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Please Help Me Grow My Inspection Business

by goodoboy
7 replies
Hello all,

My friend owns a home/business/windstorm inspection business in Houston Texas (and surrounding cities).

He needs to finds customers and wants to use internet marketing (Facebook ads, social media articles, SEO, etc) to help him.

Do you think internet marketing can help him grow his customer base or does he need more traditional marketing (flyers, door-to-door, etc.).

I personally think we need to start with traditional marketing methods, but I could be wrong.

We just trying to evaluate all marketing strategies.

Thank you very much
#business #grow #inspection
  • Profile picture of the author kk075
    I always tell my clients do do both....put boots on the ground in your city and market heavily online using organic methods. Heck, I had a roofer who was in the neighborhood just three days ago and he saw that I had a couple shingles loose. So he knocked on the door, handed me a card and asked if he could inspect my roof...and we found tons of hail damage. That guy created a $9k job just by looking around and having the confidence to present himself.

    With that said, it will be very easy to rank locally on Google+...which will also produce some traffic. It won't be as much as other industries though because people generally don't think of having inspections until something goes wrong...and then they don't need an inspection, they need a repair man. So I think for this one niche, it's worth it to optimize your site locally and get a few dozen reviews to make you stand out, but your main source of business will be through knocking on doors and dropping off flyers.

    Hopefully that helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author goodoboy
      Originally Posted by kk075 View Post

      I always tell my clients do do both....put boots on the ground in your city and market heavily online using organic methods. Heck, I had a roofer who was in the neighborhood just three days ago and he saw that I had a couple shingles loose. So he knocked on the door, handed me a card and asked if he could inspect my roof...and we found tons of hail damage. That guy created a $9k job just by looking around and having the confidence to present himself.

      With that said, it will be very easy to rank locally on Google+...which will also produce some traffic. It won't be as much as other industries though because people generally don't think of having inspections until something goes wrong...and then they don't need an inspection, they need a repair man. So I think for this one niche, it's worth it to optimize your site locally and get a few dozen reviews to make you stand out, but your main source of business will be through knocking on doors and dropping off flyers.

      Hopefully that helps!
      Thank you so much for responding.

      Can you comment on these questions:

      1. What means organic methods?

      2. How can I rank locally on google+? By joining communites and getting followers?

      Thank you
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      • Profile picture of the author kk075
        Originally Posted by goodoboy View Post

        Thank you so much for responding.

        Can you comment on these questions:

        1. What means organic methods?

        2. How can I rank locally on google+? By joining communites and getting followers?

        Thank you
        Organic means natural...which Mike just covered for pretty well. Get a basic site built with lots of information about what your friend does, and write at least a half page for every one of his services. Also have a FAQ page that talks about his rates, his response times and the process he uses to inspect, plus any other questions that a customer could possibly have that I'm not thinking about. (like his average turnaround times from first contact to inspection). For this business model, I'd also place a 1-2 minute video high up on the homepage with your friend explaining his services. For local niches this is huge...it puts a face with a service and makes it feel a lot more personal.

        Once you have that done, do 1, 2, and 6 of what Mike said. I'd skip Facebook and paid ads for now because of the industry of this business, but the other points are dead on accurate. As far as the reviews on Yelp and SuperPages....those will help some too but I think you'd be better off getting out in public instead of focusing on that...but your friend can also make all four accounts at once and send all 4 links to all his friends and family. Just be sure to 100% complete the profiles with good info, descriptions, photos, contact info and everything else...it makes a huge difference.

        To actually rank on Google+, it goes by a few factors- your website's traffic, the number of reviews you get and the number of people who stay on your main website without going back to the search results. So by updating your main website and posting a weekly blog (about anything locally...not necessarily inspections), Google will continue to like you and keep you pinned as the #1 inspector. I am guessing that very few other businesses are doing all this stuff in that niche in Houston so you should be good to go.

        Just PM me if you have any other questions. I've been super busy lately so I can't give you any physical help with this, but I'm always happy to share knowledge. You have a full blueprint now though so you shouldn't need much.
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        • Profile picture of the author goodoboy
          Originally Posted by kk075 View Post

          Organic means natural...which Mike just covered for pretty well. Get a basic site built with lots of information about what your friend does, and write at least a half page for every one of his services. Also have a FAQ page that talks about his rates, his response times and the process he uses to inspect, plus any other questions that a customer could possibly have that I'm not thinking about. (like his average turnaround times from first contact to inspection). For this business model, I'd also place a 1-2 minute video high up on the homepage with your friend explaining his services. For local niches this is huge...it puts a face with a service and makes it feel a lot more personal.

          Once you have that done, do 1, 2, and 6 of what Mike said. I'd skip Facebook and paid ads for now because of the industry of this business, but the other points are dead on accurate. As far as the reviews on Yelp and SuperPages....those will help some too but I think you'd be better off getting out in public instead of focusing on that...but your friend can also make all four accounts at once and send all 4 links to all his friends and family. Just be sure to 100% complete the profiles with good info, descriptions, photos, contact info and everything else...it makes a huge difference.

          To actually rank on Google+, it goes by a few factors- your website's traffic, the number of reviews you get and the number of people who stay on your main website without going back to the search results. So by updating your main website and posting a weekly blog (about anything locally...not necessarily inspections), Google will continue to like you and keep you pinned as the #1 inspector. I am guessing that very few other businesses are doing all this stuff in that niche in Houston so you should be good to go.

          Just PM me if you have any other questions. I've been super busy lately so I can't give you any physical help with this, but I'm always happy to share knowledge. You have a full blueprint now though so you shouldn't need much.
          Thank you soooo much kk075

          I am newbie to marketing online, so most of this is new to me, but good learning.

          I just want to make sure my friend business is headed in the right direction.

          He wants to hire me for all the online marketing, so I will be learning as I go.

          Thank you
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          • Profile picture of the author JDBOTX5
            All of the above replies are pretty accurate. Don't forget to go into every directory you can and create a listing of your business the more pictures and information you enter accurately the better. This is an local SEO tactic that is super important that will help you dominate local searches. You can spend some money on ''Yext'' directory network if you wish, I personalty don't. Just Google ''top 100 local business directory list''
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  • Profile picture of the author mikefashen
    Okay, here's what I would do.

    1) Make sure that his google+ local page has a lot of good information it. Put pictures of him doing inspections on there from several different properties and regularly add new pics. Google likes that and rewards people who keep their g+ pages updated with new stuff by giving better ranking.

    2) Get every single family member and friend he has to go onto his google+ page and five star the listing and give a good review.

    3) Repeat with yelp, yellowpages, and superpages (create account, good info, pics, ask friends and family to do a review).

    4) Now create a facebook page (using the local business type) and ask friends and family to share the page

    5) Now, do A VERY LITTLE ppc advertising ($100 or less with a daily ad spend spread across a week or more) for relevant keywords with the name of the city included and use geotargeting of the ad to actually have PPC force the ad upward.

    6) EVERY SINGLE HOUSE HE DOES HE SHOULD OFFER SOME SMALL DISCOUNT IF THEY WILL DO A REVIEW ON GOOGLE OR YELP OR SUPERPAGES!!!!!!!!!!

    No joke on that last one. If he can get his customers to be constantly posting reviews then he'll get top rankings on google fast especially if he "helps" it by priming the pump a little with a small bit of adwords.

    The more reviews he gets the more his listing will totally own the front page.

    Hope this helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author goodoboy
      Originally Posted by mikefashen View Post

      Okay, here's what I would do.

      1) Make sure that his google+ local page has a lot of good information it. Put pictures of him doing inspections on there from several different properties and regularly add new pics. Google likes that and rewards people who keep their g+ pages updated with new stuff by giving better ranking.

      2) Get every single family member and friend he has to go onto his google+ page and five star the listing and give a good review.

      3) Repeat with yelp, yellowpages, and superpages (create account, good info, pics, ask friends and family to do a review).

      4) Now create a facebook page (using the local business type) and ask friends and family to share the page

      5) Now, do A VERY LITTLE ppc advertising ($100 or less with a daily ad spend spread across a week or more) for relevant keywords with the name of the city included and use geotargeting of the ad to actually have PPC force the ad upward.

      6) EVERY SINGLE HOUSE HE DOES HE SHOULD OFFER SOME SMALL DISCOUNT IF THEY WILL DO A REVIEW ON GOOGLE OR YELP OR SUPERPAGES!!!!!!!!!!

      No joke on that last one. If he can get his customers to be constantly posting reviews then he'll get top rankings on google fast especially if he "helps" it by priming the pump a little with a small bit of adwords.

      The more reviews he gets the more his listing will totally own the front page.

      Hope this helps.
      Thank you very much mikefashen

      Great help and advise.

      I can help him do all those steps except for step 5. You have any recommendations on this step to get started. But those other steps you mentioned are great.

      Is there a book or trainging on getting ranked on Google+ for advertising?

      Thank you
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