First Hit on my Website

[Wade Hancock]

Just got a call for a new construction inspection.
When I asked how they found me, they said it was from Google.
Now, my website launched in August of this year.
No pay per clicks, or artificial SEO .. all organic.

They found me on Google places, (#3 in my town).
I've still got a long way to go for the website itself, especially in the two metro areas I service.

But, small victory today!
The website brought in a client for the first time!

Hopefully more to come.
Keep those organic SEO ideas coming in..

[John Kogel]

Congrats, Wade. Your website is better than most, BTW.

A word about Google places. Check often by searching for your website. I see you don't have a specific address in your town. The floating locations will sometimes be pushed aside by the others. Just saying. At this point in time, you were #3 in my Google search for a New Bruanfels inspector.

[Wade Hancock]

Congrats, Wade. Your website is better than most, BTW.

A word about Google places. Check often by searching for your website. I see you don't have a specific address in your town. The floating locations will sometimes be pushed aside by the others. Just saying. At this point in time, you were #3 in my Google search for a New Bruanfels inspector.

Thank you for the compliment! We worked hard on it..

New Braunfels is a small town sandwiched between Austin and San Antonio. With a New Braunfels address labeled, we cannot list our service area with Google Places. So, it's a double edged sword. Before I removed my specific address, we were listed #8.. Now we are #3.

I've read and heard exactly what you said about Google Places, but so far this seems to work better for us ... at least for now.

My goal is to get my website up there vs. Google Places listing anyway. That SEO is going to take a lot of time and effort. But, hopefully it'll be worth it.

Thanks again for the comment.
Keep 'em coming.

[Ken Rowe]

StatCounter - Free Invisible Web Tracker, Hit Counter and Web Stats (http://statcounter.com)

I use this free visitor analyzer on my website. Sign up, get the code and embed it in your site. Pretty simple to do. It documents the hits, shows where they came from, the search engine and terms they used, what your placement was in their search and much, much more. No more relying on asking the client how they found you.

For example, I if I ask the client how they found me and they tell me, "From your website", I can check statcounter and see that they were directed to my site from; google, bing, ASHI, email marketing or Facebook. I can even see people checking out my site from this site.

[Wade Hancock]

Thank you for the info.
I'm going to check them out!

[Marc M]

Thank you for the info.
I'm going to check them out!
Congrats and nice site btw. We use artificial SEO and get anywhere from 10 to 20 calls a week, of those we're able to close around 2/3. The company we chose is $300 monthly and took us from page 6 to the fist page on just about every single city we listed with them, in 1 year. Most of which were bigger cities. I used to be mostly concerned about staying organic, but now, I personally would rather have the money. Put it this way, just from internet, we hired another inspector. I'm sure others may disagree.

[Wade Hancock]

Congrats and nice site btw. We use artificial SEO and get anywhere from 10 to 20 calls a week, of those we're able to close around 2/3. The company we chose is $300 monthly and took us from page 6 to the fist page on just about every single city we listed with them, in 1 year. Most of which were bigger cities. I used to be mostly concerned about staying organic, but now, I personally would rather have the money. Put it this way, just from internet, we hired another inspector. I'm sure others may disagree.

Looking into Supermedia for this very thing.
I'm talking with them about targeting Austin and San Antonio only and leaving New Braunfels (my home town) alone so that my website can remain ranked up high.

Yodle wants $600/month .. uh.. not me, not now.
Supermedia wants $250/month. I'm reasearching them now.
But they require a 12 month contract and won't guarantee results.
If any of you have used them, let me know what you think.

The organic guy wants $750/month.
And won't guarantee results.

Ahh for the days of placing yellowpages ads and moving on.
I've got a pretty good little business here ... that NOBODY knows exists.
Frustrating.

[Marc M]

Looking into Supermedia for this very thing.
I'm talking with them about targeting Austin and San Antonio only and leaving New Braunfels (my home town) alone so that my website can remain ranked up high.

Yodle wants $600/month .. uh.. not me, not now.
Supermedia wants $250/month. I'm reasearching them now.
But they require a 12 month contract and won't guarantee results.
If any of you have used them, let me know what you think.

The organic guy wants $750/month.
And won't guarantee results.

Ahh for the days of placing yellowpages ads and moving on.
I've got a pretty good little business here ... that NOBODY knows exists.
Frustrating.
Our guys didnt want a dime until we were on the first page (of Google) of all cities we listed. Furthermore, there are no contracts.

[Wade Hancock]

Our guys didnt want a dime until we were on the first page (of Google) of all cities we listed. Furthermore, there are no contracts.

I haven't come across a deal like that, yet.
I'd love to find that somewhere.

[Scott Patterson]

Wade, it just takes time to build the business. IMVHO, paying for SEO is akin to paying an exterminator to keep the bugs away from your home. They always keep coming back with their hand out for money to do more work because what they do only last for a little while.

I have found the the key to a website showing up on that first page has more to do with the sites content and the age of the domain name. The older the name the better it will pull up in searches. But that is only one part, the larger part is the sites content. Good searchable content will do more than anything for your site rankings. One thing that does hinder are the "cookie cutter" websites that are built on ready to go templates with ready to go content. Just think about how many others are out there with the same basic site? My site is not fancy, I have good content that shows up around the Internet and it kind of has that homemade look but it pulls up very good in the areas I work in. I'm usually in the top 3 if not the number 1 spot, right under the paid spots with Google.

I would not spend a dime on SEO. If anything I might pay for Google Ad Words, those seem to help with Google. I have used them when it was slow and they seemed to push folks to my site more than anything. I never paid for any SEO, other than Google Ad Words I spend very little on my website and it brings in about 75% of my business.

I have had the Google Ad Words turned off for about a year and honestly I have not noticed any reduction in calls from my site. If anything I have had an increase!

[Wade Hancock]

Wade, it just takes time to build the business. IMVHO, paying for SEO is akin to paying an exterminator to keep the bugs away from your home. They always keep coming back with their hand out for money to do more work because what they do only last for a little while.

I have found the the key to a website showing up on that first page has more to do with the sites content and the age of the domain name. The older the name the better it will pull up in searches. But that is only one part, the larger part is the sites content. Good searchable content will do more than anything for your site rankings. One thing that does hinder are the "cookie cutter" websites that are built on ready to go templates with ready to go content. Just think about how many others are out their with the same basic site? My site is not fancy, I have good content that shows up around the Internet and it kind of has that homemade look but it pulls up very good in the areas I work in. I'm usually in the top 3 if not the number 1 spot, right under the paid spots with Google.

I would not spend a dime on SEO. If anything I might pay for Google Ad Words, those seem to help with Google. I have used them when it was slow and they seemed to push folks to my site more than anything.

That's an option, too.
Something to think about.
Thanks...

[Ted Menelly]

Just got a call for a new construction inspection.
When I asked how they found me, they said it was from Google.
Now, my website launched in August of this year.
No pay per clicks, or artificial SEO .. all organic.

They found me on Google places, (#3 in my town).
I've still got a long way to go for the website itself, especially in the two metro areas I service.

But, small victory today!
The website brought in a client for the first time!

Hopefully more to come.
Keep those organic SEO ideas coming in..

You will find Google places should be the biggest draw....for the city you live in. After that you want to get on the front page of as many surrounding city and town as you can. Getting on Google places in more than one city is difficult at best and even if you do Google won't let that last long at all.

Make sure you submit yourself monthly to all the major search engines. EVERY MONTH. But do not over due it or you will get penalized for spamming the search engines. A couple times a month now and then and that won't be considered spamming.

Every picture on your site should have some tags behind it such as the cities and home inspector, home inspection. Maybe even the zip codes embedded because I get many an inspection a year just for the fact that i have zip codes listed.

I can go on all day but as time goes I will throw some along

Congrats on the first job from the website. I hope there are many many more to come.

[Wade Hancock]

You will find Google places should be the biggest draw....for the city you live in. After that you want to get on the front page of as many surrounding city and town as you can. Getting on Google places in more than one city is difficult at best and even if you do Google won't let that last long at all.

Make sure you submit yourself monthly to all the major search engines. EVERY MONTH. But do not over due it or you will get penalized for spamming the search engines. A couple times a month now and then and that won't be considered spamming.

Every picture on your site should have some tags behind it such as the cities and home inspector, home inspection. Maybe even the zip codes embedded because I get many an inspection a year just for the fact that i have zip codes listed.

I can go on all day but as time goes I will throw some along

Congrats on the first job from the website. I hope there are many many more to come.

I appreciate the advice.
SEO seems to be a moving target.
I just want people to know I'm here.

My google + local page is 'Pending" review because I updated my address status so that it would be visable.
Now, it'll be 4 weeks.
Can't win with these guys.

[April Green]

StatCounter - Free Invisible Web Tracker, Hit Counter and Web Stats (http://statcounter.com)

I use this free visitor analyzer on my website. Sign up, get the code and embed it in your site. Pretty simple to do. It documents the hits, shows where they came from, the search engine and terms they used, what your placement was in their search and much, much more. No more relying on asking the client how they found you.

For example, I if I ask the client how they found me and they tell me, "From your website", I can check statcounter and see that they were directed to my site from; google, bing, ASHI, email marketing or Facebook. I can even see people checking out my site from this site.

Google Analytics is also great, and free. Along with showing you where people are coming from, what keywords they use, and those types of things, it also shows you how people are moving through your site, which pages they are looking at and for how long, and much more. We just started using it about 6 months ago and have found it very useful.

Also, if you’re not already, you may want to consider using the keyword tool on Google AdWords to look up different keywords and phrases. It shows you how many people are searching for that phrase and how competitive it is, so you can adjust the wording on your site to make it more likely for people to find. You don’t have to buy AdWords to use it, just create an account and go to “Tools and Analysis”.

[Lon Henderson]

I am on Google Places and have a free page on Manta. I get about six inspections a year from them.

[Kevin Wagstaff]

Reviving this thread since this has been a constantly changing space in SEO over the last 2 years (I had to watch it daily while working on the SEO team at HomeAdvisor).

Your business address (from Google My Business), reviews and factors from your website all play into showing up in the "local 3-pack" as we call it.

The search volume that Google gives shows an increasing amount of searches for home inspectors - oftentimes I see hundreds of searches per month in mid-size cities. So definitely important to not ignore this - as more and more millennials are searching online.

[Steven Reckner]

Looking into Supermedia for this very thing.
I'm talking with them about targeting Austin and San Antonio only and leaving New Braunfels (my home town) alone so that my website can remain ranked up high.

Yodle wants $600/month .. uh.. not me, not now.
Supermedia wants $250/month. I'm reasearching them now.
But they require a 12 month contract and won't guarantee results.
If any of you have used them, let me know what you think.

The organic guy wants $750/month.
And won't guarantee results.

Ahh for the days of placing yellowpages ads and moving on.
I've got a pretty good little business here ... that NOBODY knows exists.
Frustrating.
I have been just getting started myself. I've been all organic doing my own keywords building my own website doing my own blogs and from the five or six main cities that I'm trying to hit two of them I'm on page 2 now it's only taken me about a month and a lot of competition in our area but I'm excited to say that with a little more effort I should be on page one very soon. And will have spent zero on artificial SEO. To hell with them I'm keeping my money in my pocket. I can get it there and keep it there.

[ROBERT YOUNG]

Google Business, Google maps.

[Kevin Wagstaff]

Google Business, Google maps.

For those that like data, Google rolled out (https://smallbusiness.googleblog.com/2016/08/get-better-insights-with-google-my.html) some additional "insights" a few months back. Tells you how people searched for your your business, if they saw you on maps, and if they went to your site or called. Pretty useful stuff for those that rank in the local pack.



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