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The Contractor Show - Ken Simonson, Chief Economist speaks out

Ken Simonson, Chief Economist speaks out

What do we need to do to address the collapse of the service sector and real estate?

The Contractor Show presents an exclusive interview with a major force in our industry.
- What sectors are better off than others?
- What is needed to turn things around in the residential market?
- What is the size and influence of small business?
- Why and How contractors should unite?
- What can the candidates for President do to address the key issues?

The Contractor Show

Insurance restoration added

We have added some new sections of our contractors directory. They include:

Pressure Washing Contractors
Flood Damage Contractors
Fire Damage Contractors
Insurance Claims

Our directory is still a work in progress but will continue to add and update it each week.

Remodeling Contractors

Our additions and remodeling directory is completed for our clients. We are hoping to complete all the categories of our contractor directory the way we have completed the remodeling contractor section.

If you are a Footbridge Media client and a remodeling contractor, please let us know if you are NOT in the directory.

New Website Layout

We have just re-launched our new layout for Footbridge Media. The reason for doing this, is to develop a site geared to marketing our clients more than simply marketing our services. Our website receives over 5 thousand unique visitors each month looking for contractors, then contractors looking for us.

Please take a look at our contractor directory, which is the largest viewing of our website. As it is still a work in progress, please contact us if you do not see your company listed in a specific section.

In next few months we will be launching some additional products as well for our current clients.

Article Marketing - What Are You Waiting For

Here are the top three reasons why article marketing is something every contrator should participate in:

1. To promote a new product or service. It doesn’t matter if you paint houses, install windows, mow lawns or build commercial buildings, writing and submitting articles online can help to build traffic to your website. Not just any traffic, but targeted traffic. These are people who clicked on your article to read it because they were interested. When they click on your website link at the end of the article, they are considered “warm” prospects and you have a better chance of selling to them.

2. To brand yourself. What better way to brand yourself or your business, than by writing quality articles to tell people about your contracting business? You can write and submit articles to directories that may be picked up and published by newsletters within your niche or even your local newspaper. People are eating up the DIY movement, why not write articles that will drive them to your business, or website.

3. To set yourself up as an expert in your area of expertise. Article marketing is a great way to create an “expert” status for yourself. In fact, the more articles you write within a specific niche, the more changes you have of your articles being read and used more.

Footbridge Media is now offer a FREE distribution service for all clients. Simply provide us any article that you have written and we will distribute it for you. This will include all the article online directories, as well as submitting it to your local newspapers and home and garden magazines. Simply contact your marketing consultant with your new article and they will handle the entire distribution.

Your Local Directores - Don’t Ignore Them

A few newsletters ago, we mentioned the importance of putting your names in the local directories or major search engines. So what now?

Your optimized local directory profile is like a smaller version of your Website. It is optimized with a specific keyword phrase. It appears in search engine listings, just like your Website. A visitor clicks the profile and is taken to your Website. It’s that easy. If you have added your listing to the Yahoo Directory and the Google Directory, you need to maintain it.

Ways To Maintain Your Listings
You should always make sure to add your client testimonials to the listing. Even if they do not add themselves, but come from another, off line marketing, you can add them. Have a special or discount? Make sure to add it to you local listing. If you have multiple locations, make sure to add them, this will add to the optimization of your own marketing.

It’s a challenge to change people’s searching habits, but challenge has never been a problem for the global search engines. As a contractor looking for a way to add to your Internet marketing strategy, local search engines and directories can be a minefield or a goldmine depending on how well you research the directories themselves and the people using them. So, paying attention to the local directory market over the next few months and ensuring that you spend your advertising budget where your key customers are going to notice it, should be a top priority for any forward-thinking contractor.

Clients And The Web

Would you agree with overwhelming evidence that your website is your business face and front office to the world? If you don’t, then we have a problem right there. Would you agree
the Internet is how people search for what they need? No longer is it the yellow pages.

Most people are now searching the internet to find the things they need. Can we say that the web is pretty major when it comes to how customers find you and decide if they are
going to call you?

Two big ideas need your attention: Customers and the web. Potential customers are the ones in charge of the future of your business. Conversation with them in every form possible is key.
Remembering what they tell you and acting on it is vital. That’s why we are more and more dependent on technology. That’s because we just can’t remember and recall that much information as fast or as completely as necessary to stay on top of things. Customers will
no longer suffer through repeating themselves to different people in your company. You just have to find the best way to have an enterprise-wide view and grip on the profile and preferences of every customer.

Let’s see if you are on top of what’s being called the second coming of the web. As big as the web is in your life and business, we have news. It’s all going to get even bigger and change every
business–from the biggest to yours.

No longer will it be about “cool.” Instead, the web will be all about usefulness and gathering information in regards to making sales and providing information to current clients.

Can you think of one or two really big factors that completely defined or reinvented your business? Think of something that was the turning point and there was no going back. Got that in mind? Now do your best to imagine something much bigger and more powerful than that.

The next time you are looking at your business plans for the upcoming year, make sure to ask yourself what you will do to capture the online market, not only for potential clients, but your
current client base.

Contractor Directory: We Need Your Help

As we continue to help our clients drive traffic and leads to their site, we will continue to build contractor directories promoting our clients. Right now we are working on some directories, that should highlight each one of our clients, and have a direct link to our client’s website.

We have discovered that new websites that launch, index slower with the search engines, unlike websites we modify or have been on the web for awhile. By having links directly on our corporate site, will help out the new sites optimization.

If you have any suggestions on the directory, or want to add more categories, please contact your marketing consultant.

PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOUR COMPANY WEBSITE IS LISTED IN ALL SPOTS IN THE DIRECTORY

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