Thomas Gerber: Website Optimization With Gerber Consultants

Have you been planning to improve your website?

In today’s time, having an attractive and functional website is very important. Most people would check on a company’s website before looking into the services being offered by the company. Having a great website simply means giving the right first impression to potential clients.

Gerber Consultants help businesses improve their websites through a number of ways, mainly to help them build more organic traffic to their website, either for leads or for ecommerce. After that has been established,  Gerber Consultants help them make sure that the key terminology they're using on their website is what people are actually using on search engines. This company also helps them restructure or rewrite some other content to focus on those high value search terms.

“I noticed other people advertising for building websites, or for doing search engine optimization, I thought, well, that's really interesting. So I started to look through the ads. And I looked at what they were doing, and how what they were saying, and how they structured their ads a little bit. And so then I decided to build my own ad off of that.” – Thomas

Thomas Gerber is the owner of Gerber Consultants, a consulting company that specializes on WordPress Websites, SEO, Project Management, and Family History Research.

Learn more about how Gerber Consultants can drastically improve your website’s performance by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on  Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.

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0:01
Welcome to the thoughtful entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com, where we turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. So we believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. Even you stick around to the end of this show, where I'll share info on how you could be our next guest, three times a week, five to 15 minutes each learn from successful business owners and professionals. It's time to get inspired. Let's go. Right, Tom Gerber, you are just north of Tampa, in a town called Dunedin. Right? I said that wrong? How do you pronounce it? The meeting? Dunedin. Right. Yeah. Which is, which is a Scottish town north of Tampa here in Florida. And you have been at the helm of Gerber consultants since 2008. Doing website development, SEO, and other project management. And I wanted to chat with you about some really interesting things you do in terms of local marketing. Specifically, I'd love to talk about what you do with Craigslist, and local networking. So first off, could you explain real quick, what Gerber consultants does?

1:33
Yeah, so I help businesses improve their websites through a number of ways, mainly to help them build more organic traffic to their website, either for leads or for e commerce, things like that. And then I help them make sure that the key terminology they're using on their website, is what people are actually using on search engines. So they may be using a very technical term that the everyday person who might be interested in what they do wouldn't know to use, they may use some alternate phrases or terms. And so I'll help them restructure or rewrite some other content to focus on those high value search terms.

2:15
Great. And so can you talk about one of the things that you do before we get into Craigslist, which I think is just genius. But tell me about your involvement with local networking and how that's been valuable for you. As a service provider? I, you know, I've had some networking experiences that I feel like a kind of wasting, I'm wasting my time, you know, just seems to be kind of a low quality. You know, are people still going to local networking events?

2:49
Yes, they are. In fact, they're, they're, they're getting bigger? I think in a lot of ways. I mean, you know, I started out working with more national clients, but I really wanted to focus on local clients more. So how do you meet local clients, you know, and so that was really the challenge for me. So I first joined the local Chamber of Commerce, got involved that way, and got to meet some of the local people who who know each other, right. And so, Indonesian the Chamber of Commerce is very active, they do a monthly after hours event, they do a monthly before hours event. And then I joined a subgroup that meets twice a month for lunch. And so we talked about our businesses, the challenges, and then these, you can only have one person of each business type. So you're you're not really talking to other web developers. You're talking to other business owners who own different types of businesses. And so then, the other networking group I joined is called BNI. And they're a an international organization, started by Dr. Eisner. Meisner, and they're huge in Tampa, I think they're a huge, you know, they do over $10 million in referral business among all their chapters here. And there's a lot of chapters in the whole Tampa, Clearwater, St. Pete region, that are very active. And so the whole focus there is that you try to pass others referral business, because that makes them want to pass you business. They're not right there to help market you. So as business owners, we always run into other small business owners, or neighbors or friends who own companies. And maybe they need someone to clean their office, they're tired of the company they've got, they don't do a very good job. Well, I happen to know someone who does office cleaning, they have an office cleaning company, and I recommend them and I hook them up and and then they do business, you know. So it's worked out really well. And it's helped me connect more locally, in my local town and neighborhood in an area. So I'm not going to with people who are 20 miles away, I'm connected with people that are probably within a five to 10 mile radius of my business, oh

5:06
my gosh, well, that's, so the benefit is not just leads, but that you actually get to, you get to help one another. So you know, and, you know, I think of you know, some of my, he say he has a easiest, but you know, clients that, you know, when I get on the phone, like they they've already, you know, because they already know me, they like me, they trust me, it's, it's usually because we spent time together at a conference. And those are the those are the people that it seems the easiest to figure out how we can work together. And so I agree with you, I mean, in person is just super valuable. And you know, what, you got great people in your local, and your local and so many of us, you know, as internet marketers, we just, we're always thinking, you know, you know, just internet marketing and broad, you know, and that's really interesting, stop, slow down, and actually look in your own backyard, you probably have some really great potential clients, right in your area. Now, another thing that you do, Tom, is that you advertise on Craigslist. And that's what I'll be honest, you know, in the internet marketing world, it's just not something I hear. I don't think I've ever heard about advertising on Craigslist. How does that work? And how is it working for you?

6:29
It's working fabulous. I mean,

6:32
when I moved to this area, seven years ago, one of my challenges was how do I find local business, not just through marketing, but through advertising, right. And I tried all the typical things, you know, the LinkedIn, the yelps, and all these things, and those didn't work. And one day, I was doing something else on Craigslist. And I thought, you know, I wonder what Computer Services is, you know, I saw that in the category list. So I looked in there, and I noticed other people advertising for building websites, or for doing search engine optimization, I thought, well, that's really interesting. So I started to look through the ads. And I looked at what they were doing, and how what they were saying, and how they structured their ads a little bit. And so then I decided to build my own ad off of that

7:18
way now, because it's what it's cheap, right $5

7:21
to put up an ad, and I renew my ad every week. So I probably have eight copies of my ad in that single list. But you know, I want to be towards that top segment. So when people glance at the screen, they don't have to scroll down to find me. So I spend $5 a week.

7:40
Yeah, so just so for clarification, what we're talking about, I mean, this is just an actual, like, if you were selling your car or whatever, you just you just make a post Well, in certain categories, you have to pay. And so in your services would be one that you you pay $5, every time you post a you make a post there. And so and then you're basically just making a new post once a week, so that you show up toward the top. And so what kind of business owners are they today? I would imagine they end up being local. But what what types of business owners do you end up working with? I mean, is it is it decent quality clients, it has

8:23
been so far, I would probably say that of the calls and stuff that I get, I probably get between two and four calls a month. And and half of those turn into clients, the other half of people who are like, Hey, I'm starting a business and and I want to do this, but I don't want to really spend any money to do it. You know, you get a bunch of those are, are you know, I'm starting this business, hey, do you want to donate your time, and I'll cut you in on it. And I'm like, Well, yeah. But about half the clients have turned into repeat clients that, you know, their focuses, they're, they've got a local neighborhood business of some kind or local to their town or neighborhood towns. And they want to focus on what they do. They don't want to worry about trying to build a website, they know that they need it, they don't always understand the what the value of it could be. So I do a lot of education around, hey, here's what the website can help bring your business, if you really want to grow, you need to do certain things, and it takes work and it takes time, you're not going to show up as the number one search result in Google overnight. You know, it takes effort, it takes time to build that authority, so that Google values what you have put up on your website. So they get that and they understand it takes time because they're trying to start their business. They're know it's taking time and effort to even get their business going. So they understand that this is just an extension of that, it takes the same effort and time.

9:55
Now, so you know, you're probably not going to make a million dollars overnight. But it is, you know, if you can get a couple of new clients a month, hey, you know, it's only costing you $5. Why not? And then, you know, you add that into it. And I think what people underestimate to is just the power of having conversations with someone that may not be ready now. But they learn who you are and what you do. And so now when the subject comes up in the future, you You now have somebody who, you know, you've been able to have some visibility and exposure with and they might refer you to someone like six months down the road. That's just the power of visibility, and, you know, just being known. So sounds like a really super cost efficient way to be able to at least you know, for I'm thinking for someone who's like just getting started, you know, obviously they could be using Facebook and lots of other things. But that's great. That's that's really clever. Well, well, Tom, thank you so much for for joining us, again, Gerber consultants and you're on the web. And I believe your website is what's what's your website again, Gerber consultants.

11:10
com. I thought

11:11
that's what it was. But Tom, you've been you've been in this space since 2008. We are geek out about HTML to and designing websites and in tables and you know, really before the world moved to WordPress So, Tom, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you. Thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur. If you are a thoughtful entrepreneur or business professional who would like to be a media celebrity and be on our show, please visit up my influence comm slash guest and while you're at it, take our free quiz and learn your authority score that's available for you right now at of my influence comm slash quiz. And please do us a favor. If you liked the guests that was just interviewed. Would you share this episode on social media. Also, in your podcast player right now, please give us a thumbs up or a rating and review. We promise to read it all and take action. So we believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. Your feedback helps us fulfill our mission to help create more media celebrities. Make sure to hit subscribe, binge listen to our previous episodes. And we'll send you the next episode three times a week automatically five to 15 minutes exactly what you need to inspire yourself just a little bit more, learn from others and grow. With that. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the thoughtful entrepreneur revolution.