# Marketing Question



## DanburyTreeCT (Sep 16, 2016)

About 6 months ago I was approached on facebook from a web guy, who offered a website. I couldn't afford the $6000 price tag, so instead I asked for other options. Long story short, I'm renting my Tree Service Website from this guy for $2000 a month. That's a ton of money, but I'm getting close to 2-3 calls everyday. Think I should try to make my own website? How hard is it? I'm paying a lot of money, but making a lot. 

I'm just honestly not sure, if its something I can do myself. 

here's my website: http://www.danburytreepros.com/

Can I do something like that myself?


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## jefflovstrom (Sep 17, 2016)

DanburyTreeCT said:


> About 6 months ago I was approached on facebook from a web guy, who offered a website. I couldn't afford the $6000 price tag, so instead I asked for other options. Long story short, I'm renting my Tree Service Website from this guy for $2000 a month. That's a ton of money, but I'm getting close to 2-3 calls everyday. Think I should try to make my own website? How hard is it? I'm paying a lot of money, but making a lot.
> 
> I'm just honestly not sure, if its something I can do myself.
> 
> ...



https://www.godaddy.com/offers/defa...qopG_9309534422_go+daddy_be_c&mtid=esfyia2vf0
Jeff


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## diezelsmoke (Sep 17, 2016)

Put an add on Craigslist maybe you will find someone who needs tree work! The thing you want to keep in mind is you want a website that is clean looking like your present on and doesn't have popup adds, etc like the free ones like godaddy, that is how they pay for it.


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## jefflovstrom (Sep 17, 2016)

diezelsmoke said:


> Put an add on Craigslist maybe you will find someone who needs tree work! The thing you want to keep in mind is you want a website that is clean looking like your present on and doesn't have popup adds, etc like the free ones like godaddy, that is how they pay for it.



My bad!!
LOL..
Jeff


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## gorman (Sep 18, 2016)

What the **** is wrong with you? There are tons and tons of younger people with student loans who will do a top notch web design job for you for a fraction of the price. Where to start is a tough call.
I grew up with people who went on to learn to do that html and Wordpress coding so I had it easy. Two grand a month is lunacy.


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## Jeff Heaton (Oct 1, 2016)

Go to Fiver.com and do a quick search.. Like stated earlier you can get a great website for 1/10th of what you are paying now. Just my two cents but, trying to help a brother out.


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## northmanlogging (Oct 1, 2016)

think im payin like 30 or 40 a year, yes a year

ots a self made site well wifey made so yer on yer as to how and stuff

anyhow northmanlogging.com ats simple and plain, can't say i get much budiness from it though


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## gorman (Oct 2, 2016)

As long as you have a FB page for your biz and your website links to it and vice versa you are at a good baseline for seo. You can get real into it but the rules change every so often I wouldn't delve too deep. 
I get an two emails a week from my website. People click a button and it sends a email to me about their query.


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## Druidess (Oct 13, 2016)

DanburyTreeCT said:


> About 6 months ago I was approached on facebook from a web guy, who offered a website. I couldn't afford the $6000 price tag, so instead I asked for other options. Long story short, I'm renting my Tree Service Website from this guy for $2000 a month. That's a ton of money, but I'm getting close to 2-3 calls everyday. Think I should try to make my own website? How hard is it? I'm paying a lot of money, but making a lot.
> 
> I'm just honestly not sure, if its something I can do myself.
> 
> ...



Hi there, @DanburyTreeCT ; I sent you a direct message on ******** forum and just noticed you posted here. You need a far more cost effective program since you're in a highly competitive market and $2k should have shown some real results. All the other services in Danbury show up but not you. Can you send me an email at [email protected] and we can at least look at what you have now, including any reports this guy is giving you (if the answer is none, run away)?


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## Treerat (Oct 16, 2016)

Paying that much money a month is absolutely insane. It is really not that hard to set up a website.I went with Goddady.com and puchased there premium buisieness website builder package for under 200.00 had someone set up the basics for me then paid Goddady another couple hundred to tweeck it and do the SEO. and I get 10 to 15 calls a day. cost is about 500.00 per year to manage. This is something I would seriously recommend .There are a couple hundred sites you can claim free business listings.They will boost your rankings on google and help your business to be found easier. It takes about 6 weeks for googles web bots to crawl these sites. FyI Stay away from companies that say they can do this for you as they are a scam and most of the listings they claim are not valid SEO certificates and will not help your rankings. It is better to be completely self sustained as this will keep your overhead low.I know what you are thinking who has time to sit on line and claim a couple hundred listings. Trust me I get it. I do this in the winter when things are slow and honestly I have only claimed about a hundred of mine and it has drastically helped my business. Also and this is just me .Stay away from lead generating companies as they are out of there mind on pricing and are really not profitable . If you do the work your business will thrive!


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## Druidess (Oct 16, 2016)

It's great when you can take on the creation of your own directory listings and for review sites, you should be responding to any negative reviews (a boilerplate message of "We're sorry to hear your experience was not satisfactory and we would like you to contact us so we can see how we can better handle your needs") --it isn't about crawling to someone who may have been a total jerk, it is the perception others might have about the quality of your customer service. The really awful customers will likely never call your bluff but people who never used you before will think, "Great customer service." You control your reputation and know that you aren't linked to cheap Viagra from another country or child ****.

And you're right, there are some really awful scammers who can do more harm than good despite their pricey fees. I do have some reservations about GoDaddy web builder sites because I see so many that are not optimized for cell phone or tablet display, and you can eventually take a megahit from search engines (especially Google) for that in the long run. The other big method of SEO is periodic blog posts to give the site some fresh information, and my understanding is GoDaddy doesn't offer that at all, either. 

Just like I know arborists who want to warn clients about "door knockers" that actually try to get business on the cheap without being qualified or insured, you do need to ask some pointed questions about the people who come to you offering these SEO packages. The $2k and up level is legitimate if you are a multi-million dollar company.

I think an SEO specialist can help when a business just hasn't got the time to do the work (I have met several who are looking to promote doing work in the winter to avoid tight cash flows) or who just find that computer work isn't for them. And because Google keeps altering how it ranks webpages, so what works now may crash and burn in a few months; anyone who says you will get to #1 spot in search results and stay there also has a bridge in Brooklyn they'd like to sell. I would suggest looking at someone with a short term package of no more than 6 months and who can tell you clearly what they do and provide regular reports that are clearly showing it. The one caveat is that no one can show definitively that you are getting calls as a direct result of your SEO efforts, EXCEPT if they are running pay-per-click ads for you; those can get really pricey if you have a ton of competition in your service area. If they make that claim but deny they run ads, they are lying like a rug.

Carol


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## Treerat (Oct 16, 2016)

Agreed! What is your take on SEO now that google has partnered with homeadvisor? I do not and will not just as a matter of principle after being harassed by them ever do business with them. I have noticed that they have a basic high and low price list that is really not anywhere near what actual costs are and it has become quite an issue with myself and other companies I know. This is just me but my take on it is that it looks like they are trying to set the market


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## Druidess (Oct 17, 2016)

Treerat said:


> Agreed! What is your take on SEO now that google has partnered with homeadvisor? I do not and will not just as a matter of principle after being harassed by them ever do business with them. I have noticed that they have a basic high and low price list that is really not anywhere near what actual costs are and it has become quite an issue with myself and other companies I know. This is just me but my take on it is that it looks like they are trying to set the market



I was unfamiliar that HomeAdvisor was offering this (but the librarian in me went to work researching it), and only was aware of it as a way to rate various services (one of my clients is collecting reviews there). The review and rating service, that costs nothing as far as I know if you claim your listing and can verify the data, is enough and I found with my one client, Google shows HomeAdvisor reviews on his Google business profile (as well as his Google and Yelp reviews). Google loves reviews that point to a site, so it is another boost for any business. In fact, bad reviews also rank, but you need to be sure to respond to them with a diplomatic answer like the one I offered above. 

Anyway, my quick research told me that the add-on paid service to be offered as a match/be sent leads gets a "meh" for effectiveness. If you can get reviews without paying, that is the real gold. Just be sure that your information is the same on all directories, phone number, contact address, business name, website, contact email. Google uses phone numbers first and foremost. And encourage people to send the ratings and review love your way (I designed new biz cards for my client with QRC on the back to have customers read his reviews and offer their own reviews, just by scanning the codes to go to HA, Yelp, and Google).


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## Treerat (Oct 17, 2016)

From what I have seen and the way that I have been approached. They are a lead generating service. They charge between 15 and 50 dollars per lead and give the same lead to multiple companies.I do not like biding wars.In the end no one really makes any money espesially when there is a third party involved. This is one of the reasons I will not do business with them. I have been in business for over 20 years and have a strong clientele. My concern is do you think that now that they have partnered do you think that the paid adds will have an effect on organic search results. I have done some reasearch on you and I think I would value your opinion on this topic.


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## Druidess (Oct 17, 2016)

I have to confess that this is the usual "Google is morphing again" scenario that is really tough to keep up with. At the moment, the deal with HA is to allow people to book an appointment directly via the Google Business profile that comes up in search, so yes, anyone who does not have an HA account is going to drop lower. But Google is developing their own Home Services Ad product, rolling out in selected locations (beta was in San Francisco) where Google actually does its own vetting of businesses via the Pinkerton Agency so that when they accept a business, take their money for the ad, and present it, they are confident that the business meets a high criteria. Presently it is limited to plumbers and locksmiths. It could, in fact, whack the stuffing out of HomeAdvisor, Yelp, Angie's List, etc.. since all the referral comes through the Google Business record that will likely be given prominence, bypassing third party lead generators. And it appears you're gut feeling is right, the Google Home Services Ads/Advisors will lower the rank of organic search results if you don't pay to play, and that is contrary to what Google always championed for as long as I can remember. It also seems at odds with their latest core project that is supposed to process requests based on intent of the end user via their search and give smaller businesses an equal opportunity to bite at the apple if they do their homework.

I'm planning to attend an SEO presentation with a guy who writes for MOZ (a major SEO talent pool and provider of various services) next week and I will put this on my "to ask" list. I haven't gotten out ahead of the curve on this since I have been initially working on web design experience building and understand organic and on-page SEO well, but haven't reached critical mass in off-page SEO apart from some mentoring from a colleague who hasn't really touched this topic in our conversations. So I will drink from an all-new firehose on this (oh joy). But I think the third party lead generation is dicey, stick with good customer service and good reviews online, and make the content you have meaningful.

I'm a former University of Michigan-Ann Arbor student and originally from Flint, Buddha help me--so while I'm pretty much a New Englander, I remember Michigan of my youth. Hope times aren't too tough for you.


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## Beeline_Chris (Nov 14, 2016)

DanburyTreeCT said:


> About 6 months ago I was approached on facebook from a web guy, who offered a website. I couldn't afford the $6000 price tag, so instead I asked for other options. Long story short, I'm renting my Tree Service Website from this guy for $2000 a month. That's a ton of money, but I'm getting close to 2-3 calls everyday. Think I should try to make my own website? How hard is it? I'm paying a lot of money, but making a lot.
> 
> I'm just honestly not sure, if its something I can do myself.
> 
> ...



@DanburyTreeCT

As others have said, get out of this asap. Take your website content, and run. Even if you paid $6,000 for a basic website (which is really high!), you could have asked the developer for a payment plan, and been done with your payments in 3 months... you also aren't getting $2,000/month in value from the developer, who spent time up front to build your site, but is now just sitting on your monthly payments with time minimal investment.

Fivver.com is a good place to start. Or try Squarespace... you can even build a website there yourself with a drag and drop editor. If you need some ideas on how you should format the site so that you get more than 1-2 calls each month like your current site, I'm happy to share.


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## ChoppyChoppy (Nov 14, 2016)

The site is "ok" but for $2k a month I'd expect a super high end website, not something tossed together on a weekend.

I pay about $200/year for mine for comparison. ($15/month plus the .com renewal) Valleyfirewoodak.com


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## michaelgasser17 (Dec 16, 2016)

That is big time money. A typical price for a website and search optimization is $1000-$3000 up front for the site for something professionally done. Then you can expect to pay $500-$1000 per month for professional SEO to get you ranked on page one of google.

$2000 per month is on the high end of the SEO spectrum. The key though is that it have a good return on investment. All websites are not created equal and having a great ranking on google is what brings those calls. If you get one $1000 job every day from your site, then $2000 per month gives you 15 times return on that investment.


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