I want to extend a Welcome…
to the two newest members of the timgladieux.com family!
“J and T Lawn Aeration“ and “Jim Carmona Landscaping Services“
I hope this leads to a long and fruitful relationship for us all. Their new Websites can be reached via the links in the left sidebar of my home page or here:
Funny Story
So while I was creating their websites, they told me of a friend who was paying some local company a whole bunch of money per month because they “guaranteed” their friend they could get his website high ranking at Google. Now I suspect those of you who have read some of my other posts, know how I reacted! So I went to Google and did some research. Come to find out their friend doesn’t even have a website but just a listing in Googles Local Business Section.
If your wondering, no it wasn’t high ranking! In fact it was a devil finding it in the first place. Apparently this company’s guarantee only covered if the average Internet Surfer (which of course we don’t have in the Retirement Community of Hemet Calif.), actually typed in the Real and Complete Name of the business in their search. Well Duh! If ya know what your looking for what do ya need with a search engine anyway? No just so you know their friends business is Tree Trimming (no not like Christmas), actually trimming the branches of trees or cutting down the trees all together.
So I took my laptop outside and gave the guys a demo:
Pretend your an elderly person who only uses a computer to send email and write the occasional letter and maybe surf the Internet once in awhile. You have a big tree in your yard that needs trimming. You go to Google. you type in “tree service” and hit enter. Ah, 35 million hits for “tree service”, hum? Okay, you live in the very small rural retirement community of Hemet, so you try again. “tree service hemet”! Ah there we go, only 53,100 hits for “tree services hemet”. Wait, isn’t that about the whole population of Hemet! Does everybody in Hemet have a Tree Service Business? (Actually, I don’t even think we have that many trees!
Good news though, the top of the page there is a company actually named “Hemet Tree Service”. Oops, wait, that’s not your friends Website? I am sure they are very nice people, but we still didn’t get what we were really looking for. Now what was the name of that tree service that so-and-so recommended? I can’t remember. Oh well I’ll just go with these guys!
Can anyone guarantee high ranking in any search engine. Sure pay the search engine for a sponsored link! How many search engines are there and how much do they charge? You don’t wanna know! Solution?
Well it turns out that what this company did is list him in the local business directory and make him a small 20 second video commercial and put it on “You-Tube” to advertise his business! And it does come up really fast at “You-Tube” if you search for “Inland Tree Service”. Hum, I wonder are their a lot of elderly people in Hemet and San Jacinto searching for Tree Services on “You-Tube”? Oh, by the way, if you go back to Google and put in Inland Tree Service the name of my friends business you still don’t get him. You get a company in Spokane, Washington. I wonder how much they charge to drive down to Hemet, Calif. to trim a tree?
Now to make a long sad story short and happy! When I finished designing my new customer’s websites I submitted them to oh I don’t know, about 40 different search engines and numerous business directories! All in about 30 minutes. Less than 24hrs later all the little robots had found the new sites and because I had designed the sites per standards, and the meta tags reflected what was really in the content and the XML sitemaps were clean and clear pointing to all the pages and links, the search engines listed my clients new Websites right away. I’ll let ya guess where they ranked. Just kidding!
I couldn’t resist and called my first client and left this message on his answering machine, “Hey this is your Web Host. I don’t wanna be annoying, but it’s been less than 24hrs since your site went live and if you happen to go to Google and search for “lawn aeration hemet” (go look at the top of this post, that’s not the name of his business.), guess who comes up number 1!” And yes, KJ, I checked by clearing my cookies and trying several browsers. (that’s an inside joke with a subscriber).
The Happy Part? I’ll be calling Dave, the owner of Inland Tree Service tomorrow. 