Trouble Geting off the ground.

martinporter

Hi all,
Im new to all this tec stuff but here goes,
Ive had a website set up for me its a free one but its all I can do for the moment. https://sites.google.com/site/martinsspinology/
Its registered with google annalytics, google webmaster and has links coming back to it from different friends facebook etc...
The reason ive put up a new thread is because i differ from the other post in that my demographic is everyone from anywhere in Ireland.
Ive done Newspaper adverts (which were costly) and had very few calls.
Ive done fliers and businesscards and placed them in all the high foot fall areas in most of the county and still very little response plus it was quite costly as well.
Ive a Facebook page and have advertised on dealtime.ie and still there is no pick up on clients.
Please help I dont know what else to do.
Thanks.

martinporter

I cant search my website through google and when it was first set-up I could anyone know why?
Any help/advice would be appreciated.

TsuDhoNimh

martinporter wrote: »

I cant search my website through google and when it was first set-up I could anyone know why?

What do you mean by "can't search my website through google"?

Taking some of the text from the homepage, "Back to Roots Spinology", Google returned 2 pages for your site as the top 2 results (though I had just visited your site, so some personalisation of results will have occurred there). So you are in the index and no obvious sign of a penalty there.

Is it a specific query that you're not being returned for?

martinporter wrote: »

...my demographic is everyone from anywhere in Ireland.

A comment that pretty much every business in Ireland (and globally) likes to believe but one that hurts them all if they don't forget about it.

Your service may be suitable for everyone everywhere, but if you try and target a market that broad you'll fail horribly. Segment your market, figure out the demographics with the highest % chance of success (gender, age, geo-location, persona, etc.) and focus on trying to reach those. If you keep trying a shotgun approach of everyone everywhere it'll never work.

martinporter

Hi TsuDhoNimh and thanks for the response.
The problem i was having with google was that a while ago i could search 'Spinologist ' and my site was coming up in the first page and recently it wont return any result.From what you are saying i might want to get those words added to my home page if it is to be searchable would that be right.?
And as for my target demographic I know i might be aiming too high but the reason for doing so is that others in my field have people travel form all over the country and that is also my goal.But for now ive been trying to grow locally (within my county) and have spent a lot on advertising to date with almost no return,I just dont seem to be going about it the right way,the only reason I have new clientel is through word of mouth from previous clients and that is great, but I wish to grow my business and could really do with a major increase in clients so how can I target a specific group when its for anyone/everyone because everyone has some kind of muscle issue or spinal mis-alignment even if it has'nt presented yet.
I dont know if you know about Spinology since its a reasonably new practice, its in Ireland around 30 years but anyway Thanks again for your response.

TsuDhoNimh

martinporter wrote: »

... a while ago i could search 'Spinologist Co. Clare' and my site was coming up in the first page and recently it wont return any result. From what you are saying i might want to get those words added to my home page if it is to be searchable would that be right.?

When someone does a search, in this case for "spinologist co. clare", Google want to return the best possible results for that user. Glancing at your site, I can't see any information or unique content that would suggest your site is a good resource for that search.

At the moment, Google have 4 pages from your site listed in their index. 2 of those pages are your home page (meaning it's duplicate content as far as the search engines are concerned), one is an admin page that a normal user doesn't have access to (shouldn't be in the index to begin with) and one returns a 400 error page so again shouldn't be in the index.

So basically you have a single page, your homepage, in the index... and this page doesn't actually include the words "Co. Clare" so it's not going to rank highly for that term.

You're about to start moving into the technical side of search engine optimisation, so it'll take a bit of time and a lot of work to get your head around the various issues that will come into play.

Personally, at the moment, I couldn't advise you to invest much time or effort into trying to improve the current site. It's simply not viable to try and run a business site on a free platform like Google sites and the few euro it would cost to do it properly would be a far better investment than fighting with a site that will never be 'good'.

You don't have to spend huge money, but investing in a domain name (about €15p/year), hosting (less than €50p/year) and a more flexible site (something easy to manage like wordpress with a pre made theme, ranges from €50 if you buy the theme and do it yourself to ~€600 to have a dev work with a theme for you to as much as you can afford if you want a large amount of bespoke work done) would be a FAR better investment than any advertising you're currently doing.

martinporter wrote: »

And as for my target demographic I know i might be aiming too high but the reason for doing so is that others in my field have people travel form all over the country and that is also my goal.

It's not a case of 'aiming too high', it's more a case of not aiming at all.

I'm not saying you can't service all of those people and all of those locations, but if you target your marketing that broad it'll fail. You need to segment it (not necessarily based on location or age, but you need to break it down to something that gives it the highest chance of success) if you want it to reach those you need it to reach.

martinporter wrote: »

so how can I target a specific group when its for anyone/everyone because everyone has some kind of muscle issue or spinal mis-alignment even if it has'nt presented yet.

I'll struggle to give you specifics as I don't understand your business (is it done in conjunction with normal medical care? Is it complementary or more homoeopathic? - I'm not asking these questions, I don't actually want to know being honest, but it's something your site should address so people like me do understand it quickly) and have no idea of what your ideal demographics might be. The good news is that you do, you just don't know that you know it.

Sit down with a sheet of paper and start asking yourself questions on what you know of your business and the industry. Once you understand who you need to go after, then it'll be much easier to decide how to target them.

What is your unique selling point? (why use you and not the guy down the road)
What is the benefit of your service?
Who is the most common user of the service? (young men, middle aged women, etc.)
What is the most common link between the customers you already serve? (job type, views on traditional medicine, generally health concious, etc.)
What niche can you provide the most benefit to? (have you expertise in a specific area that helps you to stand out e.g. stunt men or whatever it might be)
What niche is currently poorly serviced by the industry as a whole? (is there a specific scenario when someone that would benefit from what you do but the majority of people in that scenario don't know about the possible benefits)


To be honest, the specific questions aren't the important part it's more about the thought process. Figure out who you can help, why you can help them, expand the net out as broad as possible and then figure out what the common threads are.

By the end of the process you may find yourself attempting to target middle aged office workers and young athletes or you may find yourself targeting a market that also has an interest in Yoga and Chinese herbal medicine. It doesn't mean that all of your customers will need to come from those subsets, but it is important to focus your marketing at the niches that will give the best results (e.g. you could target me daily with advertising but unless I have a back problem I won't even glance at your ad or at any promotional material that might try and convince me otherwise).

martinporter

Can i just say thanks a million for your response you have given me some food for taught.If something changes i will update cheers.

VOW123

Hi Martin,

Just came across your link. Had a look at your facebook page and there are a few points to note:

1- You are using a personal profile instead of business page
2- If you had a biz page you could run comps, add sign-up forms for email and
3- It's importantt o note that facebook have Terms of Service when you are promoting here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/help/382987495087424/
4- I have a blog on virtualofficeworx.com with tips about social media - feel free to visit
5- I am on facebook and Twitter also @VOfficeworx and facebook.com/virtualofficeworx

Hope some of this helps.

Thanks

VOW

VOW123

Hi Martin,

Just came across your link. Had a look at your facebook page and there are a few points to note:

1- You are using a personal profile instead of business page
2- If you had a biz page you could run comps, add sign-up forms for email and
3- It's importantt o note that facebook have Terms of Service when you are promoting here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/help/382987495087424/
4- I have a blog on virtualofficeworx.com with tips about social media - feel free to visit
5- I am on facebook and Twitter also @VOfficeworx and facebook.com/virtualofficeworx

Hope some of this helps.

Thanks

VOW

Duckjob

Speaking from a technical viewpoint:-

Your website looks terrible - looks like something from 1995 plus basic grammar and spelling is bad.

I would presume spinology is a profession which requires people put a lot of trust in you, and trust is going be be seriously undermined on first impression seeing a website like that.

Sorry if I sound harsh. I'm not saying you need to go spending thousands on a fancy website - there are plenty of templates providers like Themeforest where you can buy in a
professional template and just get a developer to set it up using your own content. Hell, even a free wordpress theme would be an improvement on what you have now.

As other posters have said, you need to read up on SEO and how to write content on your site that will contain the sort of keyphrases that will be picked up by Google, keyphrases that people looking for your service would type into Google - eg. "back problems", "sore back" etc etc.

Also, as a local business you should get registered with Google Local Business so that if somebody searches a relevant search in your area, you'll be more likely to show up on local business searches. (plotted on a google map)

Hope this is of some help.