It’s HOT in Dubai.
And I’ve been trying to get my AC fixed because it’s blowing tepid air and my apartment is a moist 27 degrees all the time.
I’ve got a pedestal fan running so that I can sleep at night.
Now building maintenance has done all they can to figure out what’s going on and the best answer is ‘it’s just very hot’.
I’m no expert but that’s not exactly washing well with me.
So i’ve been on the hunt to find a 3rd party to come through and give my AC the once over.
But you wouldn’t believe how hard it’s been.
False advertising & no concept of time
I get it, it’s hot and I’m not the only one with an AC that’s struggling. But when I see ads for ‘247 service’ and then get told they only work certain hours, that’s just poor form.
You can work your hours as you like. Just don’t lead me on with false advertising.
To compound the problem, no one seems to be available after office hours. Ignoring the ‘247’ element for a moment, it seems these service businesses are oblivious to the working hours of everyone else.
As I keep reminding them that I can’t be home during the hours they operate, they still keep suggesting times between this window.
For some of them, their own Google My Business listing shows different hours to the ones they propose.
Take the time to get your facts in order and make sure your website, listings and staff are all up to date on your hours.
Not enough people are making use of click to call and WhatsApp
If I can click the WhatsApp icon on your website and start sending you a message, then you’ve already won me over. It’s often just easier this way. Nothing beats a call but sometimes you can’t call and just have to send a message.
Everyone’s busy and when you let people use WhatsApp, everyone can communicate on their own time.
Its not enough to list your number or tell people to WhatsApp you – that’s just lazy.
Spend the 5 minutes to integrate WhatsApp messaging with your website.
You’ll get a lot more leads, trust me.
Too many websites are just keyword stuffed and not geared towards lead gen.
I get it – you want to rank well but whatever happened to setting up your pages for conversions?
Stop trying to keep things a secret. Stop making it hard for people to contact you.
Put your contact details front and centre and then let the SEO stuff do the heavy lifting down below.
Given most people will be searching on mobile, it makes sense to get to the point as quickly as possible.
Yes, we want more info to make sure we’re dealing with a good business and yes we can scroll.
But we don’t want to be going down the endless rabbit hole to figure out how to contact you.
Make sure the mobile experience is rock solid. Get your non-tech savvy friends to use it and see what happens. If they struggle, go back to the drawing board and fix it. Don’t make people think.
I optimise content for discovery and conversions. Which means, I don’t just focus on ranking a site well, I focus on getting it to generate business.
If your SEO consultant doesn’t have this in mind, then you need to watch out for money being left on the table.
Anyone can fix meta tags and get a site to rank higher. But not everyone knows how to turn that into money in the bank. A top ranking site means little if it doesn’t pay dividends.
For these service based businesses in Dubai, they rely on calls, emails and messages in order to get business. But they’re just throwing money on Google Ads with inaccurate information. And they run poorly optimised sites that look like trash on mobile.
Honestly, I wish I could just rebuild the online experience for all these service businesses in Dubai.
And then exchange my services for AC repair because right now, I could use all the help I can get.
