Local website - few hits

[Grahame Beard]

My current website has been up and running for about 6 months now. I have tweaked things a bit to make it more attractive and interesting to visitors. But the problem is that I am getting very few visitors to my site.

You can have the best site in the world, but if no one is going there, it's as much use as a wet paper bag. I appear on page 2 on Google for a few of my search terms in a few of the areas I cover. I am also showing on Yell and Google+ searches, but once again, not much use to me.

I wonder if it is because I am a local computer repair service covering South Essex and maybe people don't search for say, computer repairs Romford or Basildon or the other areas I cover.

I have tried other advertising such as local adverts in newspapers and I have had little response. The only thing that works at all is leaflet dropping (we do it ourselves) and even doing that, success is limited because the areas I work in tend to be heavily leafleted by other companies (especially take-aways!), so my leaflet is one of many.

Any ideas as to where I might be going wrong?

Many thanks
Grahame

 

[use]

Hey Grahame, Nice to meet you.

Have you tried social media yet? It's an essential tool for every business seeking to build a good online web presence. Maybe creating a Facebook page for your business and inviting your current customers to "Like" it - It makes for a great customer engagement tool. Failing that, get your friends and family to pop along and possibly share your page to their news feed.

Hope this helps,

Paul.

 

[Paul Murray]

Facebook advertising might be worth looking into, or at the very least joining some local FB groups and looking out for people who need computers repaired. Give StreetLife a try too, it's a new social network (yes, another one) that puts you in touch with your neighbours and people in your surrounding area.

Personally I'm not 100% convinced a Facebook page is worth investing time in as without paying to promote your content, only about 20% of your audience (on average) will see your posts. Plus, you would also need to drive traffic to that page, as well as your site. A low number of 'Likes' could potentially put people off too.

You say leafletting works, so try and expand awareness of your brand by getting your details physically in front of people. Are you in a position to put vinyl decals on your vehicle? Can you get some ComputerDoctor t-shirts made up for when you're out and about? Can you leaflet cars in a car park? Can you sponsor a radio show or news broadcast, or a local community event?

I'd also consider reworking your site layout and content. This isn't the place to discuss the site itself, but I don't feel it's optimised for conversion just yet. Obviously you want the visitors you do get to use your service, not leave as soon as they've browsed the site.

 

[weblisterltd.com]

Hi Graeme, unfortunately it is always the same case, you have to advertise, you have to pay, if you want visits on your website look into SEO companies, put a job on elegance, otherwise pay per click or social media etc. If you want to advertise locally, newspapers, shops, bill boards, business cards etc, computer magazines,

 

[tombuckland]

I'd give a +1 to facebook advertising with A/B testing. Do some research if you are new to it and just test and tweak your ads every so often.
Or you can look into SEO, have a look at Moz's beginners guide if you want to go that way.

 

[DesignerNick]

Have you built any citations? Do you have a Google plus page with reviews?

 

[Luke R]

Hello Grahame - this is incredibly useful re: local landing pages - e.g. if you're targeting more than one town: do a Google search for Local Landing Pages: A Guide To Great Implementation In Every Situation - Moz

 

[Wowfish Design]

Google + for local businesses every time. Keep on top of social media !!!

 

[pcproblems]

I would certainly suggest that you need to be more specific with your location. If I were searching for someone locally to repair my computer then I would search for 'computer repairs salisbury'

 

[seomph]

Hi Grahame, since your business is local, ideally you'll want to identify all the local keywords your potential customer is using and then set about working to get each one to rank well. You're dealing with low competition keywords which is good, so if you can identify ALL the possible keywords your clients will search with, you'll get more overall targeted traffic from many low search keywords.

 

[StevePoster]

My current website has been up and running for about 6 months now. I have tweaked things a bit to make it more attractive and interesting to visitors. But the problem is that I am getting very few visitors to my site.
You can have the best site in the world, but if no one is going there.

An attractive and interesting website is useless if it doesn't reach its targeted audience. It is important to the site to be well known within its related field and to gain this kind of exposure we must use every possible mediums such as blogs, search engines, forums, social media, etc. this is to provide a consistency to engage with your users.

 

[thetomwhatley]

At risk of repeating the above, it might be worth testing out AdWords and Facebook Ads while you work on your SEO rankings.

Would you care to share your current traffic numbers? I just checked Google's Keyword Planner and it seems "computer repair essex" is getting 40 monthly hits, while "computer repair south essex" isn't showing up with anything.

It might be worth focusing on towns in your area. For example, "computer repair colchester" gets 70 searches a month. Definitely worth testing AdWords on some of these.

Food for thought!

 

[VirtualContent]

Definitely get yourself on social media if you haven't already. Facebook is great for existing customers to keep in touch with your business, and I love Twitter for finding new clients and networking.

PPC marketing can be pricey, but it may not be necessary - email past clients and let them know about your social media accounts and ask for a follow, which will give you an initial following (nobody likes that follower number to be at 0). Follow local businesses and hashtags relevant to your trade. Get a blog on your site and start posting consistently, then tweet your links with popular hashtags.

It does take time and commitment, but social media is a great way of targeting the right people.

 

[seomph]

Definitely get yourself on social media if you haven't already. Facebook is great for existing customers to keep in touch with your business, and I love Twitter for finding new clients and networking.

While I agree with you here, social should be a part of a well balanced SEO plan rather than the focus - especially in a (sorry for being blunt) dull industry like computer repair. Most clients wont be that engaged or checking in eagerly on a daily basis to see what else is new in the pulsating world of Intel Inside chips or whatever

Agree with TheTomWhatley in that for this niche, a very carefully wielded SEM plan on Adwords with targeted offline marketing (classified ads in local papers, possibly some leaflets) is likely to be needed to generate targeted clients who need the service.