Get More Clients To Your Pet Business Website using SEO Advice From Website Grader

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I found a great free online tool that I wanted to share with you today.  It is a tool that you can use to measure the marketing effectiveness of your pet busines website. The tool is called Website Grader.   You visit their website, plug in your website address or url and hit the analyze button and it produces a report that tells you how well your site is set up for ranking in search engines and for marketing.

Some of the results include an analysis of:

1. On-site SEO (search engine optimization) including your use of keywords, headings, images, page title, and reading level

2. Off-site SEO including domain information, Google pagerank, the date that Google last crawled your site, Alexa traffic ranking, and whether your site is listed in the DMOZ, Yahoo and ZoomInfo directories

3. Your Technorati ranking for blog popularity

4. Your Social Media popularity by looking at delicious and Digg tagging

What I like most is that at each step there is a link that you can click that gives you a good explanation of the what is being measured and why it is important.

The site can also give you an analysis of your competitors websites if you plug in their website URL’s on the input page and tell you how well you rank in comparison to their websites.

If you enter your email address on the input page Website grader will send a copy of the report to your email address so you can follow up on it’s suggestions at a later date

I just tryed it out on http:www.workingwithpets.com and found that this blog is rated 75% higher than most other sites they have analyzed. Not bad ….. but they also suggested plenty of improments that I can make around here to get more traffic.  If you are interested you can see my report here. 

You’ll see that at the end of your online report there is an ad for their free whitepaper - 5 Tips to Turn Your Website into A Marketing Machine.  It is a fairly brief report at 12 pages that will give you basic information about using on page and off page SEO, using website forms to capture visitors, how blogging can bring your more traffic, and the importance of analyzing your traffic statistics to improve your website marketing.

You have to give them a lot of your personal information to get the report including your phone number. If you don’t want to get on their list then you can easily Google these topics and you will find just as much, if not more information on each of them online.

How to Gain the Trust of Nervous Pet Sitting Clients

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Nervous ClientDo you ever have clients that are new to the concept of pet sitting - they want to try it out and feel it will be better for their pets - but they can’t help but be nervous about having a stranger enter their home and relying on them to take care of their beloved pet?

I had one of these clients this week. All they need from you is a reason for them to put their trust in you. Put some of these tips to use in your business and you will instantly put them at ease.

1. Give them a list of references.

Have a printed list of references that they can call and have someone with which they can discuss their concerns. Give the potential client your references name, phone numbers, and the city that they live in. If you have been in business for a while also put down how long your have worked with the client you are using for a reference.

The best references that you can give are for clients who have worked with you several times and that have always had good experiences with your service. Even better if they are raving fans and have given you great testimonials or called to compliment you on the care you gave their pets. Also ensure that you get the person you are using for a references permission so that they won’t be surprised or caught off guard when someone calls them.

2. Get Accredited with A Pet Sitting Association.

Having an accreditation with a well known pet sitting association will give you automatic credibility with new clients. Taking the time to learn more about your profession and about pets will benefit you but also show clients that you are serious about your business and serious about giving great care to their pets.

Pet Sitters International (www.petsit.com) offer an accreditation program where you will learn about pet behavior, diseases, marketing and office procedures. I took their course and became accredited earlier this year. I’d recommend their course and you can use this creditial in all your advertising to differentiate yourself from other pet sitters in your area.

3. Have your policies and processes clearly stated on your website.

Customers will feel more comfortable working with you if they know what to expect. They will also be reassured if they can see that you have processes in place to ensure the quality of your service. On one page of your website give customers an outline of the process of scheduling the initial interview, what information you will collect from them, how you manage keys, if you provide a daily written log at each visit, and what you typically do during each pet sitting visit.

4. Take the time to get to know them and their pet.

At the initial interview make sure that you are friendly and take time to chat with the client to find out as much as you can about them and about their pets. Ask questions about their pets behaviors, if they have had an past medical issues, their favorite toys, treats, and make sure you get to know their regular routine.

Don’t be afraid to share past experiences that you have had with clients pets, and let them know how you have handled any pet emergencies. They will be reassured to know that you acted responsibly and can get their pet the help it needs if anything should happen while they are in your care.

5. Give them permission to call and check up on their pets.

Always make sure to give clients a business card or keyring that they can take with them on their travels that has your contact details. Encourage them to call you if and check on their pets at any time. When they call make sure you tell them about what happened at the visits, if their pet especially enjoyed the walk, loved lots of tummy rubs, etc. Reassure them that their pets are doing fine, or let them know if you have seen any strange behavior.

My client has called a couple of times already this week and I’m sure she feels much better knowing exactly what’s going on at home.

6. Explain How Your Insurance and Bonding Works 

Clients that are nervous about a stranger visiting their home are probably worried that things may go missing. Explain that you have insurance and are bonding which covers them for any loss or damage to their home or their pet.  Tell them about your track record - how long have you been pet sitting with no incidents and claims.

If you are using employees or contractors considering doing a background check as part of your hiring process. You can them explain this process to clients and guarantee them that your sitters have a clean record and are not thiefs!

I hope you can use these tips in your business. If you have any other tips to add please leave a comment after this post and share them with our community.

Top 5 Pet Business Marketing Mistakes

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Pet Business MarketingAn effective marketing strategy for your pet business is worth its weight in gold.  It can mean the difference between long term success, steady profits and cash flow, and a business which can sustain itself during economic slow periods.  Marketing is in effect the fuel that drives your business.  No fuel and you’re going to stand still and watch the traffic go by.

So what is an effective marketing strategy?  It differs for each business and target market however there are a few mistakes every business owner can avoid to get, and stay, ahead of the curve.  Here are the top 5 pet business marketing mistakes to avoid:

#1  Not listing your website with the search engines. 

Even if you do not have an online business you cannot afford to skip listing with the search engines.  More than 80% of internet users search online before they buy a product or service.  That means brick and mortar stores, in addition to online stores, benefit from having an online presence.  

In addition to the big three search engines:  Google, Yahoo, and MSN it is a great idea to list with the local search engines.   Each search engine has a local division where someone can search by city or state and their keywords.  For example, “Boulder, Colorado Organic Pet Care”

The good news is if you have links coming to your website you’re quite likely already listed with the search engines.  If you’re not, visit each search engine and follow the process to submit your website.

#2  Not having a niche. 

Niche marketing gives you leverage in the industry.  Niche marketing, having a specific category within your industry, for example, organic pet grooming as opposed to the broader ‘pet grooming’ category, gives you the potential to become the expert in your industry. It reduces your competition and gives you a USP - unique selling point.  Niche marketing makes your marketing much more powerful.

#3  Not having an opt-in list. 

An opt in list, if you don’t already have one, is a list of prospects who have expressed an interest in your products or services.  Typically it is a list of email addresses because email is inexpensive and immediate however snail mail works too.  Your opt-in list is used to send information and promotional messages to potential and current customers.  

The theory, and it works, is that if you stay fresh in the mind of your prospects, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.  Communicating with your opt in list doesn’t have to be a time consuming process.  A monthly newsletter, or more frequent is fine.  The key is to get that list and to start using it.  

#4  Failing to have a marketing strategy. 

Many business owners simply ‘wing it’ when it comes to marketing.  (They do the same thing with their budget and then end up with negative cash flow.  Not good for business)  Planning takes the struggle out of running a business and the great thing about a plan….you can change it.  It isn’t set in stone.  If you don’t have a marketing plan, sit down with a piece of paper and outline a year’s worth of ideas and strategies to communicate with your prospects and customers.  From that outline create a plan for each idea.  Now you have a marketing strategy - not too hard, right?

#5  Not knowing your market. 

Who are you selling to and why would they want or need your product?  If you don’t know the answer to these questions then it’s time to get serious about your pet business.   If you don’t know who your customer is then how on earth are you going to sell your business?  

If you have customers begin there. Who are they and why are they using your products or services?  If you don’t and you’re just starting a pet business outline who you think your customers will be and what problems they have.  Then you can go about solving their problems with your products or services.  

Marketing is a process and everyone makes marketing mistakes however if you can manage to avoid these five biggies you’re well on your way to marketing, and business, success.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be announcing a new program that I’m about to release that will be a full 3 month e-course to teach you how to develop a marketing system for your pet business. I’m excited about it - and will be giving away a free whitepaper next week to kick off the program. Stay tuned! 

Using Postcards to Attract New Pet Sitting Clients

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Yesterday I shared with you a plan to motivate employees that included a incentive for marketing your business. Today I’m going to show you the postcards that I’m giving to my sitters so that they can distribute them and generate referrals.

In the past I have sent out similar postcards via direct mail to selected neighbourhoods.  I used a website www.Zillow.com to find addresses to send them to. This was pretty time consuming and of course I had to pay for postage too.

This time around I wanted to give my sitters an opportunity to get more local clients by distributing in their neighborhoods and leaving in local stores.  I have had a lot of success leaving flyers in restaurants, pet supply stores, and vets offices.

Here is the postcard (my scanner would only make the image black and white and the quality is not great - normally the front logo and text is in color and printed on gloss card stock):

Marketing Postcards

I had these done at www.Vistaprint.com. It is very easy to use their design tools and they do a great job at a very reasonable price - I got 1500 of these for around $150 including shipping. 

You can see that on the front I have my business logo, a description of what we do (Professional In-Home Pet Sitting Services), a tag line, our phone number and website. Without turning the card over they know enough about us to make a decision to keep the card or to toss it out.

On the back left hand side I give them some detailed information about the service and a mission statement.  It’s also important to let them know if you are insured and bonded as it lets people know that you run a professional service.

It is the right side of the card that I really wanted to discuss.  This is the first time that I’ve put a special place on the card for sitters to write in their name to collect referrals and the first time I have directed people to my website to collect free gifts.

You can see that I’m offering new customers a special discount of 10% on their first group of visits if they can tell me who referred them (ie who wrote their name on the card).  This gives customers an incentive to tell me which gives my pet sitter re-assurance that they will get credit for the referral and recieve their bonus. So really it’s an incentive for both the sitter and new customer.  If you don’t want to discount your service your could offer a special perk such as some extra time, a bath, a small bag of treats - anything you think your potential customer will value. You could even partner with a pet store in your area, or pet service, and offer a free promotional gift from them, or a small discount on their service. 

For more information about my sitter incentive plan see my blog post:

How to Use an Incentive Plan to Motivate Your Staff

There is no reason why you couldn’t use the same card in a customer referral bonus program. You could give these cards to your exisiting customers - get them to put their name in the place provided on the right side, and have them give them to friends or leave them a local stores for you.  When a customer gets a referral you could reward them with free visits or a gift card for products from a local pet store.

I have added the free pet services guide and pre-travel checklist as an incentive for people to visit my website.  When they get to my site they will need to fill in a short form and give me their name and email address in order to claim the gifts.  You can see the page at www.clawspawsjaws.com/petguide.html.

When potential customers sign up and get their gift they are then automatically subscribed to my monthly newsletter.  This lets me follow up with them and build a relationship with them. 

This is important as many people who recieve the post card won’t need pet sitting services right away.  They may lose the card before they ever need me!  Getting their name and email and permission to contact them means that I can keep in touch with them, provide them with useful pet information via my newsletter - and hopefully when they do need a pet sitter, I will be the first service that they think of and they will call me.

To use this technique in your advertising all you need is a simple web site with an opt-in form and then a gift to offer people for signing up as an incentive for them to give you their name and email address.  The gift must have enough perceived value for them to part with their personal information.  When someone signs up on your site you send them the information. 

You can set this up to run automatically by using an autoresponder service like www.aweber.com.  Aweber lets you set up an email list on their server. When someone signs up for the list you can then have the program automatically send them emails and attach your free gifts.  This service is excellent if you plan to deliver a monthly ezine (email newsletter) to your clients as a follow up tool. 

Try this out with your business and see what response you get with it! I’ll update you in a couple of months and let you know how it works for me.

If you have any questions about getting the cards, setting up your website, or using an autoresponder service please leave them under this post as a comment.

How to Use an Incentive Plan to Motivate Your Staff

Filed Under My Pet Business, Pet Business Tips | 1 Comment

Incentive planAt the end of last year I decided that I needed a way to get my pet sitting staff to feel more involved and connected to the

business. I wanted them to feel that they would be rewarded for good work and their income would be determined by how committed they were to helping me to grow the business.

So, I set up my first pet sitting contractor incentive plan. It is now part of the package that I give to prospective pet sitters at their intial job interview. So far I have found that everyone I have interviewed has been receptive to the idea, and love that they have control over how much work they get and how they are compensated.

Let me explain how I put together the plan.

When I was working out what to put in the plan I really thought about what I wanted from my pet sitting contractors. I decided that the things that are important to me are:

1) Pet sitter retention - once I find a great sitter I want them to stick around. They know the routine, I am comfortable working with me, and we have built up trust. It is a lot of work to continually seek new staff and then build a good working relationship.

2) Pet sitter availability during our busiest holiday seasons. I want my sitters to make themselves available to work on major holidays as this is when we really need them.

3) Ability to care for pets during an emergency. I want my sitters to have some basic first aid knowledge so that if an animal is injured during their visit that they could give first aid until they can take them to a veterinarian.

4) Willingness of pet sitter to help find new clients. I want my sitters to actively promote the business in their local area.

As I work with independent contractors I am not allowed to provide training to them and pay them a flat percentage of whatever the customer is charged for the visits that they make. I also give them any tips left by the customers.

Based on the 4 important characteristics I then put together my incentive plan so that it rewards my sitters for the behaviors that I want them to give me.

The 4 modules are:

1) A pay scale that is based on length of service. When a sitter starts they are payed X % of the client charges. After 1 year with us they then get a 5% increase (ie X + 5 %). After 2 years they get another 5% increase in pay ( X + 10 %). I make the start date for each sitter their first visit or the first time that I issue them a check.

2) A skills incentive that rewards them for taking a pet specific first aid course. I offer to increase their pay percentage by 5% upon completion of the course which will be active as long as their certificate is current.

3) A holiday bonus. I pay sitters an additional $5 per visit for working on major holidays. I pass this $5 per visit increase on to the customer.

4) A marketing incentive. If sitters will distribute flyers or postcards advertising the business then when I get clients that call and tell me that they were referred by a specific sitter, then the sitter will be guaranteed that job, and also receive an increased percentage payment for the first week of visits that the customer books with us. I have designed flyers and postcards that give our clients an incentive to tell us who they were referred by just to make sure sitters get credit.

Make sure you call back in to read my next blog post as I will be showing you a picture of my postcard and you’ll see how this works.

You could use this same incentive method to encourage any other staff behavior that is desirable.

Here is an action plan that you can use to set up your incentive plan:

a) Write down the behaviors that you want to encourage

b) Work out what your staff want or need the most. Incentives don’t have to be pay based. People are also motivated by recognition, giving them more hours / or work, allowing more flexibility, benefits, etc . You want to design your incentives around what you think drives them to give you their very best.

c) Design an incentive that will reward your staff for each of the behaviors listed in (a).

d) Put together a document that describes each incentive and exactly how each works.

e) Distribute to existing staff and give to prospective staff at initial interviews. You may also want to talk to them as a group or individually to get their feedback and make sure they understand each incentive.

f) Track your results. Are you getting better behavior from your staff? Are they earning the incentives that you offer? If you find they are not interested in obtaining the bonuses you offer, ask them what bonuses they would prefer. Modify your plan if you feel they are reasonable.

Incentive plans can really benefit both you and your staff.

If you would like to see my full plan - I will be giving members of my Pet Business Success Circle Coaching and Mastermind a copy of my pet sitter incentive plan for our monthly expert call in August. We will also be talking about finding great staff and my hiring process. If you’d like a sneak peak at my business this is your opportunity. Sign up now for just $7 right here.

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