The Skip Magazine

Here is regular advertiser Andrew Baughan of Baughan's Barrel Screens explaining why he regulary advertises in "The Skip Magazine"

Call us today on 0844 560 7706 to discuss your requirements or email us

I’ve just got off the phone to a sales pitch from www.skiphiresearch.co.uk and what a load of shite it was.

Here’s their “deal” (if you haven’t heard from them already):

- SkipHireSearch will place your listing on their directory for between £150-£1500 per year

- This qualifies you for 1-3 keywords on Google Pay Per Click (a keyword will include “skip hire Manchester” for example – this means the page they have for skip hire in Manchester will show up on Google – if you’ve paid to be listed, you will be on that directory page. NOT that your webpage will show up, just a listings page for all companies listed under that keyword).

They were trying to pitch me a listing under “Skip Hire Stockport” for £150.

I know that I paid £130 in the past 12 months on Google for advertising under FOURTEEN keywords:

SKIP HIRE STOCKPORT
skip hire in stockport
skip hire stockport
skip hire stockport uk
stockport skip hire
"SKIP HIRE STOCKPORT"
"skip hire in stockport"
"skip hire stockport"
"stockport skip hire"
[SKIP HIRE STOCKPORT]
[skip hire in stockport]
[skip hire stockport]
[skip hire stockport uk]
[stockport skip hire]

That was for a total of 596 clicks from a total of 2,861 searches with a click-thru-rate of 20.83% at a cost per click of £0.22 giving a total expenditure of £130.72.

NOW – here's a thought for you:

Do SkipHireSearch give a rats arse about the skip hire industry and your business? No. They are part of www.infoserve.com – just another directory listings service exploiting people’s lack of knowledge to make a very fast buck.

I decided to do a little check on them to see how their Google Page Rank compared to www.theskip.net. This link takes you to the results of a comparison with the future Page Rank of our site and their future Page Rank:

“Page Rank” is Google’s way of determining the IMPORTANCE of a website. You will see that ours is currently 3/10 rising to 3.2/10. Not bad for a site that is only actually 4 months old. It will be 5 or 6 come the summer. Their page rank? A big fat zero (0/10) which means Google thinks the site has no importance whatsoever. This means that it’s chances of showing up in the natural listings ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

Then I thought I’d check their traffic rank using www.alexa.com – this is the webmaster’s tool (owned by Amazon) for finding out how a website ranks compared to all the other websites in the world. It’s a great way for sniffing out the BS in a sales pitch.

To make it easy for you, here are what alexa says about the traffic coming to both sites:

TheSkip.net:

SkipHireSearch.co.uk:

You’ll see that their site is the 6,412,504th most popular site on the internet (bugger all traffic) whereas theskip.net’s traffic makes it the 8,605th most popular website in the UK. Not bad for a niche industry magazine!

(Alexa provide a REALLY handy toolbar for your browser which you can download and install for FREE so that the next time you get a call from skiphiresearch, Infoserve, Ufindus etc you can see exactly the information you need to make the right decision.

Download yours here: www.alexa/toolbar (just click on the “Install Toolbar” button and follow the instructions. Call us if you get stuck).

Want to see our natural traffic? Go to www.Google.co.uk and type in: the skip (number 1 out of 111,000,000 web pages! One hundred and eleven MILLION!), skip magazine (number 1 out of 4.3 million pages).

Anyway – here’s the deal: We are going to set up our own skip hire search database on The Skip website.

We are going to list all of the companies that want to be listed for a fee that’s relevant and practical to the size of the market they serve (i.e. the price for a click in London is four times that in stockport)

For those that don’t want pay a fee, we will offer a centralised number and take the orders via the Topskips network.

We will offer a website link, email link, map link and phone number link.

We will optimize the page for natural search rankings.

We will run Google PPC campaigns under all the relevant keywords for your area.

We will give your current website a FREE search engine optimization evaluation so that you can rank higher under your own steam.

We will cost each job dependent on what you need and to your particular market. Basically, we’ll look after you, tell you no lies, put you on a directory that really works and we won’t do any pushy sales on you. Plus, you get to be listed on the Number One Skip Hire Industry Resource in the UK and Ireland. This link alone will have a great effect on your natural search engine traffic.

(Need more proof we know what we're talking about? Type in skips into Google and see where Topskips.com is in the natural listings. Number One out of 6.6 million pages)

Interested? Let me know by emailing me
with your questions (ask anything – I might not have covered it all in this email).

Mark Attwood
Publisher – The Skip
0844 560 7706

If you sell products and services targetted at the skip hire industry, then there is no more highly targetted media than "The Skip" magazine and www.theskip.net.

Call us for a quote on 0844 560 7706 (ask for Steve Wild) or download the media pack here:

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