A video, some helpful articles, testimonials from happy customers, and an opt-in box for a free report would work.

Alex

find all of your immediate competitor... carve yourself a nice unique selling strategy.

and profit.

A home page is for a coherent "big idea" which ties together each service, reflecting your unique selling proposition. On each service page, make it clear how this ties in and relates to your overall big idea.

Don't forget before/after shots or video split-screens. The dramatic difference is your credibility factor. Show a before shot where the viewer thinks "Well, okay, that's not-so-bad, that's okay." Then show a dramatic difference in your after that reframes that before shot as unacceptable, undesirable, in need of action.

Also show a disaster area type situation you improved in a remarkable way. With customer remarks.

Otherwise, it might well look like a hodge-podge to the reader. You want it to come off as dimensions of your expertise in floor care -- not a grab bag of loosely related services.

Most people do not see themselves as needing (definitely not wanting) what you're selling. They have a vac. They could rent a steamer for way less than hiring a cleaning service.

As they say in the industry, you have to kill their vac. Make it unmistakable that what the potential customer is doing now merely gets the surface dirt, often sucking up a little and driving the rest down deep into the flooring. Where every step they take upon that floor is grinding that leftover dirt in, chopping up the fibers of their carpet and destroying their flooring investment.

In some of the more dramatic "vac kill" demos, the sales person will ask which vac did a better job and lay the customer's loosing vac on its side ...dead. Joe Polish is still the guru guy in this niche.


P.S. I could, but if I do it will be to find your billing address. I've sold vacs at $1987.00 (two grand) doing these demos. I am one of the few people who ever took a customer down to a discount price, slashing commision, then went all the way back up to sell that same customer at full ticket. Wrote up the order ...paid in full. ...during the downturn into the worst recession since WWII.

Your plate of things to accomplish is quite full right now. So I will not be visiting your site, thank you.

John wins post of the week. Take his advice.

Cheers,
Stephen Dean

Here are a couple of things I would like to add:

* your clients are most likely to be well to do people since everybody else uses a vacuum cleaner as John mentioned.

Most people don't buy carpets expensive enough to warrant a cleaning service.

So you need to be really focused on who your buyer is. The good news is that you can charge reasonably high prices.

* Where are you planning to get the traffic from? That will determine a lot about what you put on your home page.

* What sort of relationship are you planning with your customers? Is it a one off sale, monthly cleaning or something similar?

Definitely check out Joe Polish - he specialises in marketing of carpet cleaning services.

Good luck!

I know this is not a direct answer but still so fitting I can't help but mention it.

Look into Joe Polish and his Piranha Marketing outfit.
Small Business Marketing | Business Strategy Expert | Joe Polish

He's helping quite a bunch of carpet cleaners market effectively.
Rich Cleaner System Special Offer - Piranha Marketing Kit for Cleaners & Restorers by Joe Polish

What John said. Don't put too much on the home page, or they'll get confused and/or irritated and click away.

Don't overwhelm them, direct them. Where do you want them to go once they've seen your home page?

Make sure you have calls to action on each page...what do they need to do next?

Your inside pages need to be just as good as the home page. You can't assume they'll land on the home page only.

Joe Polish is doing a lot of good work in this area.

Really, I don't think it is a bad idea to find a company, like Kirby, and knock on doors. Find out what works and what doesn't, in a viceral, down to your bones way. Sooner or later, that web site (or letter) is going to put you in front of somebody. ...no Web 2.0 ...no squeeze page ...just you and the customer, talking.

You do not have to be a natual born sales person. I proved that for myself.

I went from knocking on thirty-nine doors -- 1 in 39 -- to one in four. That's one of every four doors I knocked (99% cold calls) let me in ...but it took some very painful persuasion to motivate the changes needed. (Try two hundred doors in a day just to get a full day's demos in -- you get better, real quick).

Medical equipment and writing copy is a less painful gig. Point is, people are going to do what they've always done, until the pain becomes prohibitive.

Great advice from everyone, thank you!

John,

I like the idea of having a "big idea" for the homepage. I think that's where I'm stuck the most. If I can figure that out, the rest will be easier.

Never thought about having to kill their vacuum. Good point. I'll definitely work on that. After that I'll need to kill their mop, too.

I also love (and hate) the dea of knocking on doors. We don't do it much, but the few times we have, we've always gained a new customer.

Joe Polish is definitely the man in our industry. The only problem is, he's so damn good, his "consumer guide" and guarantee "The most thorough cleaning ever... or it's FREE!" is on every carpt cleaning site in the country, so being diferent has become a challenge.

Time to start working on my big idea...

Thanks!

A compelling headline would be a very good start. This will get the attention of your visitors. You need to give them a good hint on what the whole page is about. What the product is about.