[ian harper]

great article

http://searchengineland.com/study-172578

its this stuff thats gives you an advantage if you take the time to adding it to your mobile site. we get around 20% visits from iphone or android phone.

[Richard Cole]

How many actually convert from mobiles though?

[peter maybury]

It is getting the phone to ring in the first place that is the important thing. Most people that have been  in business for any amount of time will have a good phone conversion rate. You are not going to convert business that does nt contact you. You need to make it easy for people to get in touch with you.

Peter
www.carpetcleanercardiff.comhttp://

[Mike Halliday]

Anything that gets people to call is a good thing, but I think you need to look at the specifics of this survey, firstly it was a survey of smartphone owners, of course they will be a bigger user of mobile sites... they have a smart phone. Also it does not give a breakdown of the age of the people surveyed, I bet the majority were under 25 which is not a big market sector for carpet cleaning.

I would think the last sentence is the most important but it actually contradicts the authors post....

.Google makes the case that whether or not consumers ultimately call, ads with call extensions see 8 percent higher click-through rates over ads without phone numbers.

[neil 47]

Ian

You make me laugh .

You keep telling people what they should do to improve their business .
Yet when I rang your number your phoned just rang and rang no answer phone message or redirect .

So I rang again later ( a customer wouldn't of bothered) a woman answered the phone who came across as very unfriendly and also unhelpful .

So if I was you I'd sort my own business out first .

Ps Just trying to be helpful

Neil

[ian harper]

great plug in that only shows to mobile phones

http://wordpress.org/plugins/call-now-button/

BTW great theme that scales to screen size and swips, worth the upgrade costs

http://cyberchimps.com/store/ifeaturepro5/

here is mine, you need to view it on different devices to get what it really does, and how your customers will be seeing it. iphone and ipda are the ones that you really need to see your site with. the iphone is a real pain with it small screen.

http://www.sofa-cleaning.co.uk/

here is my main mobile site that uses sniffer code to redirect mobiles to it, so if it PC or ipad you get the normal site

http://4carpetcleaning.co.uk/mobi/

hope that helps you -)

[Craigp]

I'm going post this only to save others time as from this topic gives the impression mobile google ads with a mobile website is the next big thing. It is not.

I had a guy make a mobile site specially for google mobile google ads. Long story short, the results were crap.

[garry22]

1/ Ian, are you saying that some mobile sites do not have a press to call button?

2/ I cannot show figures here as it's someone else's site (not carpet cleaning but "home improvement" based) but this is what we found.

Calls enquiries from smartphones tended to be last minute thoughts and generally the wrong sort of customers (cancellations,price shoppers etc). The best leads came from tablets and PCs, which seems to suggest maybe a more affluent customer who carries out more research without buying?

[wynne jones]

This Wordpress thing... seems pretty useful then. 

[Shaun_Ashmore]

But what is word press and how will I benefit from it?

Shaun

[Mike Gwilliam]

Heres a pretty interesting vid form Matt Cutts (Google 2009).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P-m2cBCJSk

It is not just about wordpress in the vid but shows how Wordpress is admired. Wordpress is very respected by Google and also by matt Cutts.

Possibly not everyone can get thier head round it, like I could not but I'm learning every day and getting a dab hand.

Basically it's where you can log in to your web site and change anything you want to your page layout or your shop front.

But it has a whole host of plugins. If you think you need to add something to your site, there is usually a free plugin for it.

There are many themes which are free. However if you want a beautiful site, there are many premium or paid for themes where the layout can be done much easier and there has been much work by the the people who developed them.

[Kev Loomes]

We have had a mobile site for well over a year now, and although its hard to find out exactly how many people call us from it, what I can say is that we have only had 3 email contacts from it - and all 3 were a waste of time!

Certainly wouldnt get rid of it though!

Kev

p.s. Ian - what is wrong with your main mobile site? it doesn't look quite right, and not very user friendly mate. Just an observation.

[Mike Halliday]

Can a website tell the difference betreen  a smartphone and a tablet? Or does it just see a mobile device.

If we are going to design our websites for smartphones then we need to think why is someone using a mobile phone and not their computer to look for a carpet cleaner.

I'm sat here trying to think of a reason and can't, perhaps a house buyer who is in a new house and needs  the carpets cleaned before they move in ( but the phone isn't connected yet) who else would use a smart phone?

[ian harper]

Your all have your view just reporting what works for me. believe me or not its your choice. I am just trying to help out here, and not that you all you must do this or that. I report fact in my experience and would back it up if it was not for my local competition on here.


The fact is there is no one platform or device any more


wordpress is great as you get to loads of cool stuff, like that swipe on ipads and redirecting for mobiles and you dont need to be able to code. you can change the look anytime. you can link it to G+ authorship which is important so you get that image coming up next to you search results. it helps control users being able to ban overseas hits that maybe hackers etc. many, many, benefits over html pages

Mike, last month we had loads of young people as the market is really moving down here for young people and its not rental is ownership, its great to see something working. banks are lending again to young people.

Garry, we welcome price shoppers, and we find people dont cancel apart from those that are overrunning home improvements. we get about four of those a month. If they say when they call we normally say call the day the work ends and we will come the next day after we have finished our days work, this does help us with sitting around when someone cancels the day before the clean.

Kev, looks ok to me on all the platforms. its meant to look like windows 8

Craigp, sorry your results where bad maybe you should have tested more that one site and improved on what worked, step by step.

Neil, as I have said coms is a real issue and Tina does her best for me. its a numbers game so what you lose you can gain elsewhere. we use a burnside that redirects and she is out and about so the time laps can be long some times but from her point she picks up as soon as it rings. you got the cold shoulder because she gets lots of sales calls asking for me and she knows how to handle them so thats why you got the response you got, sorry. but as she said G+ is the place to get hold of me for a chat.

Richard, Tina gets a good conversion rate on all our calls because we use price so its not really a sales call but a booking one and thats how she handles them.

For all your all, I am not going to defend by responses to replies to other uses anymore my response is between me and them, it takes to much time to answer them all. This post is different as its my post. so much negative i just dont understand it. sorry if my english is bad and it sounds like I telling you, i am just excited about results and my findings and wish to pass them on to help others. guys life can be hard and thats the point of trying to help. its just a easy to be positive as negative.

much of what said is it did not work for me so its not going to work for anyone else, not true every situation is different. I know I dont get it right all the time and thats why i always trying new angles on things. maybe you should take a second look as you might be missing something, I know i do and when i see it i cant believe i missed it in the first place.

Respect to you all

[ian harper]

Mike

yes code can tell mobile from computer and phone from ipad. its called sniffer code

Have you heard of the second screen? people watching TV and on their phones at the same time.

Just look of the sales of tablets againist PC. we have a PC because of our database but I use a chromebook and the wife uses a IPad. most people that dont have a use for a PC will upgrade to tablets. Tescos have just started to sell their own and you can get it for £60 on your clubcard. most sites are ok on a tablet but not on a Iphone and we know how many people have them

[Mike Halliday]

......Posted before you replied to my question.......


Ian I often disagree with what you post but I do it with upmost respect, who is to say I'm right and you are wrong ( this is why I always start my post with ' I think......' So it's obvious that what i say is just my opinion.

You will come under a lot of criticism for what you post because you post  a lot of information..... so there is a lot of opportunity to disagree with you

But your post are a great contribution to this forum and I'd rather read your posts than another post about 'what's the best chemical for urine" or "why is clean talk so bias"

[ian harper]

Thanks mike just trying to be helpful. I said before a lot of this stuff is fun for me trying new stuff seeing what works for me and passing my findings on. I really dont have the time to keep defending that does not mean i think i am right. Just excited

[Kev Loomes]

Same here. I may not agree with Ian's posts but I still enjoy reading them. Ian - I was referring to the iPhone - it's difficult to see/navigate.

On our main site it will only divert to small devices like an iPhone etc but on larger things like an iPad, it won't divert as they are big enough screens to see a normal site. Not all coding works this way, some will detect any mobile device (including iPads etc) and display a mobile site. Unless you have a site that auto scales to any device of course, but they don't always look right - which is why we have a dedicated mobile site.

[Craigp]

Mike, whats the best chemical for urine? 

Ian, it was thoroulghy tested for me by a internet marketing expert called Dez Futack, (google him)

I won't bore you with all his findings, but basically results were not worth bothering.

As others have said, ones that did come through were emergencies and cheap price shoppers.

TIP he found that 'offers' (cheap jacks) it may work better for. He knew my business is not the sort that does 'offers'

So it may work for you - but you wont make much as you'll have to work at low prices.


IMO the very best clients are not price shoppers nor is it a on the hop decision to have their carpets/uph cleaned, it's a planned, considered, decision. Also the best ones will want to meet you first for a quote, they don't want any old riff raff working on their furnishings  

[Craigp]

Mike. Many website these days are what called 'dynamic' meaning they work on tablets and phones so if your site is dynamic you wont need a mobile site.

I don't have a mobile site anymore. as my new site is dymanic.