How To Market Your Locksmith Business Online

Locksmith Online Marketing – Overview

The internet offers tremendous marketing opportunities for local business owners and one industry that has caught on to this trend quickly is the locksmith industry. As traditional marketing cost rise and the effectiveness drops small local business owners are forced to market their business in a much smarter way.

Although the internet is a global domain, there are more searches preformed looking for local information like, local businesses, directions, local news, events, organisations, etc every day. Even Google the world’s largest search engine has recognised this trend and has developed many tools, many which are free to help small local business owners use the internet to grow their business.

Locksmith Online Marketing – The Basics

When it comes to marketing your locksmith business online there are a variety of methods you can approach, at the end of the day to get the most from your online marketing it is best to employ all the methods suggested in this article, however you can get great results just by applying one or some of them.

If you don’t have a website you can still use the internet to get customers. One of the free tools Google has developed is a service called Google Places. This is simply a free business listing in Google, why would you want to list your business with Google? Simply because when a potential customer types in ‘locksmith in (your town)’ your business can show up on the first page with a pin on a map showing your customers exactly where you are and how to find you.

Locksmith Online Marketing – Your Website

If you do have a website then you want to first make sure it is optimized for the search engines. SEO or search engine optimization is a huge part when it comes to marketing your locksmith business online.

In order to optimize your website it must involve several processes like:

  • Correct keyword research and selection – what are the keyword your customers are typing in to the search engines when trying to find your product or service.
  • Make sure you include these keywords in your text, tags, and descriptions
  • Back linking and link exchange – this is where other sites link back to your site, backlinks are like ‘votes’ in the eyes on the search engines. The more ‘votes’ or links you have the better it usually is.
  • Register your website with the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, Bing

By doing this things it will help your website show up naturally in the search engines, the higher up the page you website shows up the more visitors you will get and the more customers you will get. Once you have established your high rankings these visitors/customers are completely free.

Locksmith Online Marketing – Advertising

There are many ways to have your website shown in front of your target market when they are surfing the internet. One of the best and most powerful ways of paid advertising is Google’s AdWords platform; it is also referred to as PPC or Pay-Per-Click.

PPC allows you to only pay when someone clicks on your ad, in other words you only pay when your ad actually works! This can be very profitable way to market local small businesses on the internet as you can pay as little as a few cents to a few dollars in most cases per click.

You can also target only the people that are most likely to buy from you, you can have your ad show only in certain areas, cities, countries, etc, at certain times during the day, to a certain demographic.

Locksmith Online Marketing – Summary

If you haven’t started marketing your locksmith business on the internet, then now is the time to start. It is very possible to grow a large clientele base using only the internet, as time goes on you realise that the quality of your keywords and backlinks make a big difference.

The internet truly offers unmatched marketing potential over traditional marketing methods; however like everything it takes action to get results.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using a Property Manager to Rent Out Your Property

One of the biggest advantages of having a property manager in place is that they not only do all the actual management for you – selection of tenants, completion of appropriate paperwork, inspections etc. – but they also do much of the accounting. From most of my property managers, I would get a monthly statement detailing the gross income, the expenses incurred, their commission and the net amount transferred into my bank account. This makes for very easy accounting.

Typically, property managers charge anywhere from 4-15% of the rental income to manage your properties. Usually the bigger your portfolio, the lower commission rate they will settle for.

Another advantage of using property managers is that the less pleasant work of evictions, notices of rental increases and notices requiring tenants to remedy shortcomings in keeping the property clean and tidy, no longer need to be handled by you personally.

So how do you choose a property manager?

Just like with the selection of a property to buy, or the selection of a real estate agent to work with, or the selection of a tradesman to work on your properties, it is somewhat of a numbers game. Go with recommendations from friends or other landlords, interview prospective managers, ask them how they have dealt with particular problems in the past, and then try them out. You can always change them later on if you do not see eye to eye. However, it may not always be so easy to change agents, especially if you have bought the property with the tenants in it.

Let me tell you about an experience I had with an agent in the UK. I bought a property with tenants in it and by extension I got saddled with the agent who had originally rented it to them. As it was my very first investment property, I didn’t want to have an agent manage the property for me, I wanted to manage it myself. But it wasn’t that easy. The agent kept their security deposit because he had found the tenants and even though it was my property, he demanded that they pay the rent to him and then on top of that, he withheld that rent and didn’t pay it to me. I had no legal recourse unless I evicted the tenants which ultimately I had to do. It was all very amicable as the tenants knew what was happening. They spent one night away from the house to make it legal, I then presented the eviction notice from the courts to the agent and he was forced to return the security deposit and pay me what he owed me on the rent. After that, my tenants came back to me, we signed a new lease and I managed the property myself. But as a warning, it does not always work out that way where there is an amicable eviction and wresting your property away from another management agent.

Just because you use one management company to look after one or several properties, it should not be a foregone conclusion that you always use the same firm for any subsequent properties you acquire in the same area. In fact, engaging two competing firms can be healthy, in that they will each try to do well by you to win over more business. This relates back to my earlier programme on selecting builders. Always get three quotes for any job and don’t get complacent by using just one builder all the time. The same applies to agents.

You can lose your tenants and your rent very quickly if the property manager does not respond quickly to repairs or complaints from tenants. Let me tell you about a situation I had when I first went into the property investment business in the UK. I had some tenants move into one of my properties and they had signed a lease agreement and paid a month’s rent in advance as well as a security deposit. I had turned the management of that property over to an agent with the understanding that my tenants would call them with any problems that arose and they would act on my behalf immediately upon hearing about any issues that needed to be resolved.

What happened next with these tenants was a nightmare. Unbeknownst to me, the roof started to leak in the master bedroom from day one. During the night, if it rained, they had to set out buckets to collect the water that was coming through the roof. They called the management company the next morning and were told that a roofer would be there to fix the problem. This went on for three weeks and each time the leaks were getting worse. The management company kept promising to send the roofer.

At the end of the three weeks, my tenant’s father who was a lawyer, sent a letter to me threatening to sue me if I didn’t give the tenants their security deposit back, but also their first month’s rent and another month’s rent to compensate them for all the emotional upset that had been caused and the physical inconvenience of living under those conditions as well as all the time that they lost from their jobs looking for another place to live. The upshot of the story is that the management company never sent the roofer, they never notified me and they behaved totally irresponsibly. In the end, I lost my tenants, I lost money, and the management company lost me as a client.

Of course, none of this would have happened in New Zealand because the law protects both landlord and tenant. However, if you are looking to invest in other countries, be sure that you know the current laws regarding all aspects of property investment.

To summarise:

On the plus side agents can save you:

paperwork
having to deal with courts and eviction notices
unpleasant issues like informing tenants of rent increases and complaints against them
On the minus side, they can be:
Lazy or irresponsible or negligent
Slow to get the proper repairmen out quickly
Neglectful about informing you when there are serious problems with your property

Here are some additional facts that could be deal-breakers for a landlord in selecting a property manager.

One of the first things I learned to do when selecting an agent was to see what the caliber of his tradesmen were like. Did he have a decent plumber, roofer and electrician? Were they reliable? How much were their average prices? One of the most frequent expenses a landlord can have with his property is plumbing. During my years as a landlord, the number of times I had been called to send a plumber to one of my properties, and the number of times other plumbers who picked up on previous plumbers and told me they did it wrong, and the outrageous sums of money they charged for their mistakes, made me seriously consider going to school and learning how to be a plumber. I eventually did find a plumber who was moderately priced and knew what he was doing. The downside was it took so long for him to come out and fix the problem. So if you get a property manager who seems reasonable, try to check out the tradesmen that he has on his books. As nice as the property manager may be, it’s his tradesmen who can ruin your reputation as a landlord.

Now let’s say that the tradesmen all check out. Now you are faced with an equally monumental task of checking out the capabilities of a prospective property manager. The laws of a country change frequently and you, as well as your property manager, should keep on top of those changes. Your manager has to chase the rents, document everything, pay you the rent on time and make sure that he has referenced the tenants properly and has accepted documents that are legally binding. Both you and the management agency have to keep on top of all the properties that you own: when the rents are due, when they are paid, when they are posted to your account, whether the correct amounts have been paid, that you have up-to-date agreements between yourself and the agency, that all your tax records are accurate.

If you think that property management is like a walk in the park, you will be in for a rude awakening. There are complex tax issues, laws governing those taxes, laws concerning tenant rights, landlord rights, evictions and contracts. You need to be prepared to spend a great deal of time and energy as a property investor. It’s not a question of just finding a wonderful property. You then have to make sure it remains so. A property manager may not know that the building is developing dry rot. He may not know that the wiring needs to be replaced. He may not know that there is subsidence to the building. But since all of these things and many more greatly affect the property that you are buying, you need to keep on top of these things. These are things that the property manager is not responsible for. So while you can always get yourself a property manager to handle the day-to-day operations, you cannot really afford to be an absentee property owner.

To summarise:

- check out carefully the trademen on the property manager’s books.
- ensure both you and your agent are up-to-date with tax laws and your record-keeping.

The Male Chastity Lifestyle, Male Orgasm Denial and the Single Man

A lesser-encountered problem male orgasm denial and the male chastity lifestyle is how can single men benefit from them, too?

As you’ll probably already be aware, the two biggest groups of people who seek information on male chastity are men and women already in relationships who are searching for information on what male orgasm denial really entails and how to get started with it.

And then there’s a smaller but still reasonably large group of young men, often in their late teens or early twenties who feel their constant arousal and consequent masturbation habits have got out of hand (forgive the pun), and find it’s depleting their energy, reducing their drive to go out and find a real partner and generally having a negative impact on their sex-lives as single men.

Their interest in the male chastity lifestyle tends to be skewed towards the fact it’s simply a way to ensure male orgasm denial and control, and give them more energy for other things rather than the usual reasons of improving a relationship or marriage in a number of different areas.

But there’s another group I’d like to help with this article: single men who would love to live the lifestyle but who despair of ever finding a partner who shares the same interest.

On the face of it, it’s easy to see why these men feel the situation is hopeless. After all, finding a partner for a loving relationship is difficult enough as it is without the added complication of having to find one who shares your particular interest in male orgasm denial and living the male chastity lifestyle.

Even if you frequent the BDSM scene, you’ll quickly come to find, just as with almost every other social scene, get to a certain age and everyone around you is already in a relationship.

So, what’s a single man to do?

Well, my answer may surprise you, and on first reading you’re likely to find it quite scary. But bear with me, and you’ll see it makes perfect sense.

First, if you’ve read my other articles on the subject, you’ll realise the key to making it work for both of you is clear, open and honest communication. That’s why when men (and it usually is men) ask me about how to begin the process of introducing male orgasm denial and the male chastity lifestyle into their relationship, I tell them the most important thing is to be clear about exactly what it is you want from it.

I know this simple and not always easy, but there’s no sensible alternative or substitute.

And a moment’s thought shows us it’s actually made harder because we’re introducing something new into an established relationship, and there’s no doubt that can be both difficult and scary. There’s always the fear that your partner is going to freak out and think you’re some kind of weirdo (I have never known it to happen to that extreme, but I know from my own experience when John introduced it to me, that it can be something of a surprise and a shock).

So from that point of view, single men have an easier job of things, because they are in a perfect position to begin the relationship with the desired outcome of male orgasm denial and a male chastity lifestyle.

Now, I’m not suggesting you change your style of approaching women to one where the first thing out of your mouth is “Hi, I’, Fred, and I like to be locked in a chastity belt“. I suspect that while that will get you results, they won’t be the ones you’re looking for.

But what you can do early on is make sure you communicate openly and honestly about your preferences. Look, I know this is hard, and before you have this kind of conversation, it’s best if there’s already been some physical intimacy between you. The trick is to subtly act the part and lead her into the lifestyle naturally by your combined actions rather than as making some big deal of it (the bigger deal YOU make of male chastity and male orgasm denial, the bigger deal SHE will make of them, that I promise).

And if you’re feeling really brave and you want to maximise your chances of success, I heartily recommend Internet dating. Don’t laugh. That’s how I met John, and we’re a showcase success story.

And when I think back, although John didn’t overtly bring up his kink, the signs were there so he knew I wasn’t averse to the principles of male chastity and male orgasm denial in practice even if the theory was new to me.

There’s no need and probably no mileage in posting your preferences on your “profile”, but there is every reason to bring it up at an early stage, using any one of the numerous strategies I have written a about in articles and on my Blog.

Besides, if you look around you’ll see there are numerous niche dating websites where your posting your deepest, darkest and most bizarre fantasies on your profile is not only OK, but is expected of you.

Isn’t Internet dating a bit “sad”?

Not in the least.

Because the beauty of Internet dating is you get to make a shopping list – and there’s absolutely no reason on Earth not to ask for what you want and to reject anyone who won’t give it to you. You don’t have to settle for beginning a relationship that doesn’t offer exactly what you want.

To Sum Up

For some men, and you might be one of them, male chastity and male orgasm denial are a burning desire that simply won’t go away. You might push them away from time to time and they’ll disappear into the background for a while.

But they always return. And they always will.

You are entitled to want what you want, and you’re perfectly entitled to accept into your life only those who’ll give it to you. Of course, they’re free to decline and choose someone else, but that’s OK, too.

The point is, only by being clear, open and honest about your desires early in your new relationship will you know if you have a chance of living your dream before you spend a lot of time and emotional energy getting close to someone who in the long run doesn’t want what you want.

There is an excessive amount of traffic coming from your Region.

#EANF#

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