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Looking for ways to promote your website on a budget? How about for free? Some of the best website advertising methods will cost you nothing more than a little time. There is no word in the English language that seizes interest as much as the word FREE. Oh there are some that tantalize, but free things just causes us do the funniest things. We keep free gimmicky stuff all the time that we know we'll never utilize, but do it anyhow, and then try to pawn it off for $0.05 at a yard sale in the summer. They say the best things in life are free: love, friendship, intellect, but hardly in life does free stuff give any true worth, as in products and services. Well, in the web based arena, that is not consistently the truth, specifically in web page marketing. It's because what is free of charge to you is providing value to the person giving it away. So pay attention business owners on a tight budget, because here are Five FREE Ways to Advertise Your Site: 1) Directory Listings Search for free company rosters and see what comes up. Tons and I mean loads, of websites that allow you to list your business or site for absolutely no cost. Why? Because their financial models are typically based upon the up-sell, see that, the premium listing. Oh you get the basics free of charge, but what you really prefer is the one that allows you to load pictures, videos, and the longer, expanded version recap. The good part is, nearly all of the free versions will list your site link, and this helps individuals discover you and your internet backlink method. Here are a few of the most popular directories:And let's not lose sight of the search engine wars that lead to millions of gratuitous, unclaimed listings for companies like:
RELATED: How to Develop a PR Plan 3) Social Media If you are trying to get reach on the internet and you don't have a Facebook page,LinkedIn account, Google+ page and Twitter username, shame on you! All of these provide absolutely free listings on websites with extremely high Google page rankings. They're the most significant social media websites on the web. If you have a business you can also get a business page on these sites that links to your individual profile. Even when you don't have time to "work" these websites to their fullest, there is link juice available from even the most horrible fan profiles. A better method is to get in the social media arena and pick one or two of these to construct pages and initiate a communication with others who are already comfortable using this vehicle. RELATED: How to Create a Social Media Superfan And there are lots of supplementary social sites for headlines, bookmarking et cetera that enable you to acknowledge your site if not get a posting. A solid listing of more of them than you can possibly manage can be located on Shareaholic. 4) Offer Commentary You and I both know there is way too much free information on the net, however we still have a couple of favored blogs or news websites we go to get our fill of self-help or what's taking place in the realms that we follow. So do others who might just want to visit your blog. On nearly all blogs, you are able to write comments. The blog writers like this because it tells the search engine world and new readers that people are engaged in their content, and nothing detrimental can stem from that. When you leave a comment, you'll usually have the option to connect your website link to your reply. Often you can link to other items to as a possibility, like your Facebook orTwitter page. Do it. If you reserve 30 minutes a week, you can browse recent columns from your favored sites and write purposeful (key word) remarks on them. Gradually, the value of your insights combined with the link back to your website will create traffic and SEO power. 5) Your Email Signature This is the easiest free of cost technique I know of to get people to a blog, and the one that is surprisingly most often overlooked. Every email you send ought to have a standard footer that describes you. It usually has a name, title or something captivating about you, and some way to connect with you. It should also have your website linked or whatever other page you may want to lead people to, like a LinkedIn page. You can use a text anchor link, like Visit us for your San Diego SEO, or spell out the link beginning with http so it looks likehttp://www.yourlink.com and will be visible in text-based web mail browsers also and a live hyperlink in most email programs. Emails get forwarded, copied, and otherwise shared. You don't know who is reading and clicking. RELATED: 4 Underused Hot Spots for Your Personal Branding Iron Free stuff is normally worth what you pay for it: zero, but using these 5 techniques, Free Website Promotion is alive and well. Use the mechanisms at hand, add a smidgen of energy and initiative, and get your blog out there. A Career in Garden Maintenance 1. Introduction Gardening can be a profitable business and provide a good work/life balance when managed properly. This simple guide will help anyone who is looking to start a career as a domestic maintenance gardener. To be successful you need to be one of the best! Although there is no minimum criteria required to start a garden maintenance business you should seek some training so that you can stand out from well meaning amateur labourers. For this reason, members of The Gardeners Guild must have at least one horticultural qualification. This guide will help you make your gardening business profitable and appealing to your customers. 2. Benefits of a career in garden maintenance There are many benefits to a career in garden maintenance: - Regular, reliable work - whatever you earn this month you will likely earn again next month. - Developing a good relationship with your customers – seeing some of them every week. - Healthy, enjoyable, challenging, outdoor work. - Flexible working hours. - Potential to earn a good wage. - Practically recession proof – a maintenance gardener’s customers are typically retired and have fixed incomes. 3. Disadvantages of a career in garden maintenance You need to be aware of the disadvantages so that you can plan to avoid them: - Less work during the winter. - Some days lost due to bad weather - but not as much as you might think. - Competition from casual labourers. - Labour intensive work. - Unpaid travel time between work. - Supplies, equipment and tool maintenance is expensive. - The cost of repairing damage to your tools or customers property is usually higher than you would have earned doing the job. For example, charge someone £10 to cut a small lawn only to have a stone flung from the mower smashing a window (the tip of a mower blade spins at 200mph!) - a new glass pane in a patio door can cost in excess of £400. - Danger – as well as hiring a gardener to do a job that the customer physically can not do themselves or that requires special equipment, you may also be hired to do a job that is dangerous or difficult to access. 4. Get qualified Get qualified and be proud to be a professional maintenance gardener. While no single qualification covers every aspect of horticulture, achieving any nationally recognised horticultural qualification is evidence that enthusiasm for gardening has resulted in practical skills worth paying for. As mentioned before there is no minimum standard required to work in garden maintenance. However, you need to be competent. Most of your customers will hire you because they can’t physically keep up with the garden maintenance themselves and not because they don’t know how. A customer will quickly notice if you don’t know what you are doing and won't value your labour. If you want to be successful you need to be the best – qualifications will help you. The more qualified you are the easier it will be to justify your fees. Do your circumstances allow you to do a full-time course? If so, contact your local college and see what’s on offer. If not, it is possible to do an RHS correspondence course and some colleges will do day/part time courses on various topics. You can also seek training for use of particular equipment such as pesticides or chain saws. A NPTC license can be gained in 2 days and City and Guilds offer part-time courses (also available on a correspondence basis). (Visit our Training and Skills page). Training isn't expensive (often starting at £125) - and once you have the qualification you have it for life. A qualification can cost less than the price of a good lawn mower! Any nationally recognised horticultural qualification is acceptable for membership of The Gardeners Guild More info 5. Benefits of paying tax and being insured Though no one likes doing it - there are many benefits to paying tax and having an accountant: - It shows you are professional and dedicated to gardening as your career. - Your accountant will prepare an accounts report – essential if you ever want to get a loan / mortgage. - An accounts history will help if you ever want to sell your business. - Your accountant will ensure that you make best use of any tax deductable expenses – even some you may not know about. - Your accountant will want you to pay all your earnings into your business account. This is a good idea as your bank will often grant an overdraft equal to the amount paid into the account each month. This will help with your cash flow during the winter. - You don’t get in trouble with the Inland Revenue. If you don’t keep good accounts they can decide how much they think you earned and tax you accordingly – even if you earned less! It will be up to you to prove them wrong. You will need to call the Inland Revenue and notify them that you are self employed. Insurance is also essential. Accidental damage to property is all too easy and common. The cost of repairing damage will often exceed the amount you were earning. For example, replacing the glass in a conservatory door broken by a stone flung by the grass strimmer can cost over £200 to replace but you may only earn £10 to cut the grass. The customer is entitled to recover those costs from you whether you have insurance or not. Insurance protects you as the tradesman from being presented with a repair bill you cant afford to pay and gives the customer confidence that any damage will be repaired if and when accidents happen. You will need to contact an independent insurance broker to arrange this cover. Insurance starts from around £20pm. 6. Your Customers Some private residences have bigger gardens than the shared gardens around flats and residential estates - so it is not unusual for even an individual gardener to work on communal gardens, commercial grounds and public spaces. Customers requiring help with their garden maintenance are typically people who are retired or are busy professionals. Garden maintenance is also required for gardens around flats and communal areas on many new housing estates. Sometimes these are managed by an independent property management company.However, to keep costs low the residents may form their own management company and look for local tradesmen. Large, national maintenance contractors often have a high minimum charge which makes them unappealing to smaller maintenance contracts - but ideal for a small, professional, local garden maintenance business. For the same reason, there will be many opportunities for small commercial contracts. The work you receive will often be through people you know - do you know anyone who lives in flats or works for a local business? The government is also looking to give small contracts ('small' being under £100,000!) to local traders. A local gardener can offer a friendly, personal service. Look after your customers and they will look after you. In summary, local gardeners are regularly hired by: Large private gardens and grounds Small domestic gardens Pensioners Professionals Busy families Anyone with temporary or permanent physical limitations Landlords/tenants Estate and Letting Agents Holiday lets Housing and residents associations Solicitors and estate executors Flats with shared gardens Property Management Companies Care Homes Commercial grounds Private roads Schools Local councils for public spaces 7. Your work Different maintenance gardeners operate in different ways. Some gardeners have just 5 customers with large gardens, others have 100's of lawn customers, others will have around 40 customers but do everything for them, others just do flats, some specialise in borders or even just climbers, some maintain ponds, some just do hedge trimming and some gardeners charge more but offer a 'be there in one hour' service for people who need a quick tidy up before a weekend BBQ! The service you offer will evolve over time and depend on the people in the area you live. Think about the kind of garden maintenance work you want to do most and market yourself for those services. Of course, it is good to be flexible and offer a broad range of services as the kind of work you can do will vary with the weather and seasons. Gardeners who are choosy about the work they do often have that luxury because they are so busy. 8. Offering a professional garden maintenance service Every gardener is different but all trade on their reputation. In addition to your gardening knowledge give some consideration to how you are perceived by potential customers. For example: Insurance – this can cost as little as £20pm but tells your customers that you have their interests in mind. For this you will need to visit an insurance broker who will help you find the best deal. Van Logo – This shows consideration for your customer and their neighbours. Neighbours pay attention to what’s happening in the street. A van with a clear logo will put their mind at ease as to who you are and why you are there. Staff Uniform – This doesn’t have to be much – even just a T-Shirt with your logo. These cost around £12 each but look professional and give neighbours peace of mind when they see you in the garden. Staff uniforms and van logos advertise your business and make you more approachable – a good source of new business. Easy to Contact – a good gardener will be easy to contact – a well known community figure. Ensure that your customers know your phone number and feel confident that they can contact you if they need you. A website will help or simply being included in the member register on this site. Licenses – Chain saw license, use of pesticides and waste carriers license all indicate that you take the law, environment and safety seriously. They show that you are dedicated to garden maintenance as a career, that you are worth your fees and that you are obeying the law. 9. Plan ahead Every gardener is different and the type of service you offer will vary according to where you live. However, here are some tips: Timing is everything – as a gardener you are at the mercy of the seasons. Use this to your advantage: Winter: Landscaping, hard pruning, fencing etc Spring: Planting, weeding, feeding, fence painting Summer: Lawns, hedge trimming, Autumn: Pruning, leaf clearance, lawn treatment (aeration, scarifying etc), planting Educate your customers and encourage them to delay work until the appropriate time. Manicure or Maintenance? – Be clear about the kind of service you offer. Some customers just want their garden kept under control (maintenance) – others will want a perfect (manicured) garden. A garden 'manicure' service is often charged by the hour whereas many garden maintenance customers will prefer a fixed price. Minimum call-out charge – Much of your time could be wasted with unpaid travel time between jobs. Many tradesman have a minimum call out charge. This ensures that your customers only call you if they have enough work to make it worth your travelling to them. If they don’t have much for you to do – you still get paid. You must tell your customers that you have a minimum charge before work starts. It is best to do this in writing. Don’t be fooled – a big garden does not necessarily give you more work than a small garden. A customer with a large garden may argue that you should charge them less because they give you more work. However, a big garden can be a very simple garden while a small garden can be well stocked and need more time and attention. In fact, when cutting lawns, smaller gardens can be more profitable. A big garden is only beneficial if you are guaranteed a certain number of hours work. Lawn care – Lawn cutting is profitable for many reasons: - You can charge a fixed price for each lawn rather than an hourly rate. Because your professional tools help you work quickly and efficiently, the faster you work the more you earn - easily £20 - £40 an hour. - Your lawn customers will likely offer you pruning and planting work in the autumn / winter. In contrast, manicured (but not necessarily well stocked) gardens will likely have less work in the winter because you have been maintaining them all year. Vary your work – Even if you focus on lawn cutting you will still be offered other gardening work. If poor weather stops you cutting lawns, a varied work schedule will give you the option to rearrange your diary to do a pruning job instead. Cash flow – You may need to consider cutting your costs at home until work increases. Try to avoid having big bills during the winter when there could be less work i.e. vehicle tax and MOT. Pay all your income into your business account - this will help you get a bigger over draft for emergencies. Domestic customers generally pay quickly. Invoice terms generally require 30 days payment but are frequently late. Try to build up reserve funds. Think of your business as a shop – Labour is your most basic service. However, as a gardener you can offer additional services such as waste removal (if you have a waste carriers license), weed killer, collect and deliver plants etc from local garden centres, lawn treatments or even charge for advice alone. These are extra services in addition to your basic hourly rate for labour. Having a clear pricing policy will give people the option to ‘buy’ these extra services from you as and when they need it. 10. Equipment Safety – Eye/face protection, helmets, steel toe-capped boots, long sleeves, tough trousers, gloves, first aid kit. You will use all of these regularly and its well worth buying top quality safety equipment. You should also think about treatment for insect bites - Mosquitoes are most well known but spiders will bite if they fall down your top! Horse Flies are among the worst as they look like house flies but actually suck blood - sometimes biting off a lump of skin to eat later! They are common in long grass towards the end of the summer. TIP: A flexible elastic trouser waist will be more comfortable as you spend much time bending and lifting. Tools – Having your own tools shows that you have invested in and are dedicated to a career in garden maintenance. You can easily spend £3000 + on basic maintenance tools. Think about what you are likely toreally need. For example, a mower, strimmer and hedge trimmer are essential but a chainsaw, chipper and stump grinder will be rarely used unless you really advertise those services. Visit independent garden tool specialists: - They will give you good advice - They will stock spare parts for the equipment they sell - They can tell you what other gardeners are buying - Manufacturers often make two versions of their tools – a cheap version for the large DIY stores and a trade version for the independent stores. Although slightly more expensive they give much greater value for money. Avoid tools that are a green colour – they are too easy to lose in a customer’s garden! Mostly this applies to hand tools as they are small and easy to lose. Your tools will likely, on average, need replacing every 3 years either due to ware and tear, breakages, theft or, if they are green, simply getting lost! Remember to factor into your these costs into your income target. Your van – Your van is probably your most expensive tool but one of the most useful with many different applications. Your van is also one of the best adverts you can have. Try to get a van with a divider between the cab and rear storage – otherwise your cab will be filled with flies, spiders and creepy crawlies by the next morning! Gardeners who use their cars are missing useful extra revenue. 11. What to charge Most tradesman aim to earn a minimum of around £150 per day. However, this may vary from region to region. You should increase your charges as the level of danger increases. You should also charge extra for weed killer, waste removal, carriage of goods in your van etc. You may decide to have one hourly rate for manual tools and another higher hourly rate for petrol tools. This will cover the extra cost of fuel, tool maintenance and increased danger to you. Again, people are happy to pay if they know why you charge what you charge. Fixed price services such as lawn cutting, lawn treatments, weed killer etc will depend upon local competition and you will soon get a feel for what you can charge. The cost of a lawn cut should normally be less than your minimum call out charge – otherwise your customer might as well book you for a couple of hours and find something else to fill the time. You will likely earn more per-working-hour by quoting for each job individually. This is most common for the type of work you would only do once a year - hard pruning, soft landscaping, hedge reduction etc. However, if you want to quote per job for all your work you will have to spend more on advertising in order to find new customers and spend more time visiting customers to survey the site. Remember, you won't get every job you quote for and they may not use you again if they always look for the cheapest quote. A gardener may therefore offer a: - Fixed price service for very simple, regular work i.e. lawn cutting - An hourly rate for general, regular garden maintenance with a higher hourly rate for petrol tools. - Quote per job for irregular/annual work or regular maintenance contracts for flats/commercial grounds. - Have a minimum call out charge - Charge separately for waste removal, weed killer etc. If you charge by the hour then separating costs such as fuel, weedkiller, waste removal etc from your hourly rate may also make it easier to adjust your prices should specific expenses increase - without giving the impression that your prices are going up. For example, if the cost of tipping fees increases you can increase the cost of waste removal without increasing your hourly rate. When calculating your income consider: - Your basic domestic bills - Your regular professional overheads (insurance, mobile phone, accountant) - Irregular overheads - petrol, oils, lubricants, - Annual costs - MOT, vehicle servicing, Road TAX, tool servicing, waste carriers license, tyres - Maintenance costs - tool depreciation and replacement This sets the basic amount you need to earn to cover your costs! You will need to add to this an amount that you would like to earn as profit for yourself. Genuine business expenses are tax deductable but all other earnings could be liable to income tax. Remember that work will likely be quiet during January and February. 12. Advertising Advertising is a science. A good advertising campaign is regular and consistent and utilises many different kinds of media. Advertising on radio and in local newspapers and magazines can be expensive. However, many people who advertise in papers and on radio comment that they didn't get any replies from their adverts. Others will say that they get all of their work from these adverts. Why the difference? It is said that people need to hear/see something 3 times before they will remember it for the long term. So a regular, re-occurring advert will have more success than a one-off. One franchise charges 2.5% of a franchisees income to spend on advertising (in addition to management fees). Could you afford to do this? There are ways to advertise for free. Guild membership includes an element of advertising. There are also many free online trade directories Hotfrog, Yell.com, My Hammer, Rated People, Juggle frogs to name a few - why not join them all? Your van is also an advert - as is your staff uniform. You may decide to form an unofficial partnership with a landscape gardener or designer - you give them the landscaping work and they pass you the garden maintenance work. Building a good reputation for quality work and reliability will help you to get referrals. Don't be afraid to ask your customers for work - tell them you are looking for more. Don't be shy to ask for recommendations as well. 13. Your Health You will be working outside in the sun - try to cover your skin and always use sun tan lotion. Many gardeners suffer from bad backs. Do not strain to lift. Do not rush. You will often be asked to do work that is dangerous, dirty or difficult. NO amount of money is worth damaging your health. Do not feel pressured to rush or cut corners.
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February 2017
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