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Sponsored post by Mike Linville, Petsitter 365

Times they are a changin’ and nowhere can that be seen more clearly than online with the search engines.

Five years ago, as a professional independent pet sitter, it was A LOT easier to get found by your potential prospects.

You get a website—add some cute pics, talk about the services that you offer and voila—you start showing up when people search for pet sitters. It was just easier back then.

• There wasn’t as much competition.
• The internet was less sophisticated.
• There weren’t the flood of technology companies that there are now (Rover, YELP, CARE, etc.).

Unfortunately, it’s not 2014 anymore.

The past few years have brought a lot of changes to the online landscape—both with technology in general (the overwhelm of mobile) but also in our industry itself.

Technology companies like Rover, CARE.com and Yelp have entered the space and practically pushed the small, independent pet sitters off of page 1 of the search results pages and onto page 2, page 3 and beyond (AKA: search engine oblivion).

REMEMBER: 73% of web searchers will never go past page 1 of a search results page.*

The good news is … YOU AREN’T ROVER! (or CARE or Yelp)

You are a small, independent, local pet sitter that has a vast amount of PET KNOWLEDGE as well as an infinite amount of LOCAL KNOWLEDGE.

Localized expertise is EXACTLY how you beat the Rovers of the world because we have to remember—Rover doesn’t control the search engine rankings, GOOGLE does.

And what does Google want? Google wants high quality, localized information. That’s what users are looking for and that’s how they make their money.

So as long as we can provide high quality content that is compelling to our perfect prospects—we’ll be able to win out on the search engine results pages (SERPS) because that level of detail just CAN’T be provided by the tech companies.

So how do we get started?

If we want to take on the technology companies in the search engines—we have to start with our own website.

HERE IS WHERE MOST PET SITTERS MAKE THEIR MISTAKE! - DON’T DO THIS!

You have 1,000 things to do, cranky clients and a no-show sitter that you have to find cover for so when one more task gets added to your list, you jump into BOSS mode and just handle it. Fix it or hire it, the quicker you can get it off of your to-do list the better #amiright?

BEFORE you start to invest time and energy into fixing or replacing your current website—let’s take a few minutes and cover the single most important question we can ask when evaluating a website—what’s the purpose?

What is this website supposed to DO?

Some websites are made to educate, others are there strictly to sell?

Remember—as a professional pet sitter your business website isn’t just an online billboard, it’s a business tool with at least four separate functions. When all four functions are served well—your website then becomes a revenue-generating ASSET for your business, not an EXPENSE.

Here are the top 4 functions of your pet sitter business website. After you read each section—take a moment and assess yourself. How does your business website rate in that particular section? If you need help, FREE help is available online with the Petsitter 365 website evaluation tool.

FUNCTION #1: Branding - Letting people know Who You Are and What You’re About.

Let me ask you a question … Is your current business website an accurate representation of the quality of the service that you provide? Do you provide “GUCCI” level service but have a website that looks like an old beat-up Ford?

Good, bad or indifferent—people WILL judge the quality of your business based on the look of your website. The internet is NOT a judgment-free zone.

FUNCTION #2: Education - The lure of the internet is leverage. As a professional in your local area—we want you to leverage your advanced pet knowledge into resources that would be meaningful and compelling to your customers.

We have to understand that people search online for two main reasons:

1. To be entertained (Keyboard cat - 53,000,000 views on You Tube)
2. To find a solution to a problem they are currently experiencing

Example: If I’m a pet sitter that services cats only—here are a few topics that my potential clients would be interested in:

• 7 reasons your cat may be peeing outside the box
• 13 tips to keep your cats happy and healthy this holiday season

You see by creating content that actually “answers” some of the questions that you get frequently—you are creating content that instantly builds rapport with people because you are answering questions they may have without them having to ask them.

This is where your experience as a professional pet sitter will pay some dividends.

FUNCTION #3: Lead Generation - There should be at least 1 element on your website that generates new prospect leads for your business. Remember, the average churn rate in our industry is 12-15% annually—clients move, pets cross over the rainbow bridge … lead generation is how we replace those 12-15% and more if we want to actually grow the business.

And saving the best for last …

FUNCTION #4: Awareness - According to the 2017-2018 Pet Owner Survey by Pet Sitters International, how people found their sitters in 2017 was split almost 50/50 between online and offline sources. 

So if we know that half of all our leads should be coming from online sources AND that 73% of users will never scroll past the first page of search results—it’s plain to see that a well optimized site is crucial for search engine success.

Luckily for us, in the past 12 months we’ve evaluated over 1,900 professional pet sitter websites and we know exactly what mistakes pet sitters are making and more importantly—how to solve them so that YOU can score better search engine rankings, increases in qualified traffic and more sales.

If you’d like to find out what we learned from over 1,900 pet sitter website evaluations—please feel free to check out our latest online training: “How To Get Found Online: 5 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Pet Sitter Website.”

* Advanced Web Ranking CTR Study: All Searches, US, SEP 2018

https://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/