Several of my clients have been reporting their online profiles having wrong information. And sometimes even getting HIJACKED!
This is something you should check out right away. If it’s happening to you, you could be losing clients every month because of it.
Until later,
John Braun
P.S. Your current clients are looking for you online. If your online profiles aren’t there or are incorrect, you could easily lose them to a competitor.
* You can enlarge the video by clicking “Full Screen” in the bottom right corner of the video box.
I just got home from traveling to several cities teaching cleaners about how to use the Internet to get cleaning jobs.
See this video of me at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver:
I found several keys that hardly any cleaning company is doing. See, Google has changed the game on how they rank cleaners. And most cleaning businesses aren’t taking full advantage.
This coming Tuesday evening I’m holding a special webinar.
This is my latest article in the September ICS Magazine. To subscribe to ICS Click Here
How well does your cleaning website work? You can clearly tell by the number of jobs you book from your site. For the cleaning company who uses the web effectively, it’s easily one of the cheapest ways to get clients.
Pretty websites don’t sell!
Putting up the most glamorous, perfect website with beautiful graphics won’t necessarily get you any calls. Don’t get me wrong. You should indeed have a nice, professional looking site. And yes, it should contain great pictures and graphics. But don’t concentrate solely on a fancy website. Even ugly websites can sell. I talk with cleaners all the time who have beautiful websites that don’t bring in new clients.
You may have an old website built in 1999 that needs updating. Or you could have the latest techno geek site built last month. Whichever the case, you need your site to book cleaning jobs. These are quick and easy additions. Adding a few of these babies could double or triple your response.
Here are 8 additions to help book more cleaning jobs:
Your city name big and bold toward the top of the page. How many times have you done a Google search only to find the site that came up wasn’t even relevant to what you searched? For example, when prospects search for “Carpet Cleaning Dallas” they want to instantly know they’ve found a carpet cleaning company in the Dallas area. So post your city name toward the top of your site on the main page. Let there be no mistake about the area you service.
Contact or estimate form for inquiries. Nearly half the people who search for a cleaning company do so after normal business hours. Since the prospect knows you’re closed, she doesn’t bother to call. She could write down your phone number or bookmark your site with every intention of calling you the next day. But phone numbers get lost. Life happens and she forgets who you are. Why not make it easy and allow web visitors to punch in their information while you’re on their mind? A contact or estimate form solves this problem. It could be a simple form asking for their name, email, phone number, and comment about what they need cleaned. I highly recommend a contact form on your main landing page or at the very least a large clickable button that says, “Get an Estimate” so when it’s clicked, the user is taken to your estimate form page.
Testimonials improve your credibility. Yes, adding handwritten, typed, audio, or video testimonials helps tremendously. You can talk all day about how great you are, but when someone else says something good about you, it means much more. It’s a great idea to get testimonials and reviews for your Google, Yelp, Yahoo, Bing, Merchant Circle and other social media pages. But make sure you put a few of your best testimonials on the main page of your website. Establish credibility as soon as a web surfer pops on your site!
Pictures of you or your techs. The number one reason a prospect will look at your cleaning site is because they want more information about you. And would you believe around 75% of cleaning websites don’t even have a single picture of a person on staff? How will the prospect know who you are without a picture? In cases of the owner being the guy who goes out and does the cleaning, you likely want your picture on the main landing page. This gives your company a personal feel. Larger companies may want a picture of their fleet of vans and technicians. At least, have an “About Us” page with a couple pictures and information about who you are. After all, they’re looking at your site to find out more about you.
Videos help tell your story. Pictures are good. Videos are great. Today it’s easy to put videos on your site. You can even shoot web quality video with most smart phones. And if you don’t have a smart phone, an $80-$100 USB ready High Definition camera will do the trick. Of course you’ll need a little bit of tech savvy to edit the video, but for a few hundred dollars there are excellent Videographers who can help put a semi-professional video together for you. When I added videos to my local cleaning website, the number of jobs I booked doubled overnight. Adding a video that properly sells your cleaning service will easily boost your response rate. Put at least one video on your main page. If it’s a good video, it will keep web surfers on your site longer, increase your search engine ranking, and book more jobs.
Get their email address with an email opt-in box. If there was a way to robotically keep in touch with prospects who come to your website, would you use it? Well there is! It’s called an email auto responder. It contains a little box you put up on your site where prospects put in their name and email address. It’s best if you offer them a bonus to entice them to sign up for your auto responder. The bonus could be a gift certificate toward cleaning, free bottle of spot remover, or an intriguing report. After they sign up you can program your auto responder to send them a series of emails over the course of the next several weeks. This is a great way to keep your company at the top of your prospect’s mind. See www.ConstantContact.comwww.IContact.com or www.Aweber.com for information on auto responders.
Have a call to action on every page. Once you’ve gotten them on your site, make responding to your offer easy. Tell them EXACTLY what to do and how to do it. In fact, I like to put a button on every page that says something like, “Click Here NOW For a FREE Estimate.” When clicked, the web surfer is taken to a web inquiry form that asks questions about their cleaning needs. As well, have multiple calls to action.
Call them to action. Don’t just use banners asking to click for an estimate, also put a call to action in the body copy of the website. Simply say, “Click Here for an estimate” in the middle of your text. In addition, your phone number should appear in BIG, BOLD type at the top of every page. Make it easy for them to contact you.
If your website doesn’t get prospects calling and emailing for your service, something is terribly wrong. You need to do something about it or you’re leaving lots of money on the table. If your website doesn’t give your prospects exactly what they want, they’ll go on to your competitors site. Take action today by making a few of these additions and book more jobs on your website.
The “ICS Magazine Blast Your Business Into the Stratosphere” tour is happening all over the U.S. this fall.
Three cities now confirmed:
* Las Vegas – Sep 6th (day before the Connections Convention)
* Denver – Sep 20th (my first time EVER in Denver)
* Ontario, California (outside of L.A.) Oct 11th
You’ll get coaching from myself and my good friend Howard Partridge for a special day called “ICS Magazine Blast your business into the stratosphere.”
So, if you’d like to spend an entire day with Howard and I, come a day early to Connections. Or, if Denver is more your speed, meet up with me there. Or if you’re in the Southern Cal area, meet up with me in Ontario, CA.
Get all the details at the link below, plus a FREE CD on blasting your business into the stratosphere…
P.S. My current Ad-of-the-Month Coaching Club members can get FREE admission to this day of coaching. And even if you’re not a coaching member, you can come to this event for a tiny investment.
P.S. My current Ad-of-the-Month Coaching Club members can
come FREE to this day of coaching. And even if you’re not a
coaching member, you can come for a tiny investment.
