Increase Your HIS Business Profile Online

There are two things I know to be true in marketing your Home Inventory Service business:

• All business is local
• You need to promote your HIS business online.

You may think that those two items are contradictory.

After all, if someone locally is looking for a home inventory service business, wouldn't they just look in the Yellow Pages? (Well, yeah, they would if there were a Home Inventory Service category. But there isn't.)

If I have a website, won't I get inquiries from people in other parts of the country? (Yes, you might, especially if you don't define the area you service [geographically] on your site. But you can turn those inquiries into *cash* by referring them to another home inventory service business in their area.)

The key to meeting those two objectives (marketing locally, and marketing online) is fulfilled by using what's called "Local Search." That means creating a website and then getting it to the top of the list when someone types in "Home Inventory Service" and (Your City") into their search engine.

You could do this yourself. There are a ton of books and websites out there to teach you Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to get your website to the top of the list "organically." (That is, without paying.) But just as we are encouraging our customers to pay a professional to handle a complicated task (a professional home inventory) for them, I think we should recognize that this is an area where paying will yield performance.

One of the best services I've found for this is called Innuity's LeadConnect. You pay by the month ($39.95) or by the year ($199.95 -- save more than 60%!) to have your business information and/or website submitted to the major search engines and sites.

If you are just starting your home inventory service business, sign up for this service even before you have your website ready to launch. It takes about 4-6 weeks for your information to become active on all the sites, so you'll want to sign up with LeadConnect immediately, in order to start yielding results by the time you're ready to launch your business. Register your domain name right now, and put up a simple home page with your business name, your contact information, and a paragraph or two about the business. That's all you need for now. Submit your website URL, along with your business information, to LeadConnect. Then, finish building your website in the following three weeks, so it will be ready when your site is listed at the top of the local search engines.

Why choose a third-party firm to do this for you? You’ll save hours of time, effort, and individual submission fees every month. Your current online search listing is probably found on one or two of the major search engines. LeadConnect ensures your complete and up-to-date business listing is submitted to all the major search engines and online Yellow Page directories—more than 35 in all. You publish it once, it appears everywhere!

When you need to update your profile with new services, brands, or seasonal promotions, you just update your information once in the centralized master profile, and LeadConnect automatically distributes your updates across the Internet—rather than having to go to each individual search engine or directory and manually update each one.

Learn More:
""Advertise Locally for $39 a month!""

Your Business Phone and Yellow Pages Advertising

You might be wondering: What kind of phone number should I set up for my home inventory service business? Should I use my existing home number? My existing cell phone number? Should I get another cell phone number? Or should I get a separate business phone line?

There are pluses and minuses to each. There's no extra cost if you use your existing home or cell phone numbers, but you won't get a tax deduction for using either of them. And you won't be able to answer your phone professionally ("Georgia Home Inventory, this is Louise").

Add a line to your existing cellular contract, and you'll be able to answer with your business name, but you'll be using minutes (unless you're on an "unlimited local calls" contract like Cricket). But, in many markets, you can't get a listing in the local Yellow Pages with a cell phone as your primary number.

Because in the Home Inventory Service business, "all business is local," you should consider at least a line listing in your local Yellow Pages (many areas have more than one book; choose the "major" book for your area, even if the "other" book offers you a better deal). It's probably not worth your while to pay for anything more than a line listing, as (at least in my local books), there isn't a specific Yellow Pages section for "Home Inventory Service." You just want to be listed in the White Pages so that if someone knows your business name, they can find you there.

A business line will get you a free listing in your local Yellow Pages (generally, it's a free listing in the white pages, and a "line" listing in the Yellow Pages). As your business grows, you will want prospective customers to be able to find you ... and if they've heard the name of your business, they will want to find you in the phone book. (Yes, I know it's hard to believe that people still use phone books in this day and age!)

You might also look into a "Market Expansion Line" with your current (landline) service provider. This is a service that provides a new phone number, but the calls ring in on your existing phone line, with a different ring tone. (That way, you can know to answer it with your business name.) When I set up mine in the early days of my business, you paid a small monthly fee, and then only paid for the calls that you received. I believe it was also eligible for the free Yellow Pages listing, and you can convert it to a "traditional" phone line at any time in the future. I think you can also have it "forwarded" to any phone -- so technically, you could have it forwarded to a cell phone.

There are a TON of options out there nowadays, so check with your local phone company and see what they offer.

Here's a link to Qwest's Market Expansion Line info:
http://www.qwest.com/pcat/large_business/product/1,1016,117_4_25,00.html

You can find out about your local Yellow Pages directory options through the national association:
http://www.buyyellow.com/index_flash.html

Or by using the contact information in the directories you likely have laying around your house

If you ARE using a non-business phone, we recommend a service like Innuity's LeadConnect to get your business listed in *online* search directories (like Google and YellowPages.com). Click on the link below to find out more (the service is just $39.95/month or $199.95/year). Click here and "Help your customers find you!""