Internet Marketing - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:14 - 6 Comments

Internet Marketing For Tradesman

The amount of internet marketing for tradesmen is always increasing. More and more small and medium businesses are turning away from the traditional yellow pages and local directories or magazines to gain exposure for their business.

This is true whether they are sole traders or companies with many contractors working for them. However the strategies used by these different sized businesses is often very different, especially on Google.

One type of website where tradesmen and other service providers can get visitors from is Home Improvement Pages, Home Friday, Service Central or similar directory websites based on the building industry. While these can be low cost options, you should do as much research as possible before committing to monthly subscriptions. Some offer pay per click models which may offer better value for money. With this type of billing you only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Yellow Pages online is also used with some success for tradesmen. This online version of the fat old books we used to search with, charges a set amount to be listed online. The more you pay the more prominent your Ad will be, but business owners in general that we have dealt with report a very low return from money invested into yellow online. The trade industries do however receive more internet visitors from this source than the average yellow online listing.

To advertise your business in Yellow online or directory websites, you do not need to have a website of your own. You can write a short Ad with a few pictures and your phone number. However this is only normally beneficial to attract callers restricted to your very local area.

Now moving on to Google. This is the fastest growing arena for tradesman looking for larger returns from internet marketing. When done well, you do not rely on the popularity of other websites to bring targetted visitors to your website. Nearly everyone who uses the internet in Australia uses Google so that is obviously the best place to be. There are a few different ways to get your website on the first page of Google. Search engine optimisation (SEO), which means the organic or left side of Google, Google maps, or Google Adwords (Pay per click or sponsored links are other terms used).

The later two options will have your website on the first page of Google very quickly. Google Maps is a free service that allows a very short listing of your website name and phone number next to a map which pin points your business address. So if you are a brickie in St Kilda and someone searches on Google for 'bricklayer St Kilda', a map of St Kilda will appear at the top of Googles response page marking your business address and next to the map your business name and phone number. Good free exposure. It usually takes just a few days to come up.

With Adwords you can target as many different phrases as you wish and manipulate your account so that you will only be found by searchers within a certain geographic location that suits your business. Google can see where people search from and only shows your ad to them if they are from the area you specify. How it works is that you create a small ad with three lines of advertising text. Depending on how much you are willing to pay per click and how relevant your ad looks to Google for the phrases you target it will show your ad in a more or less prominent position. It is free to show your Ad but each time someone clicks on it you pay a price to Google. This cost per click will vary from 5 cents to a few dollars. It is a great short term strategy to bring targetted visitors to your website. However because you are paying per click it is important that your website is designed to encourage people to enquire. We highly recommend getting a professional to create your account for you. Even if you take over the management of it after a few months this should be very beneficial in the long term for you. Someone who knows how to create a good Adwords account will keep you cost per click much lower than if you create it yourself and they will also help get more and better targetted visitors coming to your website.

To be found on the left side of Google usually takes a few months. In the trade industries the level of competition is such that if you choose a good SEO company then you should be able to secure some very high organic rankings. The benefit of being on the left side of Google is that many more people click there when compared to the right or Adwords. The reason for this is that the public trusts Google and thinks if you are on the left, you are a trusted service provider. This also means a higher percentage of people will enquire from your website when they arrive from the left side of Google. Adwords often attracts more people shopping solely based on price, not quality, so the customer generated from organic rankings is often a better value client. Good SEO companies will also generate visitors from other sources as they carry out their work to bring your website onto the left side of Google. They will list your site in many free directories, post articles related to your business and maybe even press releases and some other internet marketing strategies. Our experience has shown that those who have committed to SEO have reaped the largest benefit.

The strategy used for small and large companies should also be different on Google. While bigger companies can target wider demographic areas, small companies should usually attack more refined keyphrases specific to their business. To use the brickie in St Kilda example again, if he is a one man band and he is found on Google for 'bricklayers melbourne' he may not be able to cope with how often his phone rings with people on the line from the other side of melbourne who he does not want to work for and go mad. Whereas if he refined this to the suburbs where he is happy to work or South Melbourne for example, he will get more qualified leads. Now if the brickie can cover the whole of Melbourne and has lots of contractors working for him (and a secretary) he can then benefit a lot by being found for terms like 'bricklayer melbourne'. Currently once you have high natural Google rankings for trade related phrases, they remain with little effort. So after an initial investment it will become an ongoing low cost source of quality leads.

Again your website should be designed in a way that visitors will navigate easily and find it simple to enquire from whenever you are targeting Google users. People these days want quick info and an easy point of contact, so give it to them. Again a good SEO company should help you with this too. Pick one that wants to help bring you quality leads, not just rankings.

Internet marketing for trademan will only become more competitive. Those with the forsight to take action now while it is not too cut throat on Google will reap the highest benefit, especially if you want to grow your company. It will only become more expensive and take longer to be found on Google in the future, especially without paying an increasing cost per click.

I hope this post has been useful for anyone in the trade industry. Feel free to leave any comments or ask any questions about what is written here.