Open or enclosed landscape trailer? – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Forum Show
September 11, 2009 by admin
Filed under General Articles
http://www.gopherforum.com When most landscapers start up their business, they tend to start with a truck only. Then later they may add an open trailer. At a certain point you may be asking yourself whats better to have, an open or enclosed trailer and why?
Thats the question one of our new forum members asked and he quite a few responses I think will help you make up your mind as well.
Brandon: Hi everyone my name is Brandon and I am the president of my own landscape & maintenance corp. I have been in business for 9 years and hope to find continued success long into the future. I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some positive and negative attributes of an enclosed trailer as opposed to an open utility trailer to move lawn care equipment from job to job? I have an open trailer now and I am thinking of making the switch over to an enclosed one.
Keith: I can think of a few pros and cons of the top of my head.
Pros:
– Ability to lock.
– Protection from rain.
– Larger area to put name/logo/phone number.
– Looks more professional.
– Possible increased slipstreaming giving better gas milage (offset by weight, Im sure).
– Ability to put shelves/storage areas.
– Protects cargo from rocks kicked up by your truck.
– Winter storage.
Cons:
– Increased cost.
– Increased axle and tongue weight.
– Inability to load from top (leaves, mulch, dirt). This is the biggest negative I can think of.
– Doesnt air out well when mower has wet grass or fuel fumes.
– Reduced freedom of movement when you are quickly grabbing a trimmer, etc.
Chuck: I run enclosed trailers currently. It is added weight, & its like dragging an 8′ wall behind you so fuel economy suffers a bit. But I think the added security, & having a huge billboard behind you all day offsets the negatives.
I have gone to many estimates & when I pull up they say Oh yeah, Ive seen you guys all over town you stay pretty busy huh? The fact that they recognize the rig & that Ive been around a while adds instant credibility.
So many guys run trucks with no decals or only little magnets & open trailers. I pass them all day long & they all look the same. So that seems to make a big difference.
The biggest negative I have found is that here in Florida its hot. So when we run these machines for 8-11 minutes at a time & load them up, drive 2 minutes & repeat all day they dont really get to cool down. an open trailer would at least let air blow past them. I have offset this by running full synthetic oil in all my mowers to add some protection against the added heat & we usually end up throwing the trimmers in the back of the trucks between jobs.
I will stay with enclosed trailers & if not I would have my truck professionally wrapped to make it more recognizable.
I think it depends on where you currently store your trailer. If you park your trailer on your driveway at home and need to unload all of your equipment each night into a garage, that is going to take a big bite of time to load it in the morning and unload it at night. So consider these all of these factors. Constantly strive to make your business more streamlined and profitable.
If you are in need of free lawn care marketing material for your lawn care business, please visit our site at http://www.gophersoftware.com. We have hundreds of free lawn care logo, flyer, door hanger and web templates you can download and use for your lawn care business. We also have free lawn care business contracts, estimate and proposal forms. Download our trial version of Gopher Lawn Care Business Software. Gopher will help your lawn care business schedule and invoice more customers in less time, allowing you more time to grow or enjoy your life. Check out my lawn care business blog at http://www.lawnchat.com and my lawn care business forum at http://www.gopherforum.com
Duration : 0:5:28
Lawn Care Business Website Search Engine Optimization Tips – GopherHaul Podcast
August 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Search Engine Optimization
http://www.gopherforum.com Search engine optimization 101 for lawn care businesses. – GopherHaul Podcast
You can put together a great looking site but people need to find it when they are searching for lawn service. How do you get your site to appear when a potential customer is looking for lawn care service? You need to know what they are looking for and you need to give them what they want. The keyword here, is keywords!
What are your keywords? Well say for instance you lived in Denver, Co and offered lawn care. A potential customer is most likely going to be looking for Denver Lawn Care or Denver lawn maintenance. If you are unsure of what your keywords should be, ask your friends or family, what words they would search for to find a local lawn care business online and go with the words you hear most often in response. I would think you would want to keep the keyword count to a minimum, maybe 4 or so.
Your ideal keyword count should be between 10% and 20% of the total word count of your site, so ask yourself, where are you ranking?
To figure this out do the following.
* Right click on your websites main page and then left click on select all.
* Open up your word processor and then paste the text into a new document.
* Use the word count feature of your word processor to show you the total word count of your webpage.
* Then do a search and see how many times each of your keywords appear.
* (total word count) divided by (keyword count) will give you the percentage.
Try this out and see how you are doing.
Now lets see how it is put to use. A new forum member posted an introduction and asked a great question I used a Gopher lawn care business web template from this site to create my lawn care company website and just got it on the net earlier this morning. How can I attract potential customers to my website?
You are not going to believe this example I am about to show you but its real. Matt has done such a great job with key words and having other sites link to his lawn care website that he appears in 7 out of the top 10 search results. Thats right! You heard right! In fact, if you were competing with him in his area, the chances of a new customer finding you are next to nothing because most people will not go beyond the first 10 results to their search.
Matt: When people to a search for lawn service or lawn care in my area I am usually have all 7 slots out of 10 or sometimes 8 slots out of 10 on the search engine. Do a search for lawn care in dothan on google and you will see.
You will see a bunch of J & M Lawn Care links. Also I am located in the local business directory.
This is just so outstanding! If you are going to have any chance at all attracting customers on the internet, you need to visit these sites that are linking to Matts site and then fill in your business information to have them direct to you in your area. Also review your key words and let us know how all this works out for you. Join in on the discussion at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum here.
If you are in need of free lawn care marketing material for your lawn care business, please visit our site at http://www.gophersoftware.com. We have hundreds of free lawn care logo, flyer, door hanger and web templates you can download and use for your lawn care business. We also have free lawn care business contracts. Also download our trial version of Gopher Lawn Care Business Software. Gopher will help your lawn care business schedule and invoice more customers in less time, allowing you more time to grow or enjoy your life. Visit our lawn care business forum at http://www.gopherforum.com
Duration : 0:8:4
XSitePro – Lesson 7: Search Engine Optimization
July 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Search Engine Optimization
In this lesson, you’ll learn about the importance of the search engine optimization (SEO) phrase, how to appropriately choose it and how to make use of the SEO table inside XSitePro. You’ll learn how to use the Suggested Actions list to make sure your web pages are search engine friendly. You’ll also learn how to generate reports about the search engine friendliness of your site and learn how to fine-tune your search engine optimization settings.
Duration : 0:7:44
Internet Video Marketing Software Review
June 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Internet Marketing
In this review we look at Instant Video presenter. A software program that instantly does green screen (chroma key) with your webcam. You really do not need any editing knowledge to make green screen videos with this program. Its great for the beginner youtuber or for that quick internet or marketing video
You can checkout the program at the link below:
http://www.tubetape.net/servlet/the-HOT-DEALS-!-cln-Instant-Video-Presenter/Categories
Thanks to tubetape.com for sending this over for the review:
http://www.tubetape.com
Duration : 0:5:57