What A Year!
We are certainly living in strange times this year, there’s no doubt about that, but with tree surgeons all over the country seemingly inundated with work it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking its business as usual! Just seeing the number of jobs for tree surgeons being posted online on a daily basis alone tells us how much work is out there right now. The big question is, will it continue?
How to Prepare for A Recession
It seems difficult to see any way that this country, or indeed the world, won’t enter into a deep recession sometime next year. In addition to Covid-19, we also have the unknown quantity that is Brexit hanging over our heads.
I was lucky enough back in the 2007 recession not to feel the pinch too much. At that time I was freelancing as a climber to several companies whose client base was wealthy enough to be largely unaffected. As a result, my workflow carried on much as usual, but that’s not to say I am not thinking very carefully about my own strategies for the coming year(s). A friend once told me me that in a recession you’ll be glad to get out and earn £50 a day, and that has always stuck in my mind.
Now i’m no financial expert by any means so can’t really offer any business advice for recession proofing your business. What I can tell you though is that your online presence is going to be of paramount importance if you want to keep ahead of your competitors. Advertising is obviously the key here, be it paper ads, online ads, or good old word of mouth, it all counts.
Whist times are good it’s easy to overlook business advertising, or just see it as an unnecessary expense. I’ve lost count of the times people have said ‘I’m busy enough as it is, I don’t need any more work’, or ‘When things slow down I’ll advertise a bit more’. In the case of traditional advertising that can often yield instant results, but what about SEO?
SEO for Tree Surgeons
SEO for tree surgeons is just another form of advertising, but done properly it will pay dividends in the long run. I see SEO as more of a long term advertising investment. Yes you can sign up for google adwords and start seeing clicks to your site immediately, but what happens when you stop running the ads? Your traffic stops of course, and unless you have been implementing a solid SEO strategy alongside your ads, you will find your visitor flow somewhat lacking. SEO on the other hand will see long term organic(free) traffic coming to your site long after the initial work has been completed. However, the problem with SEO is you can’t just turn it on when you are running short of work, hence the title of this blog post.
When & How Do I SEO My Tree Surgery Business Website?
When Do I Start?
The time is right now! Assuming you have an existing site and it is already well established it can still take 3-6 months to really see the benefits of SEO in the search engine rankings. Let’s say 6 months to be on the safe side, which takes us into April 2021 which is probably one of the quieter times in a tree surgeons calendar even in normal years. Taking your first steps now to improve your website’s SEO will hopefully put your business in a better position to weather the coming storm.
How?
First things first, read this post as a starting point. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is an in-depth subject in which there are 1001 ways to make errors, and few ways of making gains. Most people with a bit of common sense and a little bit of techincal know-how can get the basics right however. One of the easiest things you can do is get into the habit of writing regular blogs on your website. The more effort you put in the more you will see a return, and all you have to do is follow a few simple guidlines as listed in the aforementioned blog post.
- Use relevant meta titles and meta descriptions that reflect the content of what you have written and use the keywords you are targeting.
- Format your pages correctly using heading tags in their correct order, making sure to include your targetted keywords. Theres a good and easy to follow article on headings here.
- Write enough content! Try to hit 300 words as a minimum, ensuring you get your keywords into the text in the correct density for google. Be careful not to overdo it with the keywords though or you’ll quickly find your site marked down. If your website is running on wordpress there are several free tools available that will analyse what you have written to ensure you don’t fall into this trap.
But I Don’t Have Time to Manage My Blog
Its all about priorities really! Lots of people seem quite happy to constantly update their Facebook pages which arguably brings in little work, yet neglect the content on their actual business website. If you are going to post in just one place, then your website really should be the priority without question. You can always share your website post to your Facebook page after you have written it, killing 2 birds with one stone. This is actually a far better way of harnessing the power of Facebook anyway as the posts you share will not only provide content to your page, but most importantly will bring visitors to your website to read more…in other words away from Facebook and all it’s many distractions!
Once you have written a couple of articles/blogs and get in the swing of things its really not much of a chore to write, particularly if its a subject you are knowledgable about. I really cannot emphasize the importance of this enough, and taking 30 minutes once a week to update your website could just make the difference to your business in the times ahead.
REMEMBER – The time to start is NOW!
As always, if you need help feel free to write to me at steve@arbtalkmedia.co.uk.
