Really Easy Not so Sleazy SEO Marketing tip: No Website Required.

For my LOTC readers, and other mom-and-pop service contractors, and for anyone who pretty much is the "Chief Cook and Bottle Washer" of their enterprise - any biz where your customers know your business by you and your name.

Here is a Really Easy Not so Sleazy SEO Marketing tip.

You don't even need a website to do this. And, you'll want to do this, because it is a really good way to bridge the problem with us humans' inability to remember the ten digit telephone number we are plastering on the sides of our vans and on our yard signs.

Finding you with a Google keyword is infinitely more effective than memorizing your phone number. Just Google my keyword, "mudduckk". Google will first ask you if you meant mud duck. Nothing I can do about that, 'tis the title of an important book apparently. But if you click on, "return results for mudduckk", all roads lead to me.

I had no intent to be tops on the page results for mudduckk, or all over page one. I did it by by accident not design. Also, I did this over time. Time and effort, not money, are key ingredients of SEO marketing. Now, I'll tell you how you can do it on purpose. Who knows, you may find you've already done it.

Make your Google keyword the username of all your social media accounts:

I have multiple social media accounts under the name mudduckk. I'm mudduckk on Scribd, Blogger, Stumble Upon, JohnBridgeTileForums to name a few.

Choose a keyword that fits you – how people would intuitively remember you, when you share your keyword:

Why mudduckk? I'm a tile guy. I lay ceramic tile. We tilers work with mud. Also, Toledo is the home of minor league baseball's Mud Hens, affectionately referred by some fans as the Mud Ducks. Soo...There has to be a tiler tiling in Toledo named mudduckk. In fact there can be many, but the mudduckk in Toledo or anywhere in the world for that matter who sits all over page one of Google's page results for mudduckk is me. Priceless.

Utilize your accounts frequently:

Chances are you do. Utilization is more important than account creation, because utilization is content creation, and Google's SEO algo is a content organizing son-of-a-gun. Not an account counter.

How it works, No Website Required:

Every time I utilize these social tools to interact with others, the media app creates a unique web page somewhere up in the cloud. Cool hunh? So, I don't even need to be a web geek like Dharmesh Shah, author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found on the Internet Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. I don't even need a website and I don't need a marketing spend. This is great news for my LOTC pals. We're a real low overhead bunch, don't cha know?

Twitter, the killer app:

Twitter is wickedly effective here. All those individual tweets cost you at max only 140 characters of mind power or depending on your take with any given tweet, mindless power; regardless, just type a bit, hit tweet, and BOOM! you hatched a web page with your Google keyword on it.

Embed Hyperlinks in your tweets:

Tweets with embedded hyperlinks are especially juicy. Even more so if you get the scoop on something important or you create a link to a really compelling piece of lit in your blog. Like this one. (That's a hard hint for you to hit the like button up top. Yo! Hit it now!) Popular or not, those hyper-linked tweets end up creating a unique web page with traffic coming and going.

Its gooder than good, Better than a trademark:

Needless to say all of these pages and page views along with so much clicking to and fro have two things in common, your social media moniker and the attention of Google's page ranking algo. As we all know, getting that high page rank on your keyword through SEO is sticky. It's a barrier to entry by others. In fact, It is better than a trademark, because it is highly effective in directing traffic to you...or me in this case. That’s gooder than good.

Need a tileguy? Google: mudduckk

heavy on d's and k's please.

Putting that on my van and all my yard signs for sure.

Since Mighty Casey struck out, there may be no joy in Mud Ville, but there is a tiler who is wayyyyyyyyy...

Happy Tiling!

And blogging too. :-)

Really Easy Not so Sleazy SEO Marketing tip: No Website Required.

I Love Mud!

Today, just finished a mud shower floor with waterproof pan liner. Once this cures, the shower is essentially ready for tile, a dramatic moment on the job where every nook and cranny of the job seems to go from rough to finish. Colors begin to pop as the drywall elsewhere go from sanded to primed and from primed to painted. Like the first flowers of spring, so too does the intense dust and filth clear like snowshowers and dirty snow pack meltaway down the drain, never to return till summer has had its full riot of green growth.

an ode to Mud

But its the mud I like best.

Yep along with the complex inner workings of the preslope,

the rubber upturned the wall studs nailed up high

never down low

folded with care and tucked into corners.

Hanging the durock over plastic lapped over rubber,

taking care not to drop any screws or tools onto the rubber,

and never ever putting screws along the bottom edge of the board - defeating the point of zen waterproofing in its entirety - leave the final slope of mud to lock in the bottom of the board.

Oh how I love the eternal flexibility and usefulness of mud.

But before I pack you in place

and before I establish control screeds

high and low

left to right

and front to back.

Nay, before I strike my screeds

and pack your bed

and cut you to grade.

I carefully cut your rubber pan and place your drain's clampping ring - always a cast iron by Zurn

never those cheap PVC jobs with the tin strainer like some cheap pop-metal car toy that would not pass for a Matchbox.

Oh Zurn how I love your heft,

your large weep holes

and your robust threaded strainer with the brushed metal top available in nickle bronze and/or brass

and with four real screws to secure your strainer plate.

Craftsmanship you become thee, Zurn.

And mud pan, let us not forget your curb,

concrete throughout formed with lumber

but no wood inside to get moist down the road

and pop the grout joint in the tile bullnose,

and render the shower door useless as you heave.

No never ever wood inside for that is the place for rubber upturned toward top of curb.

That is the place for a few sixteen penny nails or 3" screws driven partway into the deck - outside the rubber of course - acting as gentle reinforcement

to protect your elegant tall thinness from being toppled by some short sharp shock.

Curb, I pack you in your form with my very fingers,

the butt of my trowel handle making sure your rubber stands tall, upright and in the middle of your body.

Integrity.

I pack you just as I pack the body of the shower floor pan below you, beside you.

Yet you and the floor are all one.

And now I strike thee toward the drain all 1/4" per foot.

Finally I smooth you

troweling back and forth

sprinkling dry pack as I go

closing your face

smooth

beautiful

like a porcelain doll.

And now you are done.

And so am I.

Happy tiling!

posted from Bloggeroid

I Love Mud!

Quote from George Washington Carver

When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.

-George Washington Carver

Quote from George Washington Carver

Mosaic Joins BidClerk Network

Midwest Mosaic, Inc. just joined bidclerk.com, the construction search engine. Mosaic's affiliation with bidclerk is one of strategic marketing importance.

For LOTC's like me, there are so many ways to market our services. For instance, lettering your van, setting up a website (blogging will suffice), or mass mailing a brochure, and so on. You really can't go wrong so long as your approach is a good fit for your target customer and an effective use of your precious investment capital. No matter how you choose and how much you choose to spend, you will soon be out of business if you do not pay attention to your firm's marketing.

Subscribing to a construction news service is one marketing approach of which I am very comfortable. It provides me with access up coming bidding opportunities on projects of all sizes throughout my geographic area as well as a list of my potential customers also bidding on that project. The bidders are my customers and plans and specs in the bid opportunities are my targets, this is also known as plan and spec work.

For about the last three months I have been considering a subscription to one of the many construction news outlets out there. Of all the choices, I liked bidclerk best. For one low price, they give me access to the entire U.S., if I need it. I doubt I will, but anyway its good to know they go where I want to go.

I have 20 plus years experience with plan and spec work. In my time I have seen the state of the art move from physical plan rooms with secret passwords, to microfilm machines, to the early days of ftp data exchanges to where we are now - search engines with social media components...bidclerk. I guess you could say I am an expert on the subject. One thing I do know is I have fed my family on plan and spec work for a long time, and now I am pleased to be affiliated with bidclerk.com

Happy Tiling!

Mosaic Joins BidClerk Network

Progress on the Locker

Here are some photos from the Locker project.

Details: 1300 square feet of 8x8 porcelain tile, laid on a 45, thinset installation, standard cement grout. We considered changing the job name to the Sauna on account of the persistently high heat and humidity.

Enjoy the photos and...

Happy Tiling!

posted from Bloggeroid

Progress on the Locker