To google or not

RetiredGuy1000

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Location
St. Petersburg, FL
So far I have had zippo luck with google. Of course, my ad budget is like spitting in Lake Michigan and expecting the tide to rise. Not much going in.

Of course I have been mostly setting up my company and not much else. But next week my ad hits 6500 people and id like to compliment it with some exposure elsewhere. Maybe $500 in Google. As of now, only my craigslist ad has come through and that was only one call. and that call was a waste of time.

Radio seems good if you wish to blanket a market and throw thousands at it each week. I don't have the thousands and I couldn't handle the work besides.
 
Over here (as I think @ChrisTech has alluded to) we have parish or village magazines/newsletters. Typically, they may go to anything from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand homes. These are good places to advertise as they usually don't cost that much and are also very specifically targeted to your local catchment area. It's one of the downsides of Google etc that they reach (theoretically) the whole world and that's one of the things you're paying for. Take me: I don't care how good you are or how cheap you are. I'm three thousand miles away and I'm not going to call you, regardless. Go for your local market - people who might actually become customers and that you can actually get to without spending three hours on the road.
 
I've said this multiple times before.

I write a column in a local mag. Have been doing so for the past 4 years or there abouts. It gets me SO much business its unreal.

Readers of the mag, get good quality information, which I try to dumb down as much as possible. I have no need to advertise any more really, as I get so much business from this mag.
 
Well ..

I am no expert on SEO webdesign, marketing etc.. So keep that in mind.

What's up with the Golf quotes?

Custom builds .. Rather than just showing 20 or so PC cases, explain how you sit down with customer and how you get a list of things user needs and plans doing with his PC and how you design the perfect PC around that. Perhaps even propose 3 builds for casual, professional and demanding user and keep that up to date. Every now and then do a blog to explain why you decided to upgrade components for the different builds etc..

If I search "computer repair St. Petersburg" I don't see you in first few pages (TBH can not find you a all). This may be due to my location so you'd need to check that yourself. Ideally you want your site to show up here, organically, first page. Investing time IMO is more effective that spending $$. This probably isn't something you can accomplish within a few weeks.

Apart from dog pictures and you smiling nicely get some pictures of people actually doing technical stuff with computers on work benches etc.. Idea: Get some older but still usable laptops and clean them up, new OS etc. I always bought refurbished laptops (A-brands like IBM) for kids who needed them at school. In the process shoot pictures and use them on your website.

I'd get the .com domain too if you haven't already.

Do you really want people to text you?

"Bye bye color wheel" Is this an inside technician joke I am not aware of? What if your potential customers aren't either?

You say "Viruses, Malware, and Wireless Networks". But that's not services. A service is 'virus removal' or 'we set up your wireless networks'.

"Remote repair" is how you deliver a service. So I'd make a small section where you explain how services can be delivered (on-site, remote etc.).

Also, as an example: You list data recovery as a service: If you want people to find your site for data recovery in your area, you need to have a page 'Data recovery service st. Petersburg area'. Then explain a on that page how data is lost and what you can offer to get it back. Do you actually know anything about data recovery (other than running Recuva to get back some deleted files)? Then writing such an article may require you to do research and actually learn about it. You'll also learn that there is plenty you will not be able to do, so maybe you can work out a deal with a data recovery LAB so you can send them those difficult cases.

Same with wireless network setup. Create a page where you explain how you make sure there's reception though the whole house, how you secure it and all that, and how they can use it with their computers, phones tablets and all that.

Your blog is the perfect place to do such things, but you need to write actual content. A blog post about "Do you know your worms from your trojans? Malware vs Viruses?" needs to have some actual content rather than just linking to a guy explaining it all.

"https://www.retiredguy.repair/blog/...computer-should-i-do-this-or-should-i-upgrade" is actually a nice start but not good enough. It isn't accurate enough. "If your computer could use a small performance boost and it has less than 1 GB of memory, this can be a highly impactful upgrade." .. Really?! If you still run a PC with 1 GB memory then it's time to get a new PC!!! With numbers like that it is like it was written 10 years ago.

"I Just Like This Computer Case" .. Blog posts like that are going to do nothing at all for SEO. Instead write something worth reading about computer cases, form factors, room for upgrading etc.

"https://www.retiredguy.repair/blog/phishing-vs-spear-phishing-vs-whaling-attacks" Will not do SEO any good. It's duplicate content. Besides that, it's a blop of text which is far too hard too read.

"https://www.retiredguy.repair/blog/anatomy-of-a-windows-10-tune-up" Did you write this? Use headers and paragraphs rather than one big blop of text. A couple of screenshots would be nice too.
 
As someone who tried radio it gets really expensive really quick.

I ran a 2 week ad and got 1 call cost me 700$ and that was with a smaller local station would have been about 3 times that to go with one of the big guys.

Get out pound the pavement make cold calls volunteer go to local small business events. There are a ton of things you can do for free.

If your ad is going out give it a week then go door to door to introduce yourself.

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You also have 2 different price list on your website. You don't want customers thinking even you don't know what your going to charge.

From the sounds of it you want to be everyone's everything. You should pick a couple services and get good at them.

If your not good with data recovery don't offer it. If you want to focus on Tune-ups make that your niche upgrading to SSD drives and tune-ups.

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Seo is no secret. Good content and time. Plus the right keywords. I place 1 or 2 on maps and dont list my physical location. Pc repair and computer repair i have locked up. Every new client that isnt a referral i get said they searched computer repair near me and mine was first and have great reviews.

google ads are ok but you will have to spend to make it. it has become hard with google because of scammers but can be done. I only turn them on when things slow down so maybe a few weeks out of the year.
 
I've said this multiple times before.

I write a column in a local mag. Have been doing so for the past 4 years or there abouts. It gets me SO much business its unreal.

Readers of the mag, get good quality information, which I try to dumb down as much as possible. I have no need to advertise any more really, as I get so much business from this mag.

What kind of magazine is it? Target audience?
 
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