Submitting Your Listing Can Save You Thousands of Dollars.

If a local business submits a properly optimized Local Business Listing to the right local directories on the Internet their business can generate up to 2,000 unique and local visitors per month. By attracting 24,000 unique visitors a year a business can save about $24,000 in PPC (Pay Per Click Costs) a year. (On a side note - Pay Per Click Costs are what you pay to a company like Google to get phone calls or leads for your business.) These benefits sure do justify either the effort put in to do this work or paying a company a minimal amount to do the work for you.

Here are some numbers:
1. There are about 3,000,000 businesses that are related to the building and construction industry.
2. 50% of the industry DOES NOT have a website.
3. Thousands of new businesses are created monthly.

And less than 25% of these companies take advantage of the amount of business that exists on the Internet. Take advantage of the opportunities that the Internet provides. You will be surprised to find out how easy it is to benefit from the Internet.

The Importance of PAGE 1 results....

There is a great study regarding the importance of your business listed on Page 1 of the search engines and is a must read.  Read this study and get a better understanding why Page 1 Results are important.

Do not let your money slip away

"As some may have experienced and my self now for the first time, keeping a steady hand on google placement is an ongoing project. Don't let it slip away, if you do, you let money slip away with it. If there is no other better time, it's now, winter is shortly upon us and that is when work slows down and when we need to be at our highest visibility."

Unnamed Flooring Contractor, Virginia

Google Local Now Accepts User Photos

Google has just announced that users of the popular search engine can now upload photos that relate to a business located on Google.  Up until recently only the business owner could upload and attach photos to their Google Local section.  This move shows Google is putting their foot forward in the "Social Network" space.  This follows in the footsteps of other local types sites that are popular within the social circles. 

This also demonstrates that a business listing will continue to grow over a period of time as the "social network" participates and adds information to the listing that they feel is relevant.  The importance of growing and stabilizing your local listing on Google is becoming more and more important every day as businesses are starting to understand that you cannot inconsistently put information about your business on the World Wide Web and expect results!

Why Google?

The biggest question I hear from contractors has to do with Google and their local listing section and how this relates to the rest of Google.  The question is whether this section is worth paying someone every month to manage their listing.  The other general thought process is whether or not you should keep paying for this every month when last month I did not notice any results.  It is important to understand what results you are looking for from your listing.  We all obviously want more leads and phone calls, but be cautious and patient because YOU MUST STABILIZE YOUR BUSINESS!

Landing Page Examples - Still Pending!

Here are a few new landing pages that are being developed right now.  We are excited about the placement of a few of them.  Leads are being generated from these pages, but we are still working on determining the best keywords to match our customers categories.

http://ecplaces.com/preview/rwhome/index.html
http://ecplaces.com/preview/HannaZ/landing/
http://ecplaces.com/preview/KenMulvaney/landing/
http://www.prestigefence.com/Aluminum-or-Steel-Fence-Install/Aloma-FLORIDA/

By the way, ignore the wording within a few of them within the landing page as the text updates are being tested, these are just for design purposes only.  We might be pre-mature showing these examples, but it should give you a better understanding of how it works!!

Google Coupons Sparks Business

Google putting out a clone of Groupon?

Fencing leads continue to come in for Florida fence contractor.

A couple days ago another fencing lead had been generated for one of our fence contractor customers located in Florida. The landing pages seem to be working well for them as the leads continue to come in from their landing pages that had been added to their current website.

New Bellflower, CA Website Published.

Thank you to the web team for the publish of the new website http://www.homecraftmasters.com/ this morning.  Home Craft Masters is a good looking remodeling company in Bellflower, CA.  They are very precise in their kitchen remodeling craft and I have to say BJ knows his renovation work.

Who is Google and what is this Local Places Product?

You see the Internet is made up many search engines that go out and find information for you to view.  Google is one of those search engines and they do a good job locating information billions of times each day for people like you and I.  And when this information is found it is generally displayed to us like a grocery store displays products on their shelves.  Let's for one second imagine we are shopping for our 4th of July picnic.  We head to the aisle where the ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise are located.

Google acts the same way as a grocery store where you can locate 3 products for that picnic.  Each product is different, but ultimately is part of the picnic.  Google's grocery shelves look like this.  Each of these products is different, but ultimately is part of the picnic.

We will quicky introduce the Local Maps Listing product and the importance of making sure your listing exists.  Building a local listing in Google Places is just as important as knowing the address for the new home you just moved into.  I have never know anyone that just moved into their new house to not know what their address is, especially if they want all of their family to be able to visit them next Thanksgiving.  It's an interesting analogy because it works the same way on Google (for those that don't know, Google is a company that makes about $2.6 Billion dollars in revenue each month of their existence by helping people find what they want on the Internet.)  A local business needs to be stabalized and found on the Internet so Everyone can visit their company.  This is where Google's local product comes in.  THIS IS 1 OF THE 3 PRODUCTS ON THE SHELF.  There is a great article put out by Website Magazine that details Google's Local product and the 3 ways to optimize this listing. 

We will talk more about how this listing works a little later.

Why do Contractors need a website?

Contractors ask everyday, "Why do I need a website?  All of my business comes word of mouth or from referrals from my existing customers.  I don't need to be on the web; it's too much work; it's too confusing; I don't have a computer; I don't understand all of this.  Why, why, why??"

I know it can seem overwhelming on where to start and what to do.  Here are Lumus Construction's feelings about the importance of having a company website.  Remember the costs to establish the basics of a custom website are very reasonable!

5 Contractor Website Design Previews

Today a few new contractor website design previews came from the web team.  These websites still have quite a bit of work left to complete but at least there are a few contractors websites in preview.

Ken Mulvaney Roofing is a roofing company in Palo Alto, CA.
http;//www.kenmulvaneyroofing.com

Hanna Z Interiors is a top quality Interior Design company in Illinois.
http://ecplaces.com/preview/HannaZ/index.html (in process)

Concept Construction is a remodeling and general contractor in Connecticut.
http://ecplaces.com/preview/conceptconstruction_52284/default.htm

Capital Shutters and Blinds located in Raleigh, North Carolina is a top quality shutter and blind company.
http://ecplaces.com/preview/capitalshutterandblinds/index.html

and Henle Construction in Tracy, CA is a high end remodeling company focusing on kitchen remodeling and bathroom remodeling.

http://202.163.126.109/henle_construction/?page_id=11 We'll get some feedback and get back to work on them, but great job team for spitting out a few previews for the day.