Tradesman websites scams
- Thread starter super chip
- Start date
H
Holcombebuilding
We use a number of these sites
We contact successfully, attend and quote to around 9 out of 10 adverts from the public.
In turn we convert around 6 to 7 out of the 10 jobs into work orders. The fee for the odd misleading post or fishing for price customer is more than covered by our successful punts.
Without offence, judging by the quality of your post, the initial contact may be scaring them off??
Ultimately it's up to them to post genuine or speculative jobs, it's our job to ascertain if the job is either way.
I genuinely praise these sites and they have provided a huge amount of real work and revenue to our company.
I'm a thorough advocate of the system and idea.
We contact successfully, attend and quote to around 9 out of 10 adverts from the public.
In turn we convert around 6 to 7 out of the 10 jobs into work orders. The fee for the odd misleading post or fishing for price customer is more than covered by our successful punts.
Without offence, judging by the quality of your post, the initial contact may be scaring them off??
Ultimately it's up to them to post genuine or speculative jobs, it's our job to ascertain if the job is either way.
I genuinely praise these sites and they have provided a huge amount of real work and revenue to our company.
I'm a thorough advocate of the system and idea.
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0
- Original Poster
- #3
What do you mean you convert 9 to 10 a week ,month , year :|:|:|
My point is that the consumer should be told that the tradesman is Paying.
might make them think twice before posting the job
I too have done well from some of the sites , but I strongly believe that some sites are out there prying on tradesman desperate for work
these sites have mushroomed up everywhere over the last few years
Why ????????
because there making money, and it is not out of the general public , its out of tradesmen living in the worst credit crunch we've had since time began
Im only gutted because I carnt do it
My point is that the consumer should be told that the tradesman is Paying.
might make them think twice before posting the job
I too have done well from some of the sites , but I strongly believe that some sites are out there prying on tradesman desperate for work
these sites have mushroomed up everywhere over the last few years
Why ????????
because there making money, and it is not out of the general public , its out of tradesmen living in the worst credit crunch we've had since time began
Im only gutted because I carnt do it
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I've used one of these sites once to find an electrician. When the guy called me he said oh yeh i know your area, when asked where he was he said Kettering! about an hours drive from my little village!
I couldn't trust that at all as i knew he would sub it out to someone local, make a few quid profit on top.
I have never and will never try these sites again. I always find local tradespeople in local publications.
I couldn't trust that at all as i knew he would sub it out to someone local, make a few quid profit on top.
I have never and will never try these sites again. I always find local tradespeople in local publications.
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A sweeping assumption, there are a lot of very good reasons why he may have known, your area!
How do you know he would have subbed it out to someone local?
What is wrong with subbing work out to others?
What is wrong with making a few quid profit?
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Ok so i made my decision pretty quickly, one bit of bad service i dont like can easily put me off for ever but that is just my buying pattern as a consumer.
1) I dont know for sure he would sub it out to someone local, but we are talking about a job worth around £100, so either he subs it out, OR he drives himself from Kettering, If he drives from Kettering there is no way he can be the most cost effective (not the cheapest, but the best value)
2) I want to hear from the person doing the work or running the business, not a mate of a mate who if I call to complain, may well just say "speak to bob at bobs electrical they carried out the job"
3) You're joking right? As a consumer why would i want to pay a middle man?
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Whats wrong with paying a middle man?
You do it almost everytime you spend money on anything. Tesco don't grow bread or own cows, Audi don't sell cars to the end user, Boots don't produce perfume, British Gas don't dig gas out the ground.
The list goes on and on, another word for middleman is employer, or service provider, or shop, etc.
You do it almost everytime you spend money on anything. Tesco don't grow bread or own cows, Audi don't sell cars to the end user, Boots don't produce perfume, British Gas don't dig gas out the ground.
The list goes on and on, another word for middleman is employer, or service provider, or shop, etc.
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F
Faevilangel
Back to the OP, hows it a scam when you are told the prices when you sign up? You took the choice to sign up and apply for the jobs!
It's a free market and they can charge what the market dictates but someone has to pay for their advertising to make more people use the site.
It's a free market and they can charge what the market dictates but someone has to pay for their advertising to make more people use the site.
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Agreed, however this is a different type of purchase. Im only buying one service and have lots of choice of who to contact and who to trust. When i buy a loaf i dont care if its from tesco or off the market, not bothered. If i want a job doing like electrical work, im gonna use the same person everytime, as long as he's good first time round.
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- Original Poster
- #12
Because the websites don't tell the consumers that the builders are paying for the leads , carnt count the amount of times ive been to peoples home to here them say "If Id known you had paid for the lead I wouldn't of bothered posting ,I only wanted a guide price mate "
Some of these websites, have the same business ethics as Wonga .com
who give desperate people loans, knowing full well that might struggle to pay it back, no one in the right mind frame would take a loan at 1000% APR unless you were desperate
same with some of these tradesman sites , lots of us out there who need work to feed our family's , so what do we do.Plunge money into these websites in the hope of finding work .some of these websites then put a budget on the work (eg: single story extension in Birmingham 25 to 30K) that the poster has no idea about , they may only have a budget of 15k
But the poor old tradesman don't know this , so he buys the lead along with the other builders in the local area in good faith thinking the poster has a sensible budget in question that's a scam in my eyes
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M
MASSEY
I wouldn't say it was a scam the fact that the person looking for a tradesmen doesn't have a realistic budget. We regularly calls from people who want a new bathroom supplied and installed for 2,000 or a kitchen fitted for 500 quid from various ads we pay for. Where is the scam?
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Because the websites don't tell the consumers that the builders are paying for the leads , carnt count the amount of times ive been to peoples home to here them say "If Id known you had paid for the lead I wouldn't of bothered posting ,I only wanted a guide price mate "
Some of these websites, have the same business ethics as Wonga .com
who give desperate people loans, knowing full well that might struggle to pay it back, no one in the right mind frame would take a loan at 1000% APR unless you were desperate
same with some of these tradesman sites , lots of us out there who need work to feed our family's , so what do we do.Plunge money into these websites in the hope of finding work .some of these websites then put a budget on the work (eg: single story extension in Birmingham 25 to 30K) that the poster has no idea about , they may only have a budget of 15k
that's a scam in my eyes
Your right it is a scam, but the scam only works, like so many scams, on gullible people. Builders/tradesmen who don't have the balls to fully qualify their leads, before trotting out to see a punter at the drop of a hat and supplying a quote. Who also don't have the knowledge to increase their marketing budget, to generate more leads, so they can burn some they don't like the sound of.
How many builders do you know of who have heard of a sales funnel? Certainly not the ones who pay money, to the type of lead generation service you describe.
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I don't wanna argue with you because your quite right in what you say.
It is your choice.
Say you find a good spark and use him a few times and things are good. Two years later you get him back, he gives a good quote, then says this is my mate Dave, he is first class and I vouch for his work. Dave works for me.
Your not going to tell your good spark to sling his hook, because of some misguided principle about middlemen, your gonna suck it up and get a good job at a good price. Same as you always have. This is what makes good middlemen.
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There is one simple reason that these companies are able to do this.... because Trademen are not investing into their own decent websites. Most builders, plumbers, sparks etc use website builders to create their sites, and end up with a google-unfriendly, poor performing, and horrible to navigate site...containing badly written content and shoddy images. They then wonder why their website doesn't get them any business.
Just my opinion, but if you are a builder, and your tendering for 20k + jobs, how can you expect anyone to use your services directly when all you invest into your shop window (your website) is a couple of hundred pounds.
Every builder in the country could be generated these leads directly, themselves, by investing in a serious website with good content. You cant expect to create valuable leads without having invested in a decent website.
I dont know why so many tradesmen seem not want to invest in their own website.... probably more so than any other industry I can think of.
Just my opinion, but if you are a builder, and your tendering for 20k + jobs, how can you expect anyone to use your services directly when all you invest into your shop window (your website) is a couple of hundred pounds.
Every builder in the country could be generated these leads directly, themselves, by investing in a serious website with good content. You cant expect to create valuable leads without having invested in a decent website.
I dont know why so many tradesmen seem not want to invest in their own website.... probably more so than any other industry I can think of.
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- Original Poster
- #20
I have two websites , I don't agree with what you say about website investments, these people are spending £500 a day on key words like builder ,plumber, carpenter just try putting these words into google and see who comes up first in any area, in this country. How can a two man or a single tradesmen compete with that
They are really the Tesco and Asda of the tradesman's world, and there partnered with Travis perkins , wikes and B&Q
peoples adwords expenditure is readily available on spy foo .com a website
designed to spy on your competitors
The reason the champagne box is on the top off google is because people click on it most (FACT) so the biggest fatcats always win
They are really the Tesco and Asda of the tradesman's world, and there partnered with Travis perkins , wikes and B&Q
peoples adwords expenditure is readily available on spy foo .com a website
designed to spy on your competitors
The reason the champagne box is on the top off google is because people click on it most (FACT) so the biggest fatcats always win
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I have two websites , I don't agree with what you say about website investments, these people are spending £500 a day on key words like builder ,plumber, carpenter just try putting these words into google and see who comes up first in any area, in this country. How can a two man or a single tradesmen compete with that
They are really the Tesco and Asda of the tradesman's world, and there partnered with Travis perkins , wikes and B&Q
peoples adwords expenditure is readily available on spy foo .com a website
designed to spy on your competitors
The reason the champagne box is on the top off google is because people click on it most (FACT) so the biggest fatcats always win
Nope don't agree with that at all. The chances are that a lot, if not most tradesmen who have a decent amount of content on their website are already getting decent traffic....it's just that the visitors don't stay for 2 minutes because the websites look awful and have terrible content.
The keywords example you give....yes, huge keywords. But why would a builder in Burnley (for example) target the keyword "builder". He wouldnt, and shouldnt....he should be naturally attracting traffic for keywords like "builder in Burnley", and "Burnley builder". I (and most web designers) could knock up a website in a week which would attract traffic for local tradesmen related keywords.
As a consumer if I searched for "joiner london" and found 9 websites knocked up in 1&1 website builder (and similar) and 1 website which looked like it had actually been thought about....I know who I would be contacting.
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Just done this and ignoring the directories I see a good list of local tradesmen including your site.
The problem you have is your site. If you used a decent application and had it properly optimised then you could easily rank well. For example, using the word 'walsall' in the page title would be a good start.
Like makeusawebsite said, most tradesmen create DIY websites using cheap site builders. If they invested in something decent they wouldn't need to pay for leads.
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Exactly.... I wonder if you (the op) actually know how many visitors your site is getting? Do you look at what your visitors are doing on your site? Honestly....look at your website, and compare it to "mybuilder.com". As a consumer which website would you look at and think "hmmm yes, they invest into their business and look professional".....
I bet half the tradesmen in the country are getting good visitors to their website.... it's just their websites are so bad people click-off.
Sorry to go on about it..... but I spent a lot of time researching this topic a while ago and put together a fairly lengthy article on the topic;
http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/design-articles/case-study-why-are-tradesman-websites-so-bad/
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B
Bobadob
Really good bunch of thoughts. You know most of these sites either charged a flat subsrciption fee or a percetange of the total job if you were successful, but i guess that too many tradesman were avoiding this and so the aggregaotr websites started charging per lead.
All advertising is basically buying leads, you just got to try to find the most profitable way of buying them.
All advertising is basically buying leads, you just got to try to find the most profitable way of buying them.
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theres two types of customers - those that think that the likes of Freeindex will get them a decent tradesman with Freeindex being the extent of their research to get someone any good. And those that have the intelligence to work out theres more to it than that and doing their own research on your business. If you have an adequate website (note the word adequate!) you can easily appeal to the latter type of customer and they are the ones you want...not the Freeindex cheapskates
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K
kelvin1950
I don't wish to teach you to suck eggs but have you run makeusawebsite or inspiration feeds through the w3c validator recently? Both return errors in the hundreds.
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I don't wish to teach you to suck eggs but have you run makeusawebsite or inspiration feeds through the w3c validator recently? Both return errors in the hundreds.
The sucking eggs thing only really works if you have a good point to make....
I dont know which WC3 checker your using, but it isn't the same one as we use....because our site currently has just 5 errors in WC3 (and those are because of some ongoing changes).
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Yes, but if the website is so bad you can't even find it using a search engine then you aren't going to find a plumber that can plumb. Or if you do find it they don't even give you an address (to check if they are local) or a phone number that somebody will answer then the website is pointless.
A site doesn't have win awards - but it does have to be effective. Which is why they shouldn't have a DIY website in the same way I shouldn't try to do the plumbing myself.
And who cares about W3C validation. I don't, my visitors don't and neither does Google (in most cases).
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K
kelvin1950
LOL, so what was your point then?
I used this one: http://validator.w3.org/ oddly enough, it comes out top on a Google search for W3C validator. Seems to me that it's a sensible place to check W3C compliance, a bit like taking your BMW to a BMW garage to get it diagnosed rather than a Ford garage.
So, enlighten us all, which one do you use?
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K
kelvin1950
Of course it's relevant when the geezer comes into a thread slagging off people's websites for not being W3C compliant, amongst other things. Have you even read this blog that he's so proud of?
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