Customer concerned with lack of business

Customer concerned with lack of business (Full Version)

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cooper -> Customer concerned with lack of business (6/5/2003 8:38:39)
I built a site for a customer (www.northlakecustomwoodworks.com) last fall (November of 2002). To date, he has take only one order for $120. He keeps asking me what can be done to " increase traffic, increase sales, etc." I have told him it comes down to his marketing the site. I am afraid he believes the " Field of Dreams" (If you build it, they will come) stories of the Internet. I have used Self Promote, and hand submitted to the majors. I have linked to him off my " Portfolio" page. I have had him gather links to other sites in an effort to trade links to help the Google page score. I just finished rebuilding the site' s homepage to carry A LOT more keywords, but is there anything else you guys can think of to help drive him some traffice and potential business?

Andy from Spain -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/5/2003 9:17:06)
Hi I just checked for the site in Google and couldn' t find it there, also there were no back-links and white rank bar. (I know Google is going through some major changes but if the site was up November 2002 it should be there somewhere). As a jump start, do you think he would be willing to consider ad words? Have you submitted to Dmoz and could he get his suppliers to link to him? Cheers Andy

LB -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/5/2003 10:20:19)
quote: I have had him gather links to other sites in an effort to trade links Have any of these trades links back to him? If not, some other good links should be found that are willing to give him a link back. Have you considered doing a blogger of some sort on your main site to be able to link to clients? Google will then pick them up and once indexed you can change the info you' re showing to something else. " Caring for cedar" and " about cedar" open into new windows from the home page, but not from the other pages. Is " caring for cedar" a phrase that' s searched on or would something else be better? www.wordtracker.com Changing the asp pages to have dynamic titles would be great for when Google indexes the site. Individual descriptive titles such as " redwood garden arbors" would be better than having " Patio furniture shop" for each page. [;)] Linda

Mojo -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/5/2003 12:50:04)
A great book, " Don' t Make Me Think" by Steve Krug should be forced upon clients. Most web visitor don' t read all the nice paragraphs and such. They skim through the site looking for text and such that catches their eye. Your client has a lot of nicely written text, that nobody is reading. It would need to be more catchy. Also, not being in Google means he is missing huge numbers. I looked through MSN and while he is listed, he is not coming up very well (I gave up trying to find his site) for search terms. I have not found him listed under any search term - that is generating traffic (I use wordtracker and overture) - within the first 60 listing. Most people will not go down that far. There are tons of sites offering somewhat the same things that he does, so he has some competition. Not to sound condescending, but MSN is fairly easy to crack into the top 10 - once you convince your client to change a bit of his text. Google is more difficult, depending on your competition. There is a lot of debate on what works and what does not work in Google. One camp will tell you that with decent content and keywords all you need in Google are links... lots of links. I kind of believe that (for now). Also, Google eats up certain kinds of SPAM (not the so called bad spam, rather - search engine spam [:D] ). It just depends on how risky you want to be. As was mentioned, Adwords may be a good place to start. Looksmart gives me a huge ROI on a few sites. I know many people do well with Overture, but I don' t do well with them (must be the click wars I am always involved in).

Peppergal -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/9/2003 14:12:21)
One of my clients pays Looksmart up to $50 a month (it' s pay per click, and she set her budget at no more than $50). She comes up #1 on MSN with the main search term for her site. Unfortunately, she ranks on the 4th page of google with that same search term. I just advised her to get AdWords as well. Your client will have to spend some money, that' s for sure. Hopefully, not much. I know people who spend $800 a month to market their site!! (I think if their site had a better design, they' d be able to get more customers without paying through the nose)

garry -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/9/2003 19:52:23)
Coops I have had the same " problem" with one of my sites ! Google, Fast & altavista have not picked it up in the last 4+ months. With all the linkages to it from Portfolio page etc.........if you do a search for it, do you locate your portfolio page? . I do , but nothing after that. I' m giving it another month. Most sites are picked up off my portfolio page within a month.

cooper -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/16/2003 11:17:22)
Thanks for the insight. Believe it or not, I just redesigned his home page to include A LOT more keywords. You' ll never guess what I found... row upon row of words like " adirondack" and " outdoor futniture cheap" that were colored white to match the background!!!! He' s climbing up one side of me and down the other for lack of business and search engine ranking and he is SPAMMING search engines behind my back! [:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@]

barry -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/16/2003 12:22:46)
quote: He' s climbing up one side of me and down the other for lack of business and search engine ranking and he is SPAMMING search engines behind my back! Looks like you are free and clear![:D] If he wants you to do anything from this point I would put a SEO contract in front of him with a heafty price tag. If he does not pay it I am sure you can find other things to do with your time.[:)] Barry

Gil -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/16/2003 12:52:17)
quote: He' s climbing up one side of me and down the other for lack of business and search engine ranking and he is SPAMMING search engines behind my back! The domain may very well ahve been banned already!

cooper -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/26/2003 16:19:57)
quote: The domain may very well ahve been banned already! I asked the client to email Google and explain himself. They accepted his " apology" and relisted his site. Heck... he now has a Google page rank of 2!

garry -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/27/2003 18:55:33)
Did you charge for your honest" advice." quote: outdoor futniture cheap Gil, I thought the only thing he could of been banned for would be bad speeling. [:D]

cooper -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (6/27/2003 20:02:51)
quote: bad speeling I' ll admit, I am an English Major with a writing concentration, but I have these really fat fingers...

LilyVorTek -> RE: Customer concerned with lack of business (7/1/2003 22:19:38)
You need to think about this differently. 1. Look at the site from the point of view of his customers. It' s not a bad site the way it is but the home page sort of floods you with content. 2. Start advising him on how to conventionally promote the site. Is the domain on his business cards, his answering machine, everything that is printed or moving, do all his employees know the domain. 3. start looking at ways he can use the site to help his current clients in addition to getting new ones. If his current clients use the site frequently then they will tell others the domain when they are talking about the company. 4. This is the key to getting google to pick you up... put a link to you business site on the bottom of every page of every site you do. Put a link on your site to every site you do. Then add the site to google. As soon as any one of you sites gets spidered they all will be so new sites get picked up quick, usually within two weeks. 5. Start a list serv and get him to do a newsletter every so often with deals or whatever he is doing. I could go on forever... if you just get sick of him... I' ll take him.

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