Earlier this week I got yet another cold call from someone who had got my details from my listing on one of these free massage, beauty therapy or male waxing directories.
It was the usual gambit: So how is it going on that site, Daniel? Are you getting enough business from that listing, Daniel? Of course the answer which you are being pushed into here is "no". (Why do these people always use your name all the time?!)
And then of course the cold caller was well into her stride, how they "work in partnership with Google" and 90 per cent of all search enquiries are made on Google, how they can get my website onto page one. Blah Blah blah. I have heard it all a dozen times before. Normally I just hang up. But this day she caught me with a quiet five minutes and I indulged her.
All these people want to do is to manage your Google Adwords campaign, choose the correct words and key phrases to help your website get found and then charge you a fortune for it. I run a massage and male waxing business. How difficult can it be to work out which words someone looking for massage or male waxing would put into a search engine? How about "masssage" or "male waxing"?
In fact, if you use Google Trends you can work out for yourself which words to use. Which gets more hits: "swedish massage" or "sports masssage" Use Google Trends to find out.
Anyway, back to this nuisance cold caller. I told her that I do my own marketing, manage my own Google Adwords, do my own Search Engine Optimisation and I am listed at the top of page one on Google for "massage surrey". She didn't believe me and checked online there and then. That got rid of her pretty quickly as she agreed that there was nothing she could do for me.
And for once I didn't have to hang up on a cold caller.
Tales from the life of a male Beauty Therapist offering Massage, Waxing, Facials and hair removal by Threading in Woking, Surrey
