Business from the Web

[cgland]

How many people see business stemming from your website? Not so much from you directing them there, but them seeing your site somewhere and then calling you or even better, finding you in a web search.

Chris

[cgland]

No one!

Chris

[CaptainsLS]

I can tell by reading my access logs who goes to my site and what they searched for to get there. I've yet to see any solid results from it, but it’s only been up for a few months. I seem to use it more for existing customers.

[cgland]

I really use it as an online portfolio. I tell potential customers to check it out before we meet. But, i have been seeing a few straglers here and there that found me via a web search. I don't know how well my site is optimized, but someone is finding me. The only meta tags I use are "Best, Hardscaper, World, Universe"

Chris

[CaptainsLS]

try using meta tags " M, Rusk"

[mckeeland]

to receive consistent web leads you need to optimize your site for what people are gonna search. my site has only been up a year. at first i was doing it like Chris said for and online portfolio. then i had it redone by a web designer. since then i have been trying to optimize my site to show up in the top 10 results for some key search key words. i hope that it will be a big source of leads next season. it has only been a couple of weeks since i really changed some stuff, so time will tell. it should be good to go by the spring. i think in the next 5-10years websites will be the leading source of leads. the yellow pages is a dying advertising tool and will be replaced by the web as the computer literate generations get older. i know i have not looked in the yellow pages for a listing in i don't know how long. the smartest thing we all can do is have web pages and get them optimized for you area. the best part is it is the cheapest advertising you can do.

[mrusk]

try using meta tags " M, Rusk"



I do not know if i should be insulted or not!

[CaptainsLS]

I'm just messing:bounce:

[cgland]

Sounded like a compliment to me.

Chris

[mckeeland]

"concrete pavers, brick patio pavers, hardscaping, paver patios" these might get you more results.

[mdvaden]

Got 1 project per week, roughly, from Portland area, when living there. Maybe 1 every 3 weeks here in Medford, Oregon. And I'll say, I only wish I could be in Portland to handle all the calls I'm getting down here, for work up there - stemming from the website. Because I was getting like 1 call for estimates, every other day last August to October, out of the Portand area. More than when we lived there.

And we are going to move back.

One other arborist is making thousands off referrals from a single page on my site.

Type in...

Portland Certified Arborist

And there's reams of other keywords which I can't share, where that page also stays real close to the top. When I get back, I'm going to split that pages harvesting 50/50 with Roots and Shoots. I'll do the small, and he can have the big.

Even down here, I'm getting some jobs in the area and for Grants Pass nearby, from people down in California, searching for their relatives up here.

When I went to Portland to work for a week, like 3 weeks ago, I was responding to calls and emails from people in Sherwood and Portland, wanting me to work for them - knowing I was from the south, but wanting work anyway.

Right now, I've boosted my site's ad income to supplement less people in this area searching with the internet.

I've got one apparently large landscape design coming in the near future, for Wilsonville, and that's from someone out of San Fransisco, who compared my site to other Portland designers for their needs.

A few months back, I did a landscape design for condos in Seaside, Oregon, from a contact in Rock Creek area west of Portland.

So the website is bringing in a respectable number of calls, and is transforming me from a local service, into a statewide service. Even did consulting near Crater Lake, for a businessman in Klamath Falls that found me on the internet - they don't have any Certified Arborists in that area that are in business, for handling what he needed - consulting wise.

All I can say, is that websites can be a lot of fun, and versatile. You can make them corporate looking like highridge corporation, or more personal.

[GroundScapes]

I have had only a couple of phone calls that were generated from a search that ended up finding our sight.

I still love the whole website thing, I think it is a wonderful addition to any company.

[Andrew Hardscape]

80% of our work derives from the web.

And guys, meta tags have VERY little to do with your the spiders crawling and cashe-ing your site.

I have META tags out the ying yang - but, if you look at what Google has cashe-d for my site - you'll see that my tags are not even listed.

Also, google changes their search criteria every quarter. One quarter they may crawl and cashe your picture titles. Another quarter they may crawl and cashe your page titles. And another quarter, they just may crawl and cashe your META tags.

Now-a-days, most middle to upper class income levels do all their research online. The internet is where it's at. Here it is December. In December most contractors are dead. I have 3 good jobs pending at the moment, that came across my desk within the last 14 days. ALL DERIVING FROM THE INTERNET :)

Maybe one day in Jan or Feb, I'll wake up in a good mood and will invite some of you individually to call me and we can comb through your sites and I'll make some suggestions......

[Colonial]

We are redoing ours over the next few months. hired a professional web design outfit and everything. After that I expect it to generate leads.

[JZap]

We had a nice design last year, but it wasn't very informative or helpful. We have a couple web based referral services that give us more success than our own site. But from our site we get maybe a dozen new leads. Our website now is in serious need of work. Our host said "Hey, let's make you guys a video!" and we were in the middle of the busy season. The video is the worst quality and representation of our work in my opinion. We're changing it before Spring.

[Andrew Hardscape]

I say "no" to the video.

Feedback that I get regarding our site is that people love the pictures we have. We have 106 pictures currently. What is appealing is that they can brouse at their leisure and will more than likely come across a picture of a job the resembles what they are wanting.

[JZap]

I think we're bagging the idea altogether on the video, I hope anyway. It's seems cheesy to me unless done by a true professional videographer and professionally edited as well, but why dish out $2000 just to have the edited footage to put on our site and send CDs to our leads?
Oddly enough, I just got a lead today from our website which is random, but a complete landscape, hardscape and fencing for a 20' x 40' roman pool (hurricane shape) surrounds. The customer said he conacted 3 other companies prior to me and everyone told him he has to agree to a $500 fee for a design up front before the initial consult. So he asked what if I don't like your design? His response was "It is what it is!" WOW! This job is on the Main Line which has many good companies that I'm sure have no trouble getting work, but to say something like that to a potential customer is arrogant in my opinion. Not to charge for time, but so tell someone to pay $500 and I'll design something you may not like and you're stuck with it.:noidea:

[realweed]

At first I used my website as a showcase, but after nothing happened for 8 months I started to try other things. I realised I wasn't getting enough traffic, so I started putting up all my portfolio pictures on gallery sites (yardshare.com etc.) with my contact info, and this has actually worked pretty well for me considering that it's essentially free marketing.

[GreenBoy]

I think we're bagging the idea altogether on the video, I hope anyway. It's seems cheesy to me unless done by a true professional videographer and professionally edited as well, but why dish out $2000 just to have the edited footage to put on our site and send CDs to our leads?
Oddly enough, I just got a lead today from our website which is random, but a complete landscape, hardscape and fencing for a 20' x 40' roman pool (hurricane shape) surrounds. The customer said he conacted 3 other companies prior to me and everyone told him he has to agree to a $500 fee for a design up front before the initial consult. So he asked what if I don't like your design? His response was "It is what it is!" WOW! This job is on the Main Line which has many good companies that I'm sure have no trouble getting work, but to say something like that to a potential customer is arrogant in my opinion. Not to charge for time, but so tell someone to pay $500 and I'll design something you may not like and you're stuck with it.:noidea:

That isn't a very promising way to make the customer confident in your company...I couldn't image saying that to a cusotmer

Heres a good link that I found when I was working on getting my site up in google and other search engines...If you can get to the top of google then it can really pour in a lot of business.


http://www.keyword.com/SearchEngineOptimization.htm