A new years thought. Please read.

[Inspector]

This may be slightly lengthy but please stick with me here.

I am continually amazed throughout life at how it is so often something very minor that positively affects some one else. Take for example all of you and this site.

August of 2005 I moved to SW Florida. A month later the real estate market just died a quick painful death. I’m sure most of you know about that. What you also may know is I am a home inspector – great timing, eh?

When I lived in Indiana I had it made business wise. I had a great reputation and such a large referral base that I had not marketed in many, many years. In fact, I had honestly forgotten HOW to market.

When I moved down here I quickly found out that the old marketing techniques no longer worked, and the traditional marketing channels (realtors) were overwhelmed with marketing from Home Inspectors. So overwhelmed that all of it just got circular filed (thrown away).

A friend of mine suggested the internet for a marketing tool assuring me that the web is where it’s at nowadays. Turns out he was right, but you have to know how.

Problem is I had a web page for years and had never gotten a single inspection or even a call from it for that matter. So I bought the book SEO for Dummies, actually a very good book. It laid a very decent foundation for my web site knowledge.

Then I came across this site. You all helped fill in the blanks and helped me learn the ropes of SEO. I got my sites up to #1, then watched them fall back down to #5 or so because I didn’t realize how important it is to keep keeping on. (currently working to fix that).

Anyway, I would have had a dismal 2006 if it weren’t for the help from my friend, the book, and you all. And by dismal year I mean possibly financially catastrophic. But because of the selfless help from so many of you I actually had a halfway decent year last year, especially considering how dismal the overall real estate picture is. I still came up several thousand $$$ short from break even, but about where I expected to be for my first full year.

When you all were giving help on here I seriously doubt any of you thought you were making such a difference to anyone. Well, that may be the only place where you all are mistaken.

So anyway, I just wanted to say thank you and happy new year. Always remember that what you are doing this moment is affecting someone in some way.

[incrediblehelp]

Your welcome!

[Duncan Pollock]

Inspector: A belated response (The start of the year is supposed to be q u i e t, but I've been run off my feet -- at which I am NOT complaining):
But let me add my welcome and say Amen to your thoughts. It was about three years ago that I joined WPW and I fully agree that it's a source of invaluable advice. It's also a fact (to my mind anyway) that the great majority of real estate people and their associates in such businesses as home inspection and mortgaging have only the vaguest idea of how to design/word a website to attract clients. Instead, they view the web as just another advertising medium and simply say the same old same old that they utter in newspapers ads etc. But it ain't so, it ain't so. You gotta do a selling job, come up with a Unique Selling Proposition, and either say what no one else is saying or say it better than they do (which, of course will work for you in all media, anyway).
By its nature, WPW is focused on SEO, but within it there's load of wisdom about how to make visitors decide You Are The One they should contact. Do it right and, in my experience, you don't need to spend a dime on any other form of marketing. Moreover, the ROI is fantastic (in terms of r.e. commissions at least).

My very best wishes to you, including those for a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Duncan