Business School: #5. Building a GREAT Mobile Grooming Website

Our Denver mobile grooming business, Roamin’ Baths, has a website that dominates the search engines within our market. Years of experience have taught us how to best build mobile grooming websites. Just a few tips are all that’s needed to produce the results you need. You can click HERE to see what Kim’s mobile grooming website looks like. Our fleet site is currently being built.

FOLLOW THE RULES. Search engines often “reward” websites that follow the rules by ranking them higher in searches. For example, if you type in “grooming trailers” in your Google search box, you will probably see GT somewhere on the first page. You can learn some of these “rules” at: MSN, Yahoo, and DMOZ.

START NOW! The older a domain is, the more weight it pulls in the search engines. The age of your domain is the only thing you don’t have much control over so get it spidered early! That is why you may see some poorly coded sites with a better rank than superior sites.

KEEP IT SIMPLE. Our mobile grooming website only has 6 main pages. They are easy to find, easy to navigate, and logical. Unlike our very informative GT website, our grooming website is easy to read in just a few seconds. Research proves that people “scan” websites quicker if they are going to spend a small amount of money. Therefore, make sure each page of your website is less than a few hundred words, has bulleted points, and makes good use of bold or capital letters to help your customers get the points you are trying to make.

INCLUDE A MAP. Notice how Roamin’ Baths uses a map on 2 different pages. That’s because some information needs to be “pounded” into some people’s heads. As a mobile service, the last thing a professional groomer needs is someone calling you when they are outside the service area. A map cuts those unfruitful calls to a minimum. Notice how the Roamin’ Baths website puts the phone number inside the margins of the map–now there’s no excuse for someone to call if they are outside the service area! Because price is often the first question a potential customer has for you, Roamin’ Baths even includes the minimum price inside the map. That brings up the next point…

PRICING. Some of you may believe that you don’t “want to scare off” people with pricing so you should wait to hook them on the line before you share that information. We believe otherwise. Customers who have the discretionary income to pamper their pet with a luxury service are savvier than those who are simply looking to find a great deal. Not being forthright offends people’s intelligence and they often proceed to the service who is up front. A perfect example of this is with our GT site. One competitor refuses to show their prices on their website and we have sold probably a dozen trailers to people who told that they chose us BECAUSE we were up front with our pricing. Notice how the pricing on our website is listed INSIDE the map and right next to the phone number. That way, the customer has ALL THREE of the most important pieces of information in one tight spot–the price, the phone number, and the service area.

USE CAPITALS. As mentioned earlier, people “scan” websites more than they read them. Therefore, you should write your content in a way that emphasizes your most important points. Notice how the Roamin’ Baths site capitalizes words like, QUALITY, COME TO YOU, FRESH WATER, CLEAN, HEALTHY, and so on.

INCLUDE YOUR LOCATION! You would be surprised at how many mobile grooming websites don’t include their location. Not only do your customers need to know this important information, the Internet search engines do as well. Notice how the Roamin’ Baths website’s home page has our neighborhoods listed in the first paragraph. It is there so Google, MSN, and Yahoo KNOW where we are! The first 100 words are the most important for the search engines. MAKE SURE to have your service area listed early on the page. Just as important, make sure to use the words “mobile groomer” early on the page as well. If Roamin’ Baths didn’t do this, we wouldn’t be first in our area.

COPYRIGHT. Unfortunately, this industry can be defined as dog-eat-dog. There is no shortage (especially in the conversion business) of lazy webmasters who are eager to steal you work. Notice how the Roamin’ Baths website has a copyright icon at the bottom of each page. Make sure the current year is posted next to it and if anyone steals your content, you will have some power in correcting the situation.

GET SOME LINKS. The more websites that link to you, the better! Not just because people will find you, but because it tells the search engines that YOU are important. If Google “thinks” you are important, you will be rewarded with a higher rank. Having a higher rank IS WHAT gets more people to view your site. Very few people go to page 30 on a web search, but they will check out who shows up on page 1! You can get links by simply calling other companies and asking if they would link to you. Some websites even allow you to “sign a guestbook” that will link to you. Over time, you will have a big pile of links! But don’t be to hurried–links should build in a natural, organic way.

BE PATIENT. A good website can take several months to pop out of “purgatory” and be found on the search engines. There are “ways” to speed that up but are often against the rules that were mentioned earlier. Remember, a website that “plays nice” by the rules WILL be rewarded with a good solid page rank later on.

These tips cannot guarantee results, but they should help. With time and just a little effort, you could be the “Roamin’ Baths” of your neighborhood!