Category Archives: Finding tradesmen in London

How to get found on Google

If your business is largely based around a location, for example if you are a plasterer in London or a carpenter in Sidcup/Bromley/Bexley* then anyone searching for your services is likely to google for what they need and their location – in other words into Google they’ll type “carpenter in Bexley”. The number of searches won’t be in the hundreds – but being found by these searches are more useful because they’re relevant.

So one of your first tasks is to make sure your website actually mentions the service your customers are looking for and the region you serve. This is most easily done by creating some sort of tag line somewhere on the page, e.g.

Domestic and commercial carpenter based in Sidcup,
serving Bromley, Bexley, Dartford and north Kent areas.

What will also make a huge difference to your position in Google’s results is mentioning your services and the region in a link that points back to your website. Don’t spam your pages with links (add a link if it appears naturally, or tweak your sentence so that it fits without seeming awkward).

I’ve helped a fair few friends get up the rankings in Google (try looking for an osteopath in Uxbridge/Hillingdon) as well as my own and while this isn’t the be-all and end-all of SEO (search engine optimisation) it’s a good start. Of course you still have to convert the visitor to a customer once they land on your site…

Hoping this will prompt James and Emma to do something about their website (for a Wedding photographer in Inverness). And if you are a dishwasher repair service in Bexley and have a website that doesn’t generate any business for you now you know why!

* Steve Holt has done a few jobs for us in the last couple of years – quite happy to recommend him too.

Recommended plasterer in London

Years ago I did an experiment to learn more about how Google worked by putting up a page on my website about a London plasterer who did some work in our old house. (It was so nice having bare walls, no layers of wallpaper documenting the twentieth century, no woodchip…) Very pleased we were so I was also happy to recommend him.

Since that really hot summer of 2003, Theo has been back to our current home and skimmed/plastered the walls one room at a time – the bedrooms, then the lounge, dining room last year and a few weeks ago the hall and stairs.

So, if you have stripped all the wallpaper (you must do this first) and you’re looking at your walls thinking this room needs replastering I recommend Theo. You can call him up, give him the measurements of the room and let him know things like number of windows, external corners (such as a chimney breast or ‘L’ shaped room) and he’ll give you a price over the phone.

The jobs he has done for us have all been skimming/replastering walls (either Victorian, 1930′s build or plasterboard), completing each job in a day.

Theo – plasterer 07710 271 802
Lives somewhere around Wembley and  works most parts of London (he does south of the river too: Teddington, Crystal Palace, Bexley)

I got Theo’s number from a Skansen site manager who said he was very good – just be careful he can be messy. I go along with that but I don’t mean he’s messier than the next (we’ve used/seen a few and Claire has done a course in Croydon and a couple of rooms herself), plastering is just messy.

I’m curious to see if this post works as successfully for being found on the search engines as the old page a few years ago. And a couple of pictures might help too.