Again.....Don't spam it, once maybe twice in each paragraph should be sufficient.

I would also create another page called "Underground boring Melbourne". A lot of people will localize their search adding "Melbourne" afterwards.

Same rule as above but use the word Melbourne a lot too.

Example....AMT Industries are located in Melbourne and we service all suburbs within Victoria. Underground boring in Melbourne is a complex task due to our sub clay and volcanic environment so you must use only professional underground boring specialist's.

Underground services are a serious concern within our industry which is why AMT are committed to obtaining Underground service checks prior to our drilling to ensure safety is our main concern....bla bla bla

The above was a little bit over the top and I wouldn't recommend doing that through 12 paragraphs but I think you get the gist.

Once that is all done then I would get some links to your pages with the anchor text being what that particular page you are linking to is about.

You should get links from relevant websites though as Google is cracking down on directory sites and non relevant sites so bare that in mind.

A link from site to another is a vote of confidence from that site to the other site and it does help your site rank but again....Try and stick with relevant sites within your industry.

Having saying that though any education or government sites are very trusted by Google so if you can get links from those industries then thats a winner!!!

Example.....edu.au or .gov.au sites....Average Joe cannot get those domain names and they are reserved for those industries so they are more authority than normal names and links from them help a lot!

Yahoo directory is a good site to get a link from but it costs $300 a year

You can pay people to get you links which is what I do....I hate trying to get links and there are professional people who can do this for you.

I use a chick who is very trustworthy and gets good backlinks on good PR sites and trys her best to make them relevant within your industry.

Here is her site = http://guestpostgirl.com/

So much more to explain mate but I need a beer....Any questions though just ask....Anyone has any questions just ask.

I don't mind helping the members in building their online business...

P.S I just sat down and typed all that out and I can't be bothered proof reading...lol.....ENJOY!!!!

[AB]

Do some videos on underground boring, name it underground boring Melbourne and embed those in your site too using YouTube.

It's owned by google and will help you and also help user experience.


Sent from my iPhone using Motorculture mobile app

[BigRAWesty]

Bloody good info mate. Will help heaps of people. Me included..

[AB]

I also forgot to mention you can just pay to be at the top of Google using Google Adsense.

Basically, you pay a price every time someone clicks your advert which is displayed either at the top of the search results based on whatever keywords you choose or on the side bar if your bid amount per click for those keywords is less than your competitors.

Your industry may be slightly competitive as there are a few of your competitors doing it but if i was you, when you get your Google Account just throw $20 at it and see what the average bid is and what placement that gets you in the search results and see if It's viable.

You could also run a $100 test to see if you get any decent leads off the $100 and work out the pros and cons.

I pay $2 per click in the company I work for but we are also in the top 3 organic results in Google for our keywords....We are in a high margin, low volume competitive industry so it probably won't be as much for you per click but very worth while to experiment and see what your competitors are doing and how much they are paying.

If you want to seriously head down the online marketing path then I suggest purchasing a program called Seo Spyglass.

You can check out your competitors backlinks, website structure, do audits on your own site which gives you reports on things you need to approve on, etc.

I use it every day and it keeps you in touch with what your competitors are doing. If you want to beat them, find out what they are doing, copy it and then make it better!!!

One of my favourite free programs is called Xenu Link Checker. It's a freeware program where you can check your own site for any broken links and fix accordingly.

Also, once your Google account is set up don't forget to sign up to Google Webmaster Tools to get a lot of information about your site, how It's performing, etc...You can also add your sitemap to help Google index your site better. YOu can generate a Sitemap off your Xenu program too.

Don't forget to get Google Analytics as well so you can see how people are finding you, what your landing pages are, bounce rate and a million other analytical data to help understand where you are, how engaged your users how and how to convert leads to sales!!! With GA you just need to paste certain code in the header of your site which allows Google to collect data on your visitors, etc.

Remember to use Youtube for anything you are stuck on. Shiploads of informative how to videos for anything I have mentioned above.

[TheLocksmith]

I got positions 1,2 and 5 in google. Don't ask me how.

Got this site into the 5 spot

[AB]

I got positions 1,2 and 5 in google. Don't ask me how.

Got this site into the 5 spot

Different industries have different competitiveness of ranking factors. I will personally give anyone a million dollars if they can organically rank a new website in number one of googles search results for keywords "credit cards" or "home loans".

[NissanGQ4.2]

Different industries have different competitiveness of ranking factors. I will personally give anyone a million dollars if they can organically rank a new website in number one of googles search results for keywords "credit cards" or "home loans".

We have about 900 members on here that might take you up on that offer Andy *LMAO*