How to get above google's natural listings?

[David Mason]

Hi there folks, please excuse my ignorance. I'm very new to this advertising lark. I run a very small business teaching the drums in Birmingham and am only just starting to get into social networking and advertising so I feel completely snowed under my all the lingo etc.

I foolishly took up a deal with Raw Marketing sometime last year to appear at the top of google's natural results for £50 per month for 3 keyphrases. I'm worried that due to my ignorance I don't quite realise the extent to which I'm currently being ripped off. I would like to cancel my direct debit with them asap as they have no means of contact and are now charging me £60pm. Why the have hiked the price without telling me I don't know.

Basically, I would like to leave asap but i'm worried I'll lose business as a result of not having my ad at the top of the results.

I would like to know how to get it back there myself. Can anybody help? there's plenty of free drum lessons in it for you!

These keyphrases are:

"Drum lessons West Midlands"
"Drum lessons Birmingham"
"Drum tuition Birmingham"

If you search for these on google they will show at the top for the natural listings almost every time.

Please help!

 

[zomex]

Hi there folks, please excuse my ignorance. I'm very new to this advertising lark. I run a very small business teaching the drums in Birmingham and am only just starting to get into social networking and advertising so I feel completely snowed under my all the lingo etc.

Don't worry, it will get easier over time even though it's very overwhelming in the beginning.

I foolishly took up a deal with Raw Marketing sometime last year to appear at the top of google's natural results for £50 per month for 3 keyphrases. I'm worried that due to my ignorance I don't quite realise the extent to which I'm currently being ripped off. I would like to cancel my direct debit with them asap as they have no means of contact and are now charging me £60pm. Why the have hiked the price without telling me I don't know

.

Do you mean the paid results or the organic results? If your website is showing up above the organic results then it's also considered sponsored (paid). I assume by natural you mean organic but I just want to make sure before I can help. Here's a quick screenshot:

Is this your website?

http://www.midlandacademyofdrumming.co.uk/

Thanks,
Jack

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I would like to know how to get it back there myself. Can anybody help? there's plenty of free drum lessons in it for you!

These keyphrases are:

"Drum lessons West Midlands"
"Drum lessons Birmingham"
"Drum tuition Birmingham"

If you search for these on google they will show at the top for the natural listings almost every time.

You show up as 4th, 3rd and 3rd from here. You need to establish where your traffic is coming from, PPC, places or organics. I don't see any PPC ad from here in Surrey.

You should install something like G analytics on your site to help you establish where visitors come from (and what they do) before you make any decisions...

 

[E Storey]

Hi there folks, please excuse my ignorance. I'm very new to this advertising lark. I run a very small business teaching the drums in Birmingham and am only just starting to get into social networking and advertising so I feel completely snowed under my all the lingo etc.

I foolishly took up a deal with Raw Marketing sometime last year to appear at the top of google's natural results for £50 per month for 3 keyphrases. I'm worried that due to my ignorance I don't quite realise the extent to which I'm currently being ripped off. I would like to cancel my direct debit with them asap as they have no means of contact and are now charging me £60pm. Why the have hiked the price without telling me I don't know.

Basically, I would like to leave asap but i'm worried I'll lose business as a result of not having my ad at the top of the results.

I would like to know how to get it back there myself. Can anybody help? there's plenty of free drum lessons in it for you!

These keyphrases are:

"Drum lessons West Midlands"
"Drum lessons Birmingham"
"Drum tuition Birmingham"

If you search for these on google they will show at the top for the natural listings almost every time.

Please help!

If you can demonstrate you have made reasonable attempts to contact them, then you should be fine to cancel by just telephoning your bank to cancel the direct debit.

you normally have to give a months notice to the company. But if they have no contact details? clearly you can't do that.

is it one of these two? If it is the first one, they should not be taking direct debits as they are dissolved, but they "may" have passed their customer list over to the 2nd.

Name & Registered Office:
RAW MARKETING LIMITED
395 BANBURY ROAD
OXFORD
OX2 7RF
Company No. 05612383
Status: Dissolved 02/06/2009
Date of Incorporation : 04/11/2005

RAW MARKETING SERVICES LTD
10 CLIFF ROAD
WILMSLOW
CHESHIRE
SK9 4AA
Company No. 06823884
Status: Active
Date of Incorporation: 19/02/2009

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=178880

I assume this user will have an address you can send your notice of termination to!

 

[Annoying Donkey]

These keyphrases are:

"Drum lessons West Midlands"
"Drum lessons Birmingham"
"Drum tuition Birmingham"

If you search for these on google they will show at the top for the natural listings almost every time.

Not too many (phrase match) searches shown for those keywords, just 3/day for "Drum lessons Birmingham" and nothing for the others, so I suspect you won't lose much...

 

[Results]

The Google keyword tool is woefully inaccurate for finding out how many clicks (because 1. It is an estimate 2. It is an estimate of searches - of which many could be you checking ranks, a competitor checking ranks, an SEO company checking ranks, a mistaken search/someone who then adds or changes a word to more accurately reflect what they were looking for, someone/people who first found a site via a search term & then use the same search each time they visit that site, etc.)

Therefore I would strongly suggest that the number of 'clicks' you have been receiving per month could easily be paid for with £50 on adwords (I may be totally wrong - but you can check easily enough.)

It isn't too financially risky to check in terms of investment - when you finish with these guys just put £50 into an adwords account and select those terms (with [] around the terms - eg. [Drum lessons West Midlands]) & bid reasonably 'healthily' - which should give you a good idea.

All the best with cancelling/stopping - I hate seeing people ripped off!

 

[rhderby]

The Google keyword tool is woefully inaccurate for finding out how many clicks (because 1. It is an estimate 2. It is an estimate of searches - of which many could be you checking ranks, a competitor checking ranks, an SEO company checking ranks, a mistaken search/someone who then adds or changes a word to more accurately reflect what they were looking for, someone/people who first found a site via a search term & then use the same search each time they visit that site, etc.)

That was true in some respects but now Google have a new version of the keywords tool which is supposed to be better but time will tell. Ive only used it a few times lately and it didnt seem too clever.

 

[beakus]

My first reaction is to cancel it.

However, are you getting any business through from what they are doing? If so, is it covering your costs/making you money? If you are, while what they have done by raising your DD isn't great practice, at least they are making money for your business.

I am pretty sure that they are charging you to get up on the paid listings as all three search terms show up on there but not all of them do on the natural listings.

you are showing up on Google maps though for all the phrases which is now as good as appearing on the natural listings.

As weblinkplus said, get some analytics installed on your site so you can see where the traffic is coming from. You will then be able to make a more informed decision over what to do.

 

[Experienced IT guy]

I would like to cancel my direct debit with them asap as they have no means of contact and are now charging me £60pm. Why the have hiked the price without telling me I don't know.

I would like to know how to get it back there myself. Can anybody help? there's plenty of free drum lessons in it for you!

Please help!

Two issues here: cancelling your direct debit: your bank should be able to help and advise.

Starting with SEO: there is lots of information out there. I recently did an article on what you can get for free (insufficient space and no graphics here):

http://www.ava.co.uk/support/faq/si...eryone/free-seo-tools-to-get-you-started.aspx

Hope this helps

 

[David Mason]

Thank you everybody so much.

So generously helpful! I'll definitely be sticking around this place. I'm going to get right to work. Just had a quick skim over the replies to see what's been said but I'll reply more thoroughly when I get a minute.

Dave

 

[transcribe]

Keep on optimizing those keywords in various platforms, you will get the result.

 

[Asim786]

Try getting links on commenting on blogs related to your niche and writing articles for both your site and other sites.

 

[Dave Thomas]

get registered for online banking and simply go and cancel the DD they willsoon get hold of you if they are bothered enough............if its Paid search help you need pm me

 

[Experienced IT guy]

There are a number of free tools available to you: Here is a list and screen shots of the major features that are easy to use. It also debunks the myth that information is not readily available for local buisnesses in specific markets:

http://www.ava.co.uk/support/faq/si...eryone/free-seo-tools-to-get-you-started.aspx

 

[dagaul101]

My own point of view is that SEO can be learnt easily by visiting SEO related forums, as long as you have your keywords (ideally in the domain name), the title, description, meta keywords, and naturally in the body, and are creating unique content all the time, and getting backlinks from article directories, and high ranked Web 2.0 properties you can save the œ50/œ60 per month

 

[MASSEY]

My own point of view is that SEO can be learnt easily by visiting SEO related forums, as long as you have your keywords (ideally in the domain name), the title, description, meta keywords, and naturally in the body, and are creating unique content all the time, and getting backlinks from article directories, and high ranked Web 2.0 properties you can save the œ50/œ60 per month

Its about having the time to learn though isn't it.

Also for every day your not on page one your not making money, if you paid and was optimised in 25% of the time it would take you then you will be better off quicker.

I learnt because i did not have funds to allocate to seo, but it still took me 10 months to get a number one for a worthwhile term.

 

[herodigital]

Thank you everybody so much.

So generously helpful! I'll definitely be sticking around this place. I'm going to get right to work. Just had a quick skim over the replies to see what's been said but I'll reply more thoroughly when I get a minute.

Dave

Your keywords are reasonably easy to achieve, even if you don't have an actual SEO campaign running - just getting the keywords in your site and generating content for it will help.

the best thing i can suggest is you write a load of tutorials on drumming and publish them in article directories (www.goarticles.com et al). In each article include a link back to your website. there's little point paying ANYBODY to do this for you when you can probably do it better yourself

 

[Esk247]

I'm not sure, for that type of business, that being top of google search under a paid heading is really worth the expenditure. You may aswell put that money back in your wallet and stick with learning the basics of SEO first to give your website a 'good enough' result in the search engines then concentrate the rest of your time to free marketing solutions and networking.

Paid isn't always best. Word of mouth still rules.

 

[JMRidley]

Hello Dave, I think you have been conned but honestly there is no shame in that - I very nearly fell for this myself (I was about 1 second from giving my credit card details but suddenly got nervous). I'm much better informed now. What these companies do is charge you for setting up google ads. They always offer you really specific phrases that don't get lots of searches anyway and for those that do the pay per click rate will be really low.

You can do SEO as some have suggested on this thread. However, meanwhile if you want to stay on page one of google for now, I suggest you set up a google adwords account and try it out. Create your first ad, select the 3 keywords you had been paying for and bid about 5p each on them maximum and give yourself a maximum daily amount of about £2. Let your ad run for a few days - if you aren't totting up at £2 of clicks a day you will know that you have been paying too much for your monthly service.

 

[Experienced IT guy]

Its about having the time to learn though isn't it.

If you follow the link below, you will get a good overview on what is freely available. Seems to take about 5-10 minutes on average to read (according to Google analytics)). In addition in the links area of the page to further free sources: including google's own utube videos.

To be honest I feel the basics can be learnt in a few hours (an evening)

http://www.ava.co.uk/support/faq/si...eryone/free-seo-tools-to-get-you-started.aspx

 

[SEO Lady]

If you can demonstrate you have made reasonable attempts to contact them, then you should be fine to cancel by just telephoning your bank to cancel the direct debit.

you normally have to give a months notice to the company. But if they have no contact details? clearly you can't do that.

is it one of these two? If it is the first one, they should not be taking direct debits as they are dissolved, but they "may" have passed their customer list over to the 2nd.

Name & Registered Office:
RAW MARKETING LIMITED
395 BANBURY ROAD
OXFORD
OX2 7RF
Company No. 05612383
Status: Dissolved 02/06/2009
Date of Incorporation : 04/11/2005

RAW MARKETING SERVICES LTD
10 CLIFF ROAD
WILMSLOW
CHESHIRE
SK9 4AA
Company No. 06823884
Status: Active
Date of Incorporation: 19/02/2009

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=178880

I assume this user will have an address you can send your notice of termination to!

My advice is to send a letter to both addresses with your account details and send it recorded (signed for) delivery saying you wish to cancel. I have come across agencies who do not take telephone or email cancellations and this little gem of information is usually buried in their terms and conditions on their website, which is probably not included in your contract.

You can now get £30/£50 free Adwords vouchers from Google, if I were you get yourself Analytics linked to a new Adwords account and learn for yourself. Once Adwords is set up, maintenance is very low for 3 local keyterms like you are looking for.