Websites and promoting your business

[Otto]

I didn't see a forum for Business or Marketing, so please excuse me if I've put this in the wrong place.

Just wondered if anyone here has a website and if so, how successful is it for helping your business?

I have recently done my own with register365 (you've probably seen their ads on the telly) and for the first 6 weeks I've got nothing out of it. Of course I know I've missed the first page boat by about 15 years, but I've only recently been in a position to do a website for my business. Also, 6 weeks is nothing in terms of time, but still...

So if anyone has experience of this, just how long does it take until you might get a job out of it. What about google adwords? Anyone used that ? What about driving traffic to your website? I'd considered a quarter page ad in a Home & Interiors mag - seems reasonable.

If anyone has any insights they could share I would be grateful.

 

[tool-me-up]

I didn't see a forum for Business or Marketing, so please excuse me if I've put this in the wrong place.

Just wondered if anyone here has a website and if so, how successful is it for helping your business?

I have recently done my own with register365 (you've probably seen their ads on the telly) and for the first 6 weeks I've got nothing out of it. Of course I know I've missed the first page boat by about 15 years, but I've only recently been in a position to do a website for my business. Also, 6 weeks is nothing in terms of time, but still...

So if anyone has experience of this, just how long does it take until you might get a job out of it. What about google adwords? Anyone used that ? What about driving traffic to your website? I'd considered a quarter page ad in a Home & Interiors mag - seems reasonable.

If anyone has any insights they could share I would be grateful.

I started my business from nothing - I was previous unemployed and still might aswell be unemployed. Its all a new venture to me only been running four or five months and I call a good month breaking even at the minute.
That means i've earned enough to cover the cost of the ebay store and my webstore.
Online business is dreadfully slow to start up without mega money backing to pay for every marketing trick in the book.

The best way to get to page on in google is be searched for something unique.

For example type kreg k5 jig uk in google and I am way back on page 5 or 7 (tool-me-up.co.uk)
type tool me up and I am usually in first 3 results as all 3 keywords "tool" "me" up" are in the domain name, meta description, keywords tag and appear at least once on every single page of my website - so google counts my site very relevant to the words tool me up.

Competition will be your down fall as is mine. Type screwdrivers, spanners, hammers etc into google and you are flooded with amazon, screwfix, toolstation all the front - runners who are battling with each other for top spots and spending mega ££ on it aswell.

Your website doesn't have to be your business name just something with a little less competition.
In woodworking trade your website is basically a portfolio of what you can do and how well.
People may sit looking for hours and then phone you and you would be none - the wiser they had even been there - not everyone who looks online orders online.

The site - names wise should be easily memorable, easy to find, and above all relevant.

Dont call it Otto's Ottermans when you dont build or sell ottermens - in the same sense you wouldn't instinctively go to bedworld to buy a new couch.

The site should be sleek modern, clean looking not cluttered and confusing and PLENTY of images.

 

[srp]

To be honest I doubt that you'll get many hits with a website for any local small business, unless you do a few things first to make people aware of it.That means signwriting on your van (and your car, and your wifes'), leaflet drops, advertising in the local paper and parish magazine, putting signs outside houses you're working on, another sign outside your own house and/or workshop and generally getting your name and web address out there. Presumably you've already chosen a short, memorable domain name that people will remember?

When you've done all that, you have to sit back and wait for someone to decide they need something doing and hope they remember seeing your name and web address, or at least enough of it to do a sensible Google search.

You can test how easy it is for people to find you at the moment - eg i typed in '"Otto ireland woodwork" and got a page of hits, only two of which were for woodworkers, one in Taunton and the other in Florida (yes I know that you might not be called Otto, and you might want to change woodworker to something more relevant, but you get my drift).

You can put some keywords on your home page that highlight what you do and where you work, and Google might pick them up to help get you at the top of the first page. You can also put your web address on other sites (maybe use it as a signature on a forum...??).

In two years I have had 2 responses on my own site, one of which turned into work. As the work turned out to be around £6k that's fine (a home brewed site only costs a few pounds a year to maintain). Trying to get people to your site is a big subject, there's much more than just the above.

 

[mailee]

I have to say that I have had quite a bit of work from my website. Having said that I have been in business for about four years now. My site is home made and it was a sharp learning curve to get it up and running. I started with adverts in the parish mag, yellow pages and the phone book along with this I had a pro website made which was utter rubbish so I had a go myself. Even if my website doesn't generate business it is there as a gallery of my work for potential customers to see my work and hopefully place an order. HTH. :wink:

 

[heatherw]

Our site is home made as well. At first we didn't have any results from it, but now we are noticing that people who come to the shop have looked at the site and have read the info. We do a lot of leafleting in the villages around for quite a distance, and now we get at least one phone order a week from someone who has seen the site or the leaflet. We also put the leaflets on the site in PDF form. I want to remake the site this year, but even the very basic and badly made one we have at the moment has been relatively successful - partly because none of our competition has a website at all.

 

[CHJ]

It's strange how some search engines pick up on things you don't expect.

If anyone wants to see what I produce I just say, put 'hobby turner' into your browser search, much easier than typing in a whole web address.

 

[doctor Bob]

I have tried the lot when it comes to advertising.


Do not advertise in a glossy magazine unless you have fantastic photos and a graphic designer to put the advert together anything less and it looks awful when compared to professional adverts and will do more harm than good.
Even if you have the above, one advert is no good, you need to be in these mags for about a year to generate a notable impact on regular readers. Also these magazines are not regional based are you prepared to talk to 95% of enquiries to far away to deal with.

I no longer do any paper advertising, no papers, no local mags, no glossy mags, no specialist publications.

Yellow pages is dead in the water.

Adwords is a good way of spending a huge amount of money with little return

Every penny I used to spend on these now goes on the website and SEO managment. Also facebook adverts.
50% of my work comes directly from website enquiries.

I now use professional photographers to up the image of the site as well.

If you don't know how to promote your google ranking then you need to get some professional help, page 2 is pointless.

 

[Otto]

That is sweet Mr Grumpy. Your images certainly look professional quality. Nice work.

I am just a one band, deliberately steering away from kitchens, here in Ireland, the kitchen and contiboard wardrobe market is over saturated, and I don't have space or money to invest to do that kind of work. So I'm concentrating on one offs and built ins

I hadn't considered the non regional aspect of glossies, but it makes sense, it's expensive to book an ad as well.

Guess my next mission is to learn about seo

Thanks for the replies

This is my site in it's infancy

http://wwwcustomfurnitureandwoodwork.ie

 

[Mr_P]

http://www.customfurnitureandwoodwork.ie/

Nice site, especially for homemade. Think I need to get me a dslr ASAP.

mailee

Just had a look at yours as well, can you change it so the woodworking articles are on the same page as the about us (why not me ?) It's not very clear that the articles can be accessed by clicking the Good Woodworking Magazine. At first glance it didn't stand out and then when I spotted it I was expecting to be transferred to the magazine website. A bit petty but it might help.

 

[tool-me-up]

Otto: I would reword your home page title slightly
I would have something along the lines of Mark Renshaw - Custom Furniture, Bespoke Woodwork, IRELAND Tables, wardrobes, panelling, shutters ( two or three more keywords )
Bespoke is a highly searched word along with furniture so putting the two in the same title should help slightly.

I would second guess your number one search terms to be custom furniture ireland and bespoke furniture ireland ( i.e two searches you want to do really really well on to get a good exposure from)

Just searching custom furniture gets me loads of UK based results and probably only a handful will serve ireland and I would have to go through each one to find out - from a customers point of view.

The site tag meta name description should be changed slightly too i think.

On the site where it says "if you have a project in mind etc etc" it works great and fits the page lovely.
The actual tag however not-so good <meta name="description" content="If you have a project in mind, from a bookcase to a library, please take a moment to look through some of the completed projects here." />

This will appear as a quick description of what your site is all about in search results for example screwfix have: Screwfix: Thousands of products at low trade prices | FREE next day delivery available | FREE collection in 5 minutes | 30 day money back guarantee on all ...

And your going to have: If you have a project in mind, from a bookcase to a library, please take a moment to look through some of the completed projects here....

I would have something keyword rich and MAKE people want to click it your link.
e.g Mark Renshaw, custom designed bespoke furniture and more. From design to installation we offer a professional, friendly and personal experience, based in ireland our xx sq ft workshop and professional design software can cater for anything your imagination fancies. Needs tweaking but you get the idea.

Few search engines pay much attention now to the keyword tag but fill it up anyway - dont forget your name and ireland.

If at all possible make a small footer for the website that doesnt change on each page and get a few keywords on it. Even if it is small and only says all images are copy right of mark renshaw, custom furniture and woodwork - this would get those keywords repeated on the site with out being classed as spam ( and google will pick up on it too).

finally register for google webmaster tools and submit yourself a site map in xml format. You may have to a small file or meta tag to the site verify ownership but public cant see either so wont disrupt the site. You can then after a few weeks start to track what search terms you are gettung shown for and how many clicks each got etc.

Dont underestimate facebook and twitter.

If you building some thing take a pic upload it to a business page, when its installed do the same. build up followers, the more you have the more see what your posting and if your constantly posting finished articles then people are going to keep seeing your work.

Hope this is of some help

 

[tool-me-up]

you can see your current descriptions by entering site:www.customfurnitureandwoodwork.ie/ in google search. This is also including any links to your site. You have 5 pages indexed and apparently no links to it.

 

[Otto]

Wow, thanks tool-me-up for taking the time to look at that. Really appreciate it.

I will implement some changes.

What a great place this is!

 

[doctor Bob]

your site looks really good, nice work.

 

[Flynnwood]

you can see your current descriptions by entering site:www.customfurnitureandwoodwork.ie/ in google search. This is also including any links to your site. You have 5 pages indexed and apparently no links to it.

Just for info - Google does not disclose inbound links via that method.

 

[mailee]

Thanks for that Mr P, I will look into that. I shall also have to update my Facebook page but they keep changing the layout and it confuses me!

 

[Roughcut]

I am not a woodworker for a living but I am self employed in another trade.
I have to admit I don't know a lot about websites but I do know Keywords and search terms are important.
If you have not already done it make sure you submit your website to as many search engines as possible: Google, Bing etc.
If you do not have the time or inclination to investigate it further to enhance your website profile why not consider paying an individual or company experienced in SEO to do it for you?
Google adwords pay per click advertising can help a lot to get you noticed, but it will cost and you have to make sure you manage your budget carefully or it could cost you a fortune.
Also local parish mags are usually fairly reasonably priced for targeting the areas where you work, and don't forget the FREE to advertise local directories.
Google Places is another good one to get your details into.
I would also suggest getting your details including the web address on to as many free online directories as possible as it will cost you nothing.

 

[CHJ]

Is there any millage in comparing back links to your site with other domains to pick up on which pages on your site might be getting exposure.

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=http:%2F%2F ... Fhome.html

http://siteexplorer.info/domain/quest42.co.uk

http://siteexplorer.info/domain/alanwilley.co.uk

http://siteexplorer.info/domain/armstrongjordan.com/

http://siteexplorer.info/domain/customf ... oodwork.ie

 

[tool-me-up]

you can see your current descriptions by entering site:www.customfurnitureandwoodwork.ie/ in google search. This is also including any links to your site. You have 5 pages indexed and apparently no links to it.

Just for info - Google does not disclose inbound links via that method.

Good find! They used to appear after the initial search results - also link: doesnt seem to work anymore so I wonder if google want you to use the link checker on webmaster tools from now on?

Is there any millage in comparing back links to your site with other domains to pick up on which pages on your site might be getting exposure.

Can be.... It can be an early indicator of spammy or bad links - It also helps you see which domains are passing the most juice - 99% of forums are tagged no-follow so only display and thats all - you dont actually benefit from it unless someone clicks it.

Having a link on a well-ranking and RELATED site with follow enabled will mean that domain shares a tiny bit of its "google worthiness" with you.

Its not as well depended upon now because of abuse i.e company selling 10,000 back links from all over the globe - it just became a war of who ever bought the most links, much like keywords did as people has 1000,s in.

 

[Flynnwood]

you can see your current descriptions by entering site:www.customfurnitureandwoodwork.ie/ in google search. This is also including any links to your site. You have 5 pages indexed and apparently no links to it.

Just for info - Google does not disclose inbound links via that method.

Good find! They used to appear after the initial search results - also link: doesnt seem to work anymore so I wonder if google want you to use the link checker on webmaster tools from now on?

Is there any millage in comparing back links to your site with other domains to pick up on which pages on your site might be getting exposure.

Can be.... It can be an early indicator of spammy or bad links - It also helps you see which domains are passing the most juice - 99% of forums are tagged no-follow so only display and thats all - you dont actually benefit from it unless someone clicks it.

Having a link on a well-ranking and RELATED site with follow enabled will mean that domain shares a tiny bit of its "google worthiness" with you.

Its not as well depended upon now because of abuse i.e company selling 10,000 back links from all over the globe - it just became a war of who ever bought the most links, much like keywords did as people has 1000,s in.

Tool-me-up,

You really shouldn't be advising people on this, because you are years behind. Seriously.

When I said: "Google does not disclose inbound links via that method"; it was not a 'good find' by me.

 

[doctor Bob]

If you do your own SEO, make sure you know what you are doing, google penalises very heavily for poor SEO and cheats.