One of the biggest hurdles that general contractors have to get past is the trust factor. Are we who we say we are? Will we do what we say we will do? Can we produce what we say we can produce? As a contractor we expect a total stranger to call us, schedule to meet, enter their home or business, tear something apart, then rebuild it to look awesome. That’s asking a lot from someone we just met or talked to on the phone.

That’s what it is all about in the service business – trust.

Today the property owner has ways of getting to know the contractor before ever meeting them face-to-face.

Thanks to social networks like Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter, the general contractor can be “checked out” long before ever meeting him. Before the internet boom, you had a square box in the yellow pages, or a flyer shoved into your door as a first impression to the contractor.

Today we can look at companies and people in a different way. We can see the contractors work, comments they have posted, who they associate with – and maybe that trust can be increased a little by getting to know them better. And there is more that we can do.

In searching for the right contractor that you can trust you probably want someone near you. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way that we could finding someone that we could trust nearby. There are ways to look up general contractors in your area. Here are a few popular sites.

Google , Yahoo, and Bing all have local search directories. Yelp is another. These local searches may help pinpoint contractors near you to help get started on your quest for the trusted contractor. Are there any other ways to finding a service business? Many more. How about the most trusted source of finding a contractor ever – Word-Of-Mouth.

That’s right, people are most comfortable getting a referral based on what their friends and family have experienced. Someone they know has already tried using the contractor and was happy with the results. Don’t have friends and family that have used a general contractor?

Example: Customer Testimonials

Maybe the contractor has a list of past customers for you to contact. Don’t be afraid to make contact with the past customers, it may help you build that trust. And in this business, trust is very important to both you and the general contractor.

I will introduce to you a technology that’s easy to use, maintain and gets results! But before we get into the details let me give you a little history.

Gone are the days, when business owners would belly up to the bar and pay a web designer to build a website.

Why? Because pretty websites don’t get you noticed!

The way business advertise and market has radically changed. Yellow pages simply don’t work. Can I hear an Amen, bothers and sisters?

Brochure sites are dead. What do I mean by a “brochure site?”  Most websites built are ones that I consider to be a brochure site. Nice layout, good content and pretty pictures. But like a brochure, it’s rare we redesign our company’s brochures. We see this with our suppliers, some come out with a new catalog annually, while others simply add sales sheets when a new products are added. Keeping their same ole catalog for  multiple years. We only wish the prices would remain that constant.

At least with pricing, you can print in black and white with 100s of line items per page.

The dirty little secret that seems to get no attention is…

Most websites are built by web designers with expensive programs like DreamWeaver and the likes. Any changes you would like to make requires a call back to your web design company. Which always takes time and money.

In the end, we all have heard stories from business owners that have a website and not traffic!

No traffic is a direct result of not providing fresh content for your site. Mind you there are other way’s of driving traffic to your site. PPC(Pay Per Click) advertising, article marketing, social media(FaceBook and Twitter come to mind) and others.

Which brings me to the point of this article…

The WordPress Revolution

WordPress is a widely known in the blogosphere as the number one blogging software.

WordPress has grown from a blogging platform into a fully functional CMS(Content Management System) Briefly, CMS’s separate the presentation from the content of your website. Website pages consist of a design elements such as graphics and layouts(presentation),and content: headlines, paragraphs, links and such. With CMS, you can change the entire look of a website without changing the content. CMS’s are database driven. Information is stored in a database and combined with the template or presentation layer by the CMS.

In contrast, using the services of a web designer and their high-end programs creates individual, static web pages. Each web page is a single file. Adding new pages creates more files. This has been sufficient for small “brochure type sites(< 20 pages.) Remember, brochure sites don’t get you traffic! No traffic = no new clients.

With the rapid transfer of business advertising from traditional methods(print, media, direct, etc.) to web or internet based advertising and marketing. The competition is exponentially greater than it had been even last year.

If you are not constantly updating our website you will be buried by the sandstorm of competitors and websites that do.

WordPress not only allows you to easily make changes, WordPress also allows you to automate the traffic generation to your website.

Why WordPress?

• Easy to update
• Over 8,000 plugins to extend and automate your website
• It’s search engine friendly, out of the box
• Thousands of competent developers, designers and a huge community of active members willing to help
• It’s FREE

WordPress is revolutionizing the way websites are built. With WordPress, you too can easily update and add content to your website. I like to tell my clients, many of whom are contractors who spend the majority of the time working in the field and not on a computer…

If you can type a Word document or send an email, you too can update your website.

Why is this important? When you post new content on your website, it is possible to automate notification to 100’s of websites. But, most importantly, it tells the major search engines(Google, Yahoo, Bing and others) to come back and visit your site because, you have something new to show.

And that my friends is why the brochure type site is dead! If you are not updating your site regularly, the search engines stop visiting. When they stop visiting, your site is destined to disappear into the abyss.

WordPress has revolutionized the internet and the way websites are built. If you would like to learn more about our design services, please visit us SiteDesign.HomeBuildR.net

Did you know that your business is listed on Google Maps?

Did you know that unscrupulous people can hijack you map listing and Steal your customers if you don’t protect your listing? Practically every small business is listed on Google Maps. This is great. Millions of people use Google everyday and they can now use it to search for local businesses. Google has become the digital answer to the printed yellow pages for many consumers. It’s easier, faster, and can provide more information for the consumer and it also offers the merchant a very inexpensive way to promote their business. Among other things, merchants can add photos and videos. It’s almost like getting a free full page ad in the telephone book or a free commercial on TV. Sounds great! The only problem is that it is possible for anybody to hijack your Google Map Business listing if you don’t take the necessary steps to protect it. Look How Easy it is to steal your Google Map Listing For those not familiar with Google Maps, navigate to Google. (You will need to be logged into a Google account to do this) Then pick a business type and city, for example “dog grooming + your city”. Click search and the top ten listings will appear beside a Google Map at the top of the page.  If you are one of these businesses in the top ten search results you are in a very enviable position. These are the businesses that will get the most attention from potential customers. These are the businesses that customers are going to call first or investigate further to learn more about the merchant. And since these businesses are in such an enviable position, these businesses are key targets for sabotage, hijacking, or both. Here’s how the bad guys do it

Go back to your results for the above search “dog grooming + your city”. Pick a listing toward the bottom of the list that doesn’t have an associated website and click on it. To make sure you pick an appropriate listing for this demonstration click on listing that has maps.google.com to the right of it instead of a web url. When you click on the business listing, an info page for the business will launch, if not click on more info. On this info page, right beneath the phone numbers are some links. One of the links says Edit. If you click on the Edit link a new page launches and there is a white balloon with another menu for the type of edits. They are:·          Move marker·          Edit Details·          Remove place·          Flag as inappropriate The malicious editing of any one of these details could severely harm your business. If somebody moved your map place marker customers might not be able to find you. If somebody flagged your listing as inappropriate it could turn into a real nuisance. And if somebody edited your details and changed your phone number or completely remove your business listing from the map, that could be catastrophic. Stealing Your Customers

Let’s say you have a local flower shop. You have an optimized business listing and you are in the top ten search results. Now let’s assume that there is an unscrupulous florist on page 2 of the Google Map listings and nobody is calling him. All he would have to do is click on the Edit Details of your Google Map listing and change your telephone number to his. Customers would think they are calling you, but they would be calling your competition and you would be losing business.  Or a malicious competitor could just remove your listing from the map. To do this, all they would have to do is click on Remove Place and have your listing removed from the map. One might think that nobody would do this because it would be so easy to catch the culprit. After all, if they hijack a listing, there information is now on the listing and they would be easy to catch. But this isn’t the case. Peruse the Google Maps Support Group forum and you will see that this kind of behavior is rampant. So What Can You Do to Protect Yourself

Before answering that question, another question might be why does Google allows this? I can’t really speak for Google but it is my guess that Google allows this to help the public at large. Maybe there is a school or store that is closed or has moved or changed phone numbers. A good person could edit the listing and update the information for to make the map more accurate. Google probably hopes there are more good people than bad people. Google might also permit this editing because it is relatively easy to prevent the problem. All you have to do to prevent somebody from tampering with your business listing on Google Maps is claim your business. Follow the same steps described above to edit your business listing, but instead of editing, click on Claim your Business and follow the steps.  When a business map listing has been claimed, if somebody tries to hijack it they will get a message: “This listing has been claimed in Local Business Center and can only be edited by the owner”. This should prevent most hijackings and other digital vandalism. So if you haven’t claimed your business do it now. Don’t delay. Do it before somebody else claims your business listing and prevents you from claiming it. The consequences of failing to act could be dire. Also, if you claim your business you can take the steps to optimize your Google Map listing so that it appears in the top ten Google Map search results, if it isn’t already there. More information on do this can be found at my website.

Is your Google Map Listing in the top ten search results?It could be. We can help.

Al Remetch
website: http://www.MyMapInfo.com
blog: http://www.MyMapInfo.wordpress.com

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Yellow pages are DEAD!

4 out of 10 consumers use local search to conduct research and make purchasing decisions. – Business Wire

So what is local search engine marketing?

Your potential customers have rapidly changed their buying habits. Right now 40% of consumers use the internet when making their buying decisions, and this number has grown 31% in just the last year 2008.

Which brings up the question, how do consumers use the internet to find you?

• Area search – An example of this is “roofing contractor sacramento”
• Hands On search – This is a search where the consumer is looking to visit your place of business to see what options are available or to compare prices first hand. Example – “tile store chicago”
• Finding a specific business – This type of search was traditionally done with the yellow pages, which is time consuming at best. Instead, using the internet one can quickly find the business they are looking for – “lumber yard sunrise blvd”

Consumers looking to do business with contractors use the internet to find you. By far the most common type of search for contractors is an area search. And for those of you who rely on a storefront, like kitchen and bath design centers, to aid in your sales process, the hands on search is also relevant.

Your sales are impacted by local search!

Let’s take a moment to see exactly what is seen by your consumers when they do a local search for your company. Google is constantly trying to determine if the search has local intent. For example, when someone is looking for a specific company in an area Google will display a specific location.

At other times, Google can’t determine if the consumer is looking for a specific company. In this example, the consumer is looking for a contractor in an area. When Google see this, it will display a map with many of your competitors. If your company isn’t shown, you are not going to get the call!

One last way, that Google serves up a search is when they know the business, but can’t determine the location. This is what I call a 3 pack.

As you can tell, local search is important for your company to embrace. As a business, you need to take the steps necessary to list your company and take control over your listing. Doing this well, will have you placed near the top of Google’s local search.

Consumers are using the internet to find contractors and businesses. Can they find you?

In the next article in this series, I will discuss mobile search and the rapidly changing way your customers are using not only their computers to find you, but their iPhones and other smartphones.

Please feel free to give me your comments and suggestions as to what you would like to learn in future articles by commenting below.