Google marketing for trades

Google is the biggest search engine available, but most trades people don't know that Google has a lot of tools available to help market their businesses most are simple to use and some take some time to learn to use and use well. Here 

1. Google Sites: With Google Sites you can set up a website for free, It's simple and if you can use a word processor you can use Google sites.
2. Google Analytics: If you're running a business site you want to know how well it's performing by adding code to your site you'll get report from analytics which give you a load of information about the visitors to your site.
3. Google Webmaster Tools: This is Google's tool for seeing how well your website is performing.
4. Blogger: Start writing a Blog to show your expertise in your area.
5. Google Places: One of the most important free tools from Google that you should be using,  promote your business on Google Places and get found in those searches.
6. Google Plus: Is now the second largest social media platform, If you want to build your business with social media then you should be using G+, remember Google owns the biggest search engine in the world, you've got to believe that will go some way to helping your business get found online!

It's definatly worth taking some time to learn how to use these tools properly, it'll save you a fortune with free marketing for your construction business.

to your success

Paul

Marketing focus for trades

When I started my electrical business I wouldn't think anything of travelling for an hour and a half to get a job and sometimes further, then one day it occurred to me there must be plenty of business in my local area, I did keep seeing other electrical contractors vans from other areas in my town, so why wasn't I doing those jobs? I wasn't doing enough marketing locally, so I decided at the end of 2009 that I would only do work locally in my town and surrounding towns. I then started turning down jobs that were out of my area and it actually felt good to do that. 

If you search Google to find out how many homes are just in your local area you'll see there are plenty for you to get business from and supply you with enough business to grow too! In my local area alone (In which I mean 30 minutes drive or less) there are over 200,000 homes. 

I found there were other benefits to marketing my electrical business locally, apart from just spending less time travelling, I knew where all my wholesalers were if I needed extra materials I didn't have to spend time looking for them in areas I didn't know and sometimes I was often able to go home and get materials that I had stored in my garage, It saves a fortune on fuel, wear and tear on the van but it also allowed me to spend that time working on the business and therefore getting more business also If a job had taken a bit longer than expected it was less stressful because I knew I didn't have a long drive when I'd finished.

You can put that saved money in to marketing and you'll save money on the marketing too because it'll be much more focused and focused marketing is far more efficient and effective or put more into marketing to really grow your business.

A great goal to have is to become the best know person for your trade in your area so you'll be recommended to other local people and used again and again by your happy customers. 



To your success
Paul

Online presence for trades

An online presence for trades is a must these days, if you don't have that presence for your business you'll be left behind.

When I moved to Hertford I needed to a local doctors surgery, so I Googled it and found only one GPs with a website, I called them and then registered there, and that's true for most businesses most people now look online for a service or product now and more increasingly searching from a smart phone, if you can't be found anywhere online you're losing money - one golden rule in business is don't lose money!

Great news though you don't have to spend thousands of pounds to get online today, you can do it for free, using Google Sites to get a free site, it's really simple to get it up and running so don't be daunted at the thought of building a website, if you can use a simple word processor then you can easily build your site and if you need help there is help available too with online training.

Remember though with your site keep it simple don't go over board with different fonts font sizes and colours and keep it to your branding. Also add some pictures too.

Just a website is not the be all and end all of being online though, you then need to continually promote your site, otherwise it'll just be like a needle in a haystack and never get found by potential customers.

I'll cover some great tips for marketing online for free in future posts!



To Your Success


Paul

Marketing for Trades is here.....

Welcome to my Marketing for Trades blog run by me Paul Jennings, I run a business called .......wait for it........Marketing for Trades. If you run a construction business then this blog is for you. Over the coming weeks, months and years I'll be publishing blog posts for trades people all about how to market their business.

Back in 2005 I started an electrical contracting business, I learnt a great deal about how to market my business, what works and what doesn't work and I also spent and wasted a lot of money which became an expensive education  I intend to share that knowledge with you so you don't need to spend as much money in the same way!

One thing I found on that journey was that I really enjoyed the marketing aspect of running a business and made the decision to get out of the electrical industry, So in 2012 I started a marketing business then thought why waste what I learned about marketing for my electrical business, so I decided to focus my time on just helping construction businesses.

So here we are with the Marketing for Trades blog, you'll learn lots of great ways to market your construction business online and offline.....including blogging!

To your success 

Paul

PS if you'd like to read regular marketing tips then you can catch up with me on my Google+ page