Using SEO for your cleaning business

With my commercial and residential cleaning company, we recently decided to focus most of our marketing efforts on the Internet.  Seeing as how yellow pages are dying, and most people use Google to search for goods and services, we saw SEO and Internet marketing as our best fit.  The goal is to get our website onto the first page of Google for certain targeted keywords which our target market is searching for.  It has been great so far, and I really recommend looking into SEO and Internet Marketing for the benefit of your company.

I agree I used that for my pressure washing business this summer and it brought me a great deal of business.

With newspapers dying out, at least 12 major mags hitting the skids this year, focusing on yellow page ads seems to make no sense to me anymore.  The internet is so congested with crap sites that searches generally produce other search pages as the top results.  I hate to say it but it really looks like the internet has been making it harder to do business by killing its competition which at one time provided reliable answers and replacing it with senseless babble. 

What say you to this thought?

Edited by Soil Lint Green - 10/October/2009 at 12:02am

Hi and how did it go since then? Did you use SEO company or smth else?
If you have reliable SEO specialist with reasonable rates I w'd really appreciate if you PM me contact info.

Thanks, I hired one guy, he promised to hit the first page in one month, we'll see.

In one week he moved my site from page 10 to page 3, google has ranked it within 1.5 month since published

Hi my name is JJ.  My company does SEO at a world class level at a Wal-Mart price.  I am not here to solicit business...but rather looking for advice.  A few of my clients are carpet cleaners and I supply them with a lot of customer calls a month.  As such over the last month I have focused on finding carpet cleaners in various markets.  The trouble I am finding is that I can't communicate on a common level with any of these folks.  They are all very respectful and nice.  They all tell me they cold use more business.  They even tell me my price is fine.  Somewhere between all of that and the point where I ask if they are interested I lose them.  My business partner, who is a tad snobbish, says I am just talking to rednecks with vacuums.  He insists the disconnect is that I am dealing with folks who are stuck in a now ancient frame of mind where it pertains to advertising.  I don't feel this way as I come from a background that has taught me to respect everyone.  Am I just barking up the wrong tree in trying to get carpet cleaners as a prominent portion of my client list?  Is there a better approach for me to take in order to get these folks to commit? The obvious first thing I thought of was that I am a crappy salesman.  I dismissed that as I know I do my job well and I believe in my product.  My second thought was that carpet cleaners just don't advertise.  I dismissed that as I know carpet cleaners are out there and all of their business can't be word of mouth.  Then I thought they don't care about advertising solicitation calls because there is simply no competition and advertising is seen as a take it or leave it option.  This thought was dismissed as I walked into the supermarket yesterday I saw three steam cleaners for rent right up front of the store.  Those things seemingly rent themselves.  That must be frustrating!   So I sit here dumbfounded as to what I am doing or saying wrong.  I thank you for taking the time to read this and for any comments you may have.