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Yelp vs Google

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Post by dp1 Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:15 pm

Looks like Yelp started offering $ 300 in free ads, I haven't ran Google ads for a while and I'm still in the lowest Yelp ads, for my area, Yelp is huge, so $ 300 in free ads don't make me happy at all, that's just going to add much more competition for me, especially now they have 2 - 3 ads on the top of result page, they are trying to be like Google Mad
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Post by Mo Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:56 pm

Does the 300 in freed ads apply to you too DP
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Post by dp1 Tue Jan 26, 2016 11:57 pm

No Mo, that's only for new customers only ! You should try it in your area, just don't sign for 6 months contract, push your sales rep to do 3 months just to see how it does.
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Post by Devon07 Wed Jan 27, 2016 5:43 pm

So much for loyalty...now when the call and bug me I have another reason.
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Post by dp1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:28 am

So the 2 ads that Yelp started last year started to bite me in my behind, I raised my ads to $ 1600 last month and didn't get the ROI I usually get when I advertise that much, talked to my rep and she said that "carpet cleaning" and it's related keyword in LA market had become one of the hottest keyword and had beaten carpet cleaning searches in NY, she compared my traffic / clicks from previous years when I did same amount of ads to this year and it's a pretty big difference, now it seems like I have to fork another $ 1600 to get the same traffic / clicks that I got in previous years.
I also noticed that my organic position had dropped to 3rd, so after the 2 "sponsored" ads on the top, my listing had dropped to 5th instead of 3rd, I have more reviews than the other 2 on top of me, also one of those 2 on top of me is from a neighboring city.
This situation is kind of irked me, I'm not much of a gambler when it comes to advertisement but I have to do something very soon if I want to be able to keep afloat for next winter.
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Post by milspec6 Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:39 am

Post a Youtube video of you riding a skateboard into a cactus....seems to get a lot of followers.
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Post by Freemind1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:22 am

Yelp is basically doubling your ad costs. Me, I'd spend it with Google first, since THEY are the search engine to begin with. How much higher on the chain could you get anyway?

Yelp will eventually turn into another Angie's list. All it will be good for will be Group-on type stuff. Just don't put your eggs all in the Yelp basket.

Start doing social media and YouTube vids for your website, and kick your SEO up with it.

It may be more work, but I fear you relying on Yelp will only hurt you in the end. Yelp will milk your wallet for everything it can, then move on to another one willing to be bled dry.

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Post by dp1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:53 pm

Thanks for the input James, I searched info on Google AdWords for a few hours today ( 80+ degrees outside and I'm home, vans are sitting nicely outside, NOT working Mad ).
Here's what I found, I'm still on page 1 on Google organic / map listing, #2 in that first page, my website is also listed in that first page, #2 or #3, can't remember, so my SEO is fine, now the AdWords for "carpet cleaning Pasadena" keyword is from $ 10 - $ 33 per click Shocked and all 4 ads that consistently showed up on the top 4 of those ads advertise prices ( ridiculously low prices ), I'm not scared competing with them, I just don't want to lose money because people clicking my ads just to ask prices, the key now is to look for the best keywords as title and sub title to be able to compete in the healthiest way possible as well as getting the best CTR ( Click Through Ratio ) since that would also be the key to be able to compete with those guys.
I emailed Yelp already to drop my ads back down to $ 300 for next month and they just called me to persuade me to stay in $ 1600 plan, I asked her to give me a week of "trial" sometimes this month so that I can see the real performance if I do increase the ads, realistically it's a lot cheaper on Yelp and I think it's a lot more effective for my area, we'll see what she says, she said she'll call me back.
Nonetheless it sucks for me, seems like I'm going back to the first and second year in LA, the only difference is I didn't have any employees and no payroll expenses, now my part timer already told me that he's going to be gone for June since it's super slow, I don't blame him and I'm kinda relief from the obligation of giving him the hours, I can work more and save a bit.
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Post by milspec6 Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:15 pm

Cycles....everything works in cycles. Maybe you just need to go retro and become a solo cleaner again, explore new markets, and coast a little.

Farmers learned a long time ago to rotate the crops, you can't grow the same crop every year or the field stops producing. The same is true in business, a new niche or service might be in order.
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Post by Mo Mon Jun 05, 2017 5:59 pm

I finally got my first request for a quote on Yelp and I actually have a couple of reviews on there. Yelp was dead here when I first signed up a couple of years ago.

Im sure its not big money to advertise here compared to Cali maybe I should advertise there.

Since May I have noticed most of my business coming from repeats and referrals and I know that's not sustainable.

I think the real estate market here is having an impact on my new business woes. We have less than half the supply of homes for sale this year compared to last year. The prices are really high and the rents are as well so people are just staying put.

This time of year is when I see folks selling their homes cuz the kids are out of school and college kids leaving town for the summer and Im just not seeing that yet.

But I need to look inward to see what it is that Im not doing and what I can do to change that.

For the first time in a long time I have reordered my reminder cards and plan on sending those out to my data base. Since that's the segment that is clicking may as well give that a boost.

For new business I think I will order more postcards and do direct mail. I also need to get in the bidding war with a couple of business her in town with adwords

Now If I could just implement this stuff.

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Post by milspec6 Mon Jun 05, 2017 7:33 pm

I just can't wrap my head around all that marketing stuff. I just finished talking with the other local cleaner in town and struck a deal. He doesn't like doing night work and will not do commercial as a result, but he gets plenty of calls for them.

He has agreed to refer all the night work to me for a 5% fee. Seems a lot easier to network than to market / advertise in this area.
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Post by Freemind1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:57 pm

My marketing consists of Google/website and post cards. I have listings on other sites, but to be blunt, most all of my new clients come from either Google or cards.

This year I punched some cards to hang on mailbox flags where there is no paper box. I'm determined to get in those places I want to advertise to.

Adwords would do me zero good here. I'm already the only window guy that comes up with Google search.

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Post by milspec6 Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:08 pm

Watch those mailbox flags, the USPS frowns on attaching things to the mailbox. I was confronted by a carrier for putting magnetic business cards on the side of the metal mail boxes...followed by a cease letter from the Post Master.

I still did it, just put them on the back of the box facing the house so the carrier didn't see them, but the home owner could.
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Post by Freemind1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:42 pm

It was my understanding that you could not put anything IN the mailbox, but putting something on the outside was perfectly legal and ok.

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Post by dp1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:30 pm

Anytime you can get guarantee jobs for a certain percentage to be paid as fees, that's gold ! That's why Groupon helped us a lot, they were not cheap, they took 20% back then, now they want 40 - 50% and they dictate the price too for carpet cleaning and it's not a deal anymore when you can buy it anytime, people just buy it when they need cleaning, when I ran a whole house deal 6 years ago, there were 3 - 4 customers didn't redeem their groupons, I get to keep my 80% portion of those jobs that I didn't do, but those were limited timed deal, it only ran for 2 days, sold 180 whole house deal, some of those homes are small too, those were the glory days of Groupon as a provider.
I'm still researching this, Google doesn't even give out exact data on keyword search volume, my main keyword generates between 100 - 1000 / month and when I searched "carpet cleaning los angeles" it generates the same amount of volume which is not possible, 5 - 6 years ago I searched carpet cleaning los angeles and it generates around 5000 searches / month, that number must be close to 10,000 now. I don't know why google mislead that kind of info to a potential advertiser.
I also need to re build my website and try to use home pro again and hopefully plug that in to the website for online scheduling.
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Post by dp1 Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:41 pm

I was called by post office once almost 10 years ago for putting stuffs inside the mailbox, according to him mailboxes belongs to them and nothing can be put inside or outside of it, I'm free to put them anywhere else outside the home but I'm sure the home owner may not like that idea, lol.
I stopped dropping anything myself after that, I'm too busy to handle those kinds of complaints, I'm sure most mailman don't really care but there is always that one jerk that blows the damn whistle.
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Post by milspec6 Tue Jun 06, 2017 12:23 am

The biggest problem the USPS had was that a person was going box to box and attaching things. They worry about someone stealing the mail or somehow installing something to skim card numbers.

That was the story they gave me on the subject.
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Post by dp1 Tue Jun 06, 2017 5:53 pm

I called Google AdWords yesterday and they said that they will have someone call me back, finally today someone called me and talked to me, the average pay per click for main keywords are about $ 10, which is cheaper than Yelp, they said that they are doing free set up including optimizing the campaign and free review every 2 - 3 weeks after it starts, I'm liking everything already, but she said that my website has to be easy to navigate and has to support the ads, the problem is godaddy screwed me up a couple of years ago with my main website, I had it on auto pay and they didn't charge me and let my website go, a Chinese company bought it and tried to get $ 1200 for it, my buddy said forget it, they will eventually lower that price, now I guess they sold it to another company and that company wants $ 250 for it, I haven't caved in yet, I'm trying to get it back for $ 100 or cheaper cause I'm cheap, lol.
I have until the end of the month to get my other website content updated and redesign, hopefully add online scheduling in there as well.
Well Google here I come Very Happy
I actually might leave Yelp at $ 1600 and do Google for $ 1500 ? it's all about rolling the dice with advertisements Mad
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Post by Freemind1 Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:09 pm

Great for you DP! Hope it all work out for you.

I don't have any of my GoDaddy stuff on auto renew. I start getting notices 2 months before it's due. I don't want to do the auto thing.

I wish the hosting was cheaper though. But after having things all set the way things are, I'm not changing. Not gonna chance screwing with my SEO.

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Post by Mo Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:15 pm

From what I recall your ROI with google adwords was pretty good years ago?
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Post by dp1 Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:14 am

That's smart James ! The same reason why I didn't do jack with my website for years, now I have no choice, hopefully it doesn't bite me in my behind.
Mo, Google adwords ROI isn't as good as Yelp, that's why I dropped them a couple of years ago, now it's crunch time, I'm willing to try them again, the other alternative is work for someone for $ 20 / hour next year or have to hold a sign "work for food" by Home Depot parking lot Mad
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Post by Freemind1 Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:49 am

When I ran AdWords when I first started, it put me first on maps and moved me to page one in listings. After I dropped it, maps stayed the same but at the time my organic dropped WAY back.

Of coarse then I had NO SEO juice either, so I understand why my listing moved backwords after that until I got my SEO right.

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Post by milspec6 Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:08 am

This is all interesting, let me ask you all something. When you are the customer shopping for a service, what do you respond positively with?

For me, I normally skip the advertised listings and look only at the organics. Then I skip the non-local ones. Then I skip those without a website.

In considering the websites, I skip those with generic photos of a fake family or pets and often skip those with franchise ownership.

That normally leaves me with 2-3 max to choose from. The final step comes down to the website just hitting a positive nerve in some way....sort of speaks to me if you will. Testimonials / reviews help as well unless they sound scripted or fake.

That is how I shop for contractors, so I try to aim my presence along the same vein. It might be that I am a rare bird, which means that I will only attract similar weird birds, but that is sort of the point.....drawing customers that are of a like mind / personality to your own. To me that should be the goal.

Just something to ask yourself in my view.
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Post by dp1 Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:16 am

I thought about that a while back Bob, the only problem with that view is there are very limited people that see things the way I do, ha..ha....
I always go to Yelp if I need anything, from service to restaurants, I avoid Groupon at all costs unless if their reviews on Yelp are glowing with hundreds of reviews and the deal is too good to pass, which is hard to find in Groupon nowadays.
I tend to read a few of the reviews especially the negative ones since I can judge if those reviewers are just the a$$holes that are hard to please or if it's the company's fault ( e.g. no show for his appointment ). I also try to avoid franchises, but that doesn't eliminate much around here, we have tons of small businesses, especially carpet cleaners, that's what makes competition steep.


Last edited by dp1 on Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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Post by milspec6 Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:18 am

I only read the negative reviews as well....they are normally the more honest ones. I do that for fleabay, hotels, etc. all the time.
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