Posts

Higher ranking on search engines 30th November 2010 6:43 PM
Just a quick one, but your website has no address details. For a company dealing in a legislative industry it's the first thing I would look for.
Higher ranking on search engines 30th November 2010 6:31 PM
Your website needs optimising, basically.

Check out the many threads in the SEO section of this forum or visit my web page on how to optimise your website.
Keyword traffic estimator 30th November 2010 6:24 PM
I think that may be the problem.

Unless its family and friends or friends of friends, you will struggle to entice strangers to your home to get their hair done.

Mobile hairdressers are still around but they've never come close to competing with the salons. People actually enjoy a trip to the salon. It's not the same done in the house.

Also, people may have concerns around the following which reflect on your operating practices purely because it's not a common practice to run a hari salon from someone's home:

1. Planning permission. Do you have this? Will your neighbours mind us parking in front of their drive when we can't get in your driveway? I hope they have patience cos I cant nip out to move it once I have my foils on. Someone might see me!

2. Public liability - this will also depend on the premises being fit for purpose (see point 1. above) - if I fall down the stairs after nipping to the toilet on your stair lift, will your insurance pay out? I have 3 previous successful claims, so I hope so because my back is really weak these days hence the wheelchair use.

3. Equipment - proper salon washbasins and chairs used? Or is it my head over your sink? I have a bad back.

4. Premises H&S - fire regs, access, parking, toilets, opening hours,etc. - where's the family? do you have a scary dog or a cat at home i'm allergic to? Are you using a separate water pipe and not the same one you wash your hubby's mucky work pants in the washer with?

5. Disability compliant? Will I get my wheelchair in your door and have you got a ramp to get in and out? Is your toilet adequate for disabled people like me?

I'm speaking as if i'm the customer above, not me personally of course!

I hope this makes sense, so if you have all the correct things in place, remove the customers fears by overcoming the barriers in your advert. You have more to overcome than a proper hair salon premises.

Also, we would expect your prices to reflect all of the above, so they can neve compete with local salon prices, mostly because you don't have the expenses of rent and rates which are a big wedge of the monthly overheads which affect prices.
Who want's 30th November 2010 5:47 PM
If its still available you could send it to one of my clients
Nope, not yet
Keyword traffic estimator 30th November 2010 12:56 PM
Are you home-based?
Keyword traffic estimator 30th November 2010 11:49 AM
If you have done your own flyers and have no experience of graphic design and marketing skills (AIDA rule on your flyer for example) then you will not get a good response from using them. Without seeing it, it's hard to say what is wrong with the flyer if it brought you zero response.

We had a hair salon opened locally so I went to try it out. Gorgeous flyers, looked the part, gave me a discount as their opening offer. It worked as I booked and went. Told my daughter and she got her hair cut and her nails done.

However what lets them down is that I went past yesterday and she had her coat on in the shop. That instantly makes me think: it's cold in there, and im expected to sit in their with a wet head for an hour or more? I dont think so!

So both sides of the coin have to be kept up. Shame as their flyers clearly worked at the start as they wer fully booked the first month, now they are often empty. Probably because they thought they were so busy they didnt need to advertise anymore - wrong! Aways advertise when you are busy, is the rule!
Keyword traffic estimator 30th November 2010 11:40 AM
I did explain earlier on about broad results:

....meaning anthing that includes the 3 words of 'milton' 'keynes' 'hairdressers' in any order and within any same or longer phrase.

Keyword tools give you the option of checking results for broad, phrase and exact match. So, after you have done the search for your keyword in Google keyword tool, look in the left side column and you will see a tick box for broad, phrase and exact. Broad is ticked as default. Untick that and tick [exact] instead. The results will change and obviously be a lot lower. This is then the estimated monthly amount of searches on that exact keyword.
Keyword traffic estimator 29th November 2010 5:40 PM
2,400 people are not searching on the keyword 'hairdressers milton keynes' - that's as easy as I can summarise it.

Every key phrase has its own results, some better, some worse. They are not all the same; e.g.

'hairdresser milton keynes' and 'hairdressers milton keynes' is 2 different keywords thus you would get 2 different sets of results despite being singular and plural there can be big differences in the results in many cases.
Keyword traffic estimator 29th November 2010 4:35 PM
But 20-30 day isnt just for that keyword Steve, its the total number landing on the site regardless where they clicked from or what word the searched on if it came form a search engine. The search volume recorded by Google is estimates at 2 a day and if the OP has been typing that phrase in a lot herself lately then it will count her searches in there too!

Ive explained once already about the search volume. It's not 2,400 searching on that exacxt keyword so ignore it. Thats a broad search result. The exact shows a lot less at 320 a month but my data gives 60 a month estimate which judging by your stats is likely a more accurate figure. 2400 people definitely do not see your website, only those that your stats show who typed in that exact phrase, will see it as a result of using that keyword.

Your stats should give you a breakdown of where your 20-30 a day are coming from, eg what % portion are search engines, which are direct links, etc. So look at the SE portion, then look at the keywords beign used and how many against each word for that month. It will show your top performing keywords.

I personally wouldnt spend a lot of time on getting SE traffic as people clearly dont look for a hairdresser on the internet. I'd spend time on your FB page instead as that will generate local interest. We are doing a lot with FB lately and getting some good results given the time we spend on it. My daughter does all our Facebook activity (she works for me) and we're now offering it to clients.