Understanding Google. Lets talk marketing!

Barry Theal

Barry Theal

New member
For the several years of me opening Presidential Details, I thought I was doing good with google and keywords. What I found was that i ws never on the first page of google or the following five pages when someone typed car detailing and my local town. I have gotten alot of work from forum posting and word of mouth. For years I wanted to try and get more local customers. Up until about a month ago I thought google wasn't all that important. I was wrong. I learned a very nice lesson on the power of paying someone outside the business to help me with SEO. I contacted a Robert from Search Engine Optimization For Car Detailers to help me. He is also a long forum member here. I had all kinds of questions and he answered them with ease. Kinda like a DIY detailer talking to a pro detailer about car care. He had all the right answers. I ended up hiring Robert to do some work with my website and the results have been incredible. Robert told me a time frame of when google would pick up and start producing results and it did. I have been so busy and overbooked that I now have employed 2 detailers and looking for a third. I'm curious to how many of you use google? Did you ever pay for true SEO results. Have you had results from it? Im blown away by what it has done for me. Im not working on Ferraris all day, but man I have been busy with everday work, that I'm making money. DO we as detailers rely on forums more then the power of advertising? What are your thoughts on google, and other marketing area's ?
 
There are vast amounts of methods of marketing, but I find that push marketing works best. Forums work well to an extent, but IMO, the internet becomes the most efficient. ESPECIALLY when considering your immediate territory.

Think about it, when you consider most consumer habits, what do people do? (especially in this market) You google search, check ratings, reviews, rankings and compare.

Google takes advantage of a common human/societal characteristic; if it's on top, then it's the best. So when you search, if you're on the first page, that's all that matters.



I know a few people who are making fortunes off of this (well maybe not fortunes but VERY comfortable livings) because it's the new generation of advertisement(think about why FB has been deemed the marketing industry's leader)



Everything is all well and good, but ultimately it boils down to perceived value. With the change in people the way that perceived value is gauged and delivered changes but fundamentally it's the same. The internet imo is simply the most efficient method method when done right.
 
There are two types of marketing styles, there's push and pull marketing. Push is where you kind of push your product out there and say "this is what I got, take it or leave it" this is where you kind of let the product speak for itself. Pull marketing is more whereby you try to entice people to try/like/buy your product with deals/sales/etc...though neither is good or bad, the pull is generally more ideal for short run stuff.



I mean it boils down to business structure/style and a whole mess of other factors, but me personally, if you have something good/great then there's less need for gimmicks and smoke/mirror type things--but that doesn't mean marketing isn't important. You can have the best thing since sliced bread, but if no one knows about it, you're wasted time/effort/money/talent.



Getting your business/product on the first page and close to the top of the Google search is one way to get the product at least in the consumer's sightline
 
Barry Theal said:
DO we as detailers rely on forums more then the power of advertising? What are your thoughts on google, and other marketing area's ?
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First rule of guerrilla marketing...work your backyard first!
 
Good article. Barry I know many people (like myself use Google for their primary search engine) but heres a thought for ya, did Robert only help you with Google? Reason I ask is because their are many other popular search engines that you should be active in as well such as (the new one) Bing, Yahoo, and MSN. Why just settle on Google, expand your work to all these search engines. Wish you the best with your career.



I sure hope those 2 guys you hired realize how much knowledge you have to share with them and how lucky they are!



-cheers Bud
 
Barry,



For my own detailing shop, I do not use any websites at all as I feel its too "un-targeted"...and I only want to target hardcore enthusiasts who own cars costing a certain level ($) and upwards, as these are the target market who can afford high-end detailing.



I became affiliated to a few very active car clubs that have their own respective websites+forums.

By virtue of my shop being included in their "panel of vendors", I hv been given a section inside their Detailing Forums. Club members and browsers can all go to my section to get info and ask questions.



Now, 3yrs later, all the members' cars are done by me, and I'm also detailing their parents' car, brothers and sisters' cars and even their colleagues' cars. It's all by word-of-mouth. I also sponsor the club's annual dinners. Each car that I detail, serve as my advertisement. I give the happy, satisfied customer a few MF towels, and he's so elated he ends up writing a few good words bout me in the forum, and this greatly helps.



Every year, 3days before Christmas, I get extra staff to help perform greatly discounted simple polish/wax on car club members' car and they really love it! Now, car club members are roughly 35% of my monthly business.
 
gig you're method is (I feel) a dying method of successful business management; with that said I really like to hear about people who really get it done and do well by using approaches such as yours. They always say that customer opinion can make or break you, but it's often harder to get customers to initiate praise than it is to incur their scorn. So for you to be getting that kind of support speaks volumes.



In the end though, it's at a point where it's almost suicide not to get your name out on the internet in one way or another. Gig by having your name associated with these forums for the car clubs, you've planted the seed =] Kudos sir and I wish you many more successes.
 
sal329 said:
I would like to learn how to do this without payin someone.
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Honestly, if the advantage could be as great as Barry has stated, and the cost isn't THAT huge, I'd just outsource it to a professional who does it for a living.
 
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