Landscape Startup

Tips for Starting and Growing a Landscaping Business

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How To Blogging Video Tutorials

Dec 4

Posted by Yaacov in Blogging for landscapers, Web Hosting, websites

I’m about to publish a series of videos covering everything about blogging starting with installing the software on a webhost to tweaking themes. Here’s a tentative table of contents.

  1. Installing Wordpress
    1. Creating a database, username and password
    2. Downloading the latest version of wordpress and uploading the files to your webhost
    3. Installing the software
  2. First tasks
    1. Changing the admin password from the autogenerated password
    2. Setting the name you want displayed on your posts instead of “admin”
    3. Setting the date and time to your zone
    4. Changing permalinks from landscapestartup.com/?p=1 to landscapestartup.com/about
    5. Deleting the “Hello World” post
    6. Deleting default blogroll
  3. Pages
    1. Standard pages that every landscaping blog should have
    2. Answer questionnaire  to make the best copywriting possible for each page
  4. Setting up the posts
    1. Add general categories for organizing blog posts
    2. Talk about tags
    3. Demonstrate uploading and inserting images, video and audio to a blog post
    4. Formatting blog posts. What do all these buttons do?
  5. Adding new themes
    1. Where to get themes
    2. Free vs Premium
    3. Tweaking a theme
  6. Adding plugins
    1. What is a plugin?
    2. Essential plugins
    3. Can you really have too many plugins?
  7. Search Engine Optimization
  8. Lead Generation
    1. Landing pages
    2. Contact forms
    3. Email subscriptions
    4. Phone calls
  9. Advertising online
    1. Search engine marketing
    2. Facebook
    3. Local blogs and websites
    4. Craigslist
    5. Forums

Please leave a comment with any suggestions or topics you’d like to see. Videos will start uploading on Monday.

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3 Free Local Directories You Have To Be Listed In

May 19

Posted by Yaacov in Advertising, Web Hosting

Back in February, I wrote about how to get listed in several local business directories. If you haven’t done it yet stop what you are doing and take 5 minutes to get listed. You don’t even need a website. I got a call earlier in the week for a cleanup and planting job. After getting a signed contract for a 1 day job that I should make a $500 profit on plus the opportunity for more work in the fall, I asked him where he got my name from. “A google search for my town + landscaping,” he said.

I saw the page of local business listings he had printed out. There were over a dozen companies on it. Mine was all the way at the end of the page, but it was the ONLY one with a paragraph about my business. Where did that paragraph come from? From the information I gave Google when I created my local business listing.

Take 5 minutes and go to submit your business info to  http://www.google.com/local/add?hl=en&gl=us, http://local.yahoo.com/ (link to add a listing is all the way at the bottom of the page), and MerchantCircle.com. You don’t even need a website to get listed.
I’m working on writing up a complete handbook on how to design and promote websites for landscapers and need 3 businesses for a case study. What we’ll do together by phone and email is create a website that will drive you new business, keep you in touch with existing clients, promote it on search engines and more. You’ll have a real, live website within 12 hours of our conversation that you can start using immediately as an added sales too. Email me at jakeandwolf@yahoo.com and let’s get started.

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