The cool thing about living in Wisconsin: when the Packers win the Super Bowl, everyone gets a trophy.
A woman from Oregon got my attention on Wednesday evening. She was calling from a IMX Advertising to sell Google Search placement. How many of these calls do we get weekly? For years I have said "Not interested. No, I do not want more business. No, I do not want to be found." Maybe it was the way the caller's ability to laugh at herself and her script that kept me from saying, "Thank you, goodbye now", or it was the free month, no contract required offer that got me to stay and eventually say, "OK". I bought the service. Today I am the owner of Middleton Wi real estate in Google Search.
Of course Middleton isn't the only market I serve, but it's where I have always done business, I live there, and it's as strong of a market as any place in Wisconsin. I've moved my advertising budget from paper print to electronic. Spending a couple of bucks a day to be found by people who want what I have is simple, tried and true marketing. Now that my sign says Open For Business, I know changes to the shop were in order.
First step was to make some changes to the landing page on my web site, TomMeyer.com. I know when I land on a page after searching key words, it's important to see something that says I am in the right place. OK. I modified the welcome message, the banner, and the home search capabilities. My web site is a Z57 model. Their support folks are great. A guy did some quick magic and showed me a better way to make my site user friendly. Nice. We also discovered that my home search wasn't working...not so nice, but it's all good now.
Second step--get a point of reference. In a month I have to have some way of evaluating the free 30 days, because the cost goes up at the end of March. My site has some fine stats reporting tools. I see Google has always been the key search engine directing people to me, but the people finding me are coming at a crawl. I think doubling the traffic would be less than modest improvement. I see people were coming in the front door and not going further. I know what that means--I don't see anything I like here. Not surprising those who tried my Home Search tool got nothing. Note to self: check your tools from time to time.
Third step---I've got more work to do, and a house to show in 30 minutes to a person I've known for decades. She found me the old fashioned way. I gotta go before I start getting found.
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