target local areas

It can take quite some time to get to number 1, 2, 3 in google - this is where you need to be to benefit from people finding your website, just through a search engine. 

There's a tonne of stuff that needs to be done to get there too - the good news it, the help is all right here to make it happen!

Make sure you are in all the directories like Yell, Thompson etc - the free listings that is.

To get found close to the top in the mean time, you may consider a paid listing with Yell, but be careful about price.

I'd personally consider having a freephone number (Check out Telecoms World PLC), and a geographic number for people to call by a mobile. You can get several virtual numbers with the local codes, all redirecting to your one real number - this is great for getting the local feel, even if you're several hundred miles away.

I also believe your business would benefit from leaflet drops - but, make sure the leaflets look awesome. Better still, include a fridge magnet / sticker with your contact details on - so when someone's appliance breaks down, they'll know who to call.

Market yourself by making how to videos, and posts. Be Geeky, talk about saving people money, and before you know it, you'll have a following.

As with all things, the more you engage with it, the more of a result you will get.

I expect around 20% results from any marketing endeavour. This is often too high of an expectation granted, but, it's a ball park to tweak with.

I've done many many many different things to market, and many many many things have failed.

The best thing is to figure out why it hasn't worked, change it, and re-try the new edition.

It depends which is your primary medium you are using for marketing. The national appliance site sounds a bit like a company we used to work with called service magic, who charged you for leads. Customer calls go to the central number and leads are dished out, that's what you pay for.

Service magic didn't have a particularly good reputation and there are a variety of other subscription based lead finders out there, with varying reputations. Some people love them, some loathe them, but if they bring in business and still generates enough profit it doesn't matter.

To be frank though, you already know what the issue is if you are looking at using the online medium. Your website gives little customer reassurance who come to expect more than home made websites these days. 

Take a fresh look at your online presence. You don't have to spend loads of money, but you do need to craft an online reputation. Look at the places you are currently advertising, including us. Are you making the most of your listings? Reviews is a key element these days, shallow as it may sound to some. People skim read, look for shiny stars and want to hear how good you are. Images and a bit of blurb goes a long way as well, sell yourself. Keep it short concise, useful and visual.

Looking around, the only site you seem to have made a real effort on is freeindex, but you have switched off your reviews, no doubt because someone left a negative one. Trouble is a consumer will look at that and think "problem".

Everyone gets bad reviews from time to time, trick is to generate plenty of good ones, and across multiple reviews sites, including your own Google Local listing.

But I think your actual site will remain the main problem if it is to be a main form of generating custom. Spend a few hundred quid, get a simple but slick site, and if you can afford to spend £600 - 1000 a month, invest it in Google Adwords and drive leads direct to your website.

Or is it worth trying to go down the contracts route rather than generating new individual customers. ie local authorities, care homes, schools, doctors surgeries, large organisations etc and being their outsourced appliance support. Won't even need a website then

Hi airkool,

You can still get customers from local areas without paying a lot of money, but there is some work involved. One of the best ways is to create individual pages on your website for every area you cover. Each page must have decent content and your targeted keywords in it. You can hire professional writer to do the job for you. Than you can build some quality links to thoose pages and should start seeing the results.

The other thing you could do you is to make searches on Google for your keywords + local area e.g. "appliance repairs in enfield" , check top 10 websites for the keywords and try to include your contact details on them. In this particular example (appliance repairs in enfield) i can see 4 websites on 1st page of Google, where you can include your company - Freeindex,Yell, Netmums and CheckTrade.