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  Mike Stapleton January 8, 2009 at 5:06pm

  I only use the free listing now have had paid adds before, found it to be a waste of money. I think most people looking for a garden designer will look on the net so what we have done is by the domains. ie we live in hereford so we own gardendesignhereford.co.uk and forward it to our website, we have done the same with herefordshire,monmouthshire and herefordlandscapers, hopefully if someone is looking for a garden designerd in herefordshire we will come at the top of the list. Thats the theory anyhow we will see if it works
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  Nicky @ GardenImprovements.com January 8, 2009 at 7:14pm

  I would say it is worth a punt for a year as the yell.com site does seem very popular. You must - like any form of advertising - keep track of your enquiries though to find out how they found you so that you can monitor it's success. If it hasn't provided a sufficient return then don't renew.
  
  I think they might do a pay-as-you go service for ads as well which might be worthwhile as a market tester.
  
  Google AdWords is probably the most successful option for paid online advertising but nothing beats getting into the top ranking page - though this can be very costly in time and resources!
  
  Don't go near Webfinder from Thomson Local. They operate a pay-per-click system and accomodate Google Adwords and a whole spectrum of online advertising sites. The problem is their geographical targetting is awful and because of this I have spent £700 in little over 2 months in Oct and Nov 2008 for spammers from Inidia, USA, Sweden and Germany to visit my site. Not quite Glasgow and surrounding areas. I have contested this and they have (of course) contested my protestations. I whacked them with the big 'Trading Standards' threat and they are now "looking into it".
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  Kerrie John-The garden design Co January 8, 2009 at 7:29pm

  No wonder you have your head in your hands.
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  Nicky @ GardenImprovements.com January 8, 2009 at 8:27pm

  Yeah it's a brand new scheme i think and so I'm one of the half-wit suckers that gets to guinea pig all their teething problems. Anyway live and learn!
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  James January 8, 2009 at 9:24pm

  I had one of the Thompson local 'agents' come round and offer me all sorts of fantastic things. 10 minutes into his sales patter I switched off, said thanks for coming and i'll think about it. He drove all the way over from glasgow, he insisted though !
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  Phil Voice January 10, 2009 at 8:31am

  I think we need to go into advertising a little bit more. There is absolutely no need to spend the kinds of sums that Nicky has unfortunately been 'wacked' for.
  
  I am fitting a radiator today so I have little time but I will follow up at sometime soon.
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  Heidi Joyce January 10, 2009 at 10:20am

  I do something a little different which I find works well. I contact independant businesses in my area eg organic cafes, independant cinemas etc. With the cinema for example I do their outside area completely for free ( plants, pots compost and labour) then they give me free advertising in their programme and I leave signs and fliers in the bar. It works really well because people get to see your style of work and I think it speaks more than a flat ad. They also get to see that i am reliable and that speaks volumes for my company as well. I would say 1,000 people go through that cinema a week and it costs me about £150 every 2 months plus labour to keep it going. I can also sell on the old plants or use them. I get at least 2 leads a month from it and in the spring I plan to approach other companies.
  
  I hope this helps
  
  Heidi
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  James January 10, 2009 at 10:47am

  I like that idea Heidi, I'm thinking along the same lines of approaching advertising. Throwing a curve ball in against the conventional way of advertising, not quite put my finger on what would work round these parts. Nows the time I need to be ramping things up towards spring time.
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  Nick Steele January 10, 2009 at 6:50pm

  We've also had very poor experience with Google ad words - very poorly targeted geographically, and very expensive (tho we managed to pull the plug before it got anywhere near the amount Nicky was stung for). We've also used Yellow pages (some years ago) and found it absurdly expensive, and completely (and I mean COMPLETELY) ineffectual.
  
  We now rely on our website, and a regular editorial/advert in our local free ad magazine (6 publications per year) both of which we think work well.
  
  In our very early days we also leafleted every house in our town, and most of the surrounding towns, which also drummed up quite a good response.
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  Nicky @ GardenImprovements.com January 10, 2009 at 9:30pm

  So the Thomson Directories online PPC option is called Webfinder. The idea is that you bank £x amount of clicks with them and that is used up throuout the year. The minimum bank was £600 and this is how much I paid. There is also a £150 admin setup charge. Since I was paying something like £90 per month for Adwords, this seemed like a sound alternative because my fund only reduced whenever someone clicked onto my website and I could set regional priorities for Glasgow and surrounding towns. Not only that but Webfinder is in full association with Adwords - so it was billed to me as Adwords plus all the other directories etc for cheaper. Seemed reasonable to me.
  
  I don't necessarily agree with Stuart who suggests that all you need is a website and good keywords and title words. This often isn't enough in a competitive market. There are only 10 spots on Google's first page and sometimes some of them are taken up by directory listings or news stories. Also I think that generally new clients (up here anyway) feel reassured by a more comprehensive web and paper advertiser presence and since recognisable brands such as Yell and Thomson project familiarity and a particular comfort to them, this settles any preliminary uncertainties they often have about landscaping firms given the constant bad press we get on programmes like Rogue Traders etc.
  
  I agree though that the premium these advertising companies charge is getting out of hand.
  
  My Webfinder fiasco came about because their geographical settings were a load of b****cks and so my advert was displayed worldwide so that I was receiving clicks from rediculous sources and thus my "annual" budget was spent in 2 short months. I had been monitoring it and had actually complained because in the first 2 months of the contract I had only recieved 2 clicks costing 70p. They dealt with my complaint and then WHAMMY. I hadn't been properly monitoring it over these 2 months and I get an email asking me to top up my funds because they were low! And they were - minus £9.50!!