Please provide honest feedback

[asonda]

Hi Everyone,

I'd like to kindly ask if you could take a look at:

https://www.callarealperson.co.uk

And let me know what you think, suggestions, improvements, must do's and don'ts etc.

We get no visitors to the site on any sort of regular basis, as we're in a niche but highly competitive market, ad words for a very small business like mine is impossible to compete with. So 'Call Answering Service' and similar are so broad but they're the ones getting searched for, there just isn't any traffic for locality keywords etc. So I'm a bit stumped.

I have made sure the site is HTTPS, mobile responsive and it's using WordPress with All in one SEO attached.

Any advice is welcome and thoroughly appreciated. We offer I believe an incredibly good, very trustworthy service and our customer retention proves this but we need to grow with limited funds and I think this will be the first place to start.

Kindest Regards

 

[jasebro]

Hi there, your on-page optimisation needs some work in terms of SEO. There are lots of little issues that will be hampering your progress. The main one that I noticed is you have multiple H1 tags on the page. You should only have one per page and that should ideally have the keyword you want to rank for in there somewhere. Here's a quick audit I did for you - click here

Design-wise it is ok, but is a little generic. It isn't very original in terms of branding and does look a little 'DIY'. I quite like your logo though!

 

[asonda]

Hi there, your on-page optimisation needs some work in terms of SEO. There are lots of little issues that will be hampering your progress. The main one that I noticed is you have multiple H1 tags on the page. You should only have one per page and that should ideally have the keyword you want to rank for in there somewhere. Here's a quick audit I did for you - click here

Design-wise it is ok, but is a little generic. It isn't very original in terms of branding and does look a little 'DIY'. I quite like your logo though!

Thank You jasebro. Just reading the Audit of yours. I'll get to work on those H1 tags straight away.

I think the way the theme I am using gets you to design elements, is the reason for this H1 error.

My old Joomla site, whilst not fantastic did rank better than this one.

 

[jasebro]

If you can fix those initial problems it will help your ranking almost immediately. If you haven't already I recommend getting some software that tracks your rankings for specific keywords. Get Google Analytics and GSC set up and you should get the info you need to track rankings. You can also sign up to a free version fo SEMRush that gives some great info about how you can improve...

 

[asonda]

If you can fix those initial problems it will help your ranking almost immediately. If you haven't already I recommend getting some software that tracks your rankings for specific keywords. Get Google Analytics and GSC set up and you should get the info you need to track rankings. You can also sign up to a free version fo SEMRush that gives some great info about how you can improve...

I have analytics and google search console all set up, I'm unsure if due to little to no traffic, I don't have any useful info yet?

I'll sign up to SEMRush for a free account Thank you again.

 

[AllUpHere]

Is there a reason you are worrying about SEO? It's not a difficult business to market, but you'll be banging your head against a wall with seo. There are a lot of well funded players who have most of the money keywords and phrases covered pretty well.

 

[asonda]

Is there a reason you are worrying about SEO? It's not a difficult business to market, but you'll be banging your head against a wall with seo. There are a lot of well funded players who have most of the money keywords and phrases covered pretty well.

Well I just want to make sure if there are things I can do to improve things myself, even if it's just a little, it'll be better than doing nothing?

I'm not overly worried, I just see websites that have next to no content, look worse than mine and rank where they would get a click or 2, so I want in.

You're right about the big players, they do have all of the bases covered and I trialled adwords and I'd have been thousands out of pocket with little to nothing to show for it trying to compete. (I don't have thousands to spend).

I am interested in you saying 'it's not a difficult business to market', So far I've relied on word of mouth and recommendations but with GDPR now, I am quite frankly scared of what I can and can't do and how I should market this? Hence why I am trying to improve organic search results.

 

[fisicx]

Looked at the site on my phone (always a good place to begin) and it doesn't really sell your services.

Just about all call forwarding services are answered by a real person and most of the time they can't answer the questions I have. I want to ask the plumber if he can fix the double flange bracket on an 2014 Nurgle pump. Unless your call centre can help there isn't much point in them answering the phone.

A also think the site design is poor. Avada is mostly crap - no decent developer will go anywhere near it. All those animations are pointless and the font is tiny and difficult to read. The blog isn't needed. There are no calls to action anywhere. Nobody cares that you are in Cornwall.

The sign up form needs a lot of work - why do you need my business address and two telephone numbers?

Why do you offer an out of hours voicemail box? My phone already has one of these? In any case, I'm paying you to answer the phone when I can't. And that means at 2am on a Sunday when the client has a burst water pipe.

There are zillions of call answering services, you don't really stand out from the crowd.

And changing the H1 will make little difference to your ranking.

Fixing your site structure will. Google scores you 26/100: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://www.callarealperson.co.uk/

Bin that awful theme.

 

[asonda]

Looked at the site on my phone (always a good place to begin) and it doesn't really sell your services.

Just about all call forwarding services are answered by a real person and most of the time they can't answer the questions I have. I want to ask the plumber if he can fix the double flange bracket on an 2014 Nurgle pump. Unless your call centre can help there isn't much point in them answering the phone.

A also think the site design is poor. Avada is mostly crap - no decent developer will go anywhere near it. All those animations are pointless and the font is tiny and difficult to read. The blog isn't needed. There are no calls to action anywhere. Nobody cares that you are in Cornwall.

The sign up form needs a lot of work - why do you need my business address and two telephone numbers?

Why do you offer an out of hours voicemail box? My phone already has one of these? In any case, I'm paying you to answer the phone when I can't. And that means at 2am on a Sunday when the client has a burst water pipe.

There are zillions of call answering services, you don't really stand out from the crowd.

And changing the H1 will make little difference to your ranking.

Fixing your site structure will. Google scores you 26/100: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https://www.callarealperson.co.uk/

Bin that awful theme.

Wow. I'm off the floor now thank you for your honest feedback, I need to hear these things.

I'll be honest, I'm not keen on that theme either, I bought it so have used it. I don't currently have funds to pay a developer for a bespoke design, are there better ones you like/work well?

I get entirely what you say about the service and unfortunately, being so small, that is all we can offer currently, it really is. I know I'm missing out on that respect and when busier and can afford it, would move to a 24/7 service. I know I am limiting who will use us currently and I do want to change that but I need to do the best I can with what I have, in order to grow to get there.

The customers who use the voicemail box are those that have strict opening times and the few that offer their services out of hours, include their mobile number on the message to contact directly but don't want to willingly advertise their number publicly for day to day. Maybe we're both poorly run business's in those scenarios?

A receptionist or admin person at a plumbing firm/car garage/alarm company etc may also have no idea on what they're being asked so need to get the caller a call back, or transfer to the right person (which we can do) but we can be trained and taught everything a receptionist in house would need to know.

I'll edit the sign up form to make it less demanding.

Thank you very much I am a big boy so any further comments will help and I take them as intended. I would love to do many things, it's just getting there and money is the overriding factor and honestly, been in a bit of a status quo for a while now and want to progress.

Hence asking for help/advice here.

 

[fisicx]

Use any of the FREE themes that comes with wordpress.

Keep it simple. No hero images, no animations and no rows of icons.

Decide what type of business you want to target and focus all your content on them.

I'd bin the complicated pricing structure. At the moment it looks like if I get to 24 calls you stop the service. And a small business could get 24 marketing calls a day - which wipes out my allowance without a single lead.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

had a look and found it very hard to actual understand what you offer. The only time I would be interested in such a service is after business hours which you do not cover. I noticed that after like 5 minutes. Pricing is hard to understand and a chore to go though. Ever considered offering like a free trial for a couple days?

 

[asonda]

Use any of the FREE themes that comes with wordpress.

Keep it simple. No hero images, no animations and no rows of icons.

Decide what type of business you want to target and focus all your content on them.

I'd bin the complicated pricing structure. At the moment it looks like if I get to 24 calls you stop the service. And a small business could get 24 marketing calls a day - which wipes out my allowance without a single lead.

I think I need to simplify the way it's all worded, as nobody gets charged at all for sales calls, dropped calls or colleague/staff and family calls. Only genuine, useful customer contact messages are charged for. This is one of the benefits our service excels because we have customers come to us due to others charging them for useless calls.

The pricing structure has been the same since this was started, any ideas on how I can charge the same but make it easier to understand?

had a look and found it very hard to actual understand what you offer. The only time I would be interested in such a service is after business hours which you do not cover. I noticed that after like 5 minutes. Pricing is hard to understand and a chore to go though. Ever considered offering like a free trial for a couple days?

Thank you, I do understand that there are sectors where out of hours support/calls are needed but there are also a lot that don't. There's nothing I can do in that respect yet however in the future, would like to offer it.

I've been doing this for a number of years now and do make a profit and the clients that use our service all find it incredibly useful.

The website obviously isn't clear enough, we do offer a weeks free trial with no obligation to stay and no payment details needed up front.

Thank you again, this gets me off to a good start.

I am hoping with just a few more clients, I will be able to add extra services by adding extra man power.

 

[fisicx]

Forget the theme - it's irrelevant right now.

What is your marketing strategy? Have you identified your client group and how you plan to pitch your service to them? Once you know this you can then think about a marketing plan. And then you can start to build a website.

 

[stugster]

Hi mate,

fisicx has covered what I have to say, but just to reiterate:

1. Clarity on what you're offering: call answering, call answering, call answering.
2. Site page speeds are slow. You want to be 90+ at least on Desktop.
3. Font size is unbearably small.

 

[MBE2017]

Not a web expert like others, but your site makes the common mistake of confusing features as benefits. Your customers calls get answered is a feature, the benefit is what would follow, ie which means to you...more inquiries, sales, revenue etc.

You need to sell what is in it for your customer, why would they want to use you etc.
Learn to sell the sizzle instead of the sausage. Most importantly, use as many testimonials that you can genuinely put up, let your existing clients sell for you. Everyone is wary these days, a handful of testimonials will give some reassurance to potential new clients, a few hundred would probably put all thoughts of worry to the background.

I would forget the based in Cornwall line and go for UK based, people don’t care as mentioned, but they would prefer excellent English speakers if possible. Apart from that you need to make the pricing clearer, it might be better to offer a single flat rate as an initial months trial to land new clients, the move them onto your full pricing structure after that, prove your usefulness.