PinBud blog

Posts Tagged ‘pinbud’

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We are celebrating the New Year’s beginning by launching a new BIG opportunity for our users.

You know that any PinBud GOLD account usually comes with a 1 year completely free, full trial period. But we are ready to give away some extra FREE 1-4 years subscription periods!

What’s the deal?

The deal is simple. You must have a blog and post a review about PinBud. Or you can ask a friend that has a blog to help you and post a review on his / her blog. We encourage everyone to be honest and write honest reviews (with both pro or cons). In order to get the promotion, the review must meet the following conditions:

1. The blog’s homepage must have at least Google PageRank 0. Blogs with no PageRank will not be accepted.
2. Your review must contain at least 1 dofollow link towards PinBud.com or PinBud.ca (this is up to you, but we suggest you to link the most appropriate domain). Reviews with nofollow link will not be accepted.
3. The review must contain at least 200 words. This text contains 185 words up to >>> here <<<. Shorter texts will not be accepted.
4. The review must be a real, readable text. Ready-made reviews composed with article spinning software will not be accepted. We need real, honest feedback!
5. The blog must stay live all the time during the promotion. We’ll automatically check every blog, from time to time. If you get a 3 years subscription but the review will disappear after 2 months, we’ll cut your subscription (and notify you).
6. The reviews must be unique and coming from unique blogs. The same blog cannot be used in order to promote 2 different company profiles.

What do you get and for how long?

1. If your blog has PageRank 0-2, you will get 1 extra year (plus the initial 12 months).
2. If your blog has PageRank 3-5, you will get 2 extra years (plus the initial 12 months).
3. If your blog has PageRank 6-7, you will get 3 extra years (plus the initial 12 months).
4. If your blog has PageRank 8+ you will get 4 extra years (plus the initial 12 months). That’s almost 5 years!

We will consider only the initial PageRank. If your blog will gain or lose PageRank in a given unit of time, we’ll not increase or decrease your subscription period.

How to get this promotion?

This is the easiest part. First of all, make sure that you have an account with PinBud. Then write your review (or ask somebody to write it). Then drop us a note at the following e-mail address:

reviews |a| pinbud DOT com (of course, you have to replace |a| with @ and DOT with . )

and mention in that note:

• what’s your business profile on PinBud
• where is posted the online review

We’ll acknowledge your application, we’ll analyze it and we’ll give in few hours a reply if accepted or not. Than, if accepted, you will see in your account the new subscription’s activation.

Enjoy writing!

We must say a big “THANK YOU !” to all those Canadians who visited and used PinBud Canada during the last November. As anyone can see from the map shown above (taken from Google Analytics), PinBud is now used all over Canada, from Halifax to Vancouver and from the frozen North to the US border.

For December, we are preparing some changes that will positively impact the UX and another big launch. Stay tuned and thank you all for your support!

Really, I do! Yesterday I was enjoying my Jagermeister on the deck when my kid told me that we have a moth in the fireplace. She could see it behind the glass and it was scary, she claimed. “Just burn it!” was my quick solution. (Now, all you moth lovers don’t freak out! Maybe it was the Jager in me..).  “Dad, the fireplace doesn’t work!” Eager to kill the intruder, I tried it myself. Indeed, the fireplace was dead. After a quick assessment I decided that it needs cleaning and repairs… before winter comes in a couple of months (I’m in Calgary, not in Phoenix!). I figured that the problem is electrical even if it is a gas fireplace.

So, I do need someone to fix my fireplace. An electrician experienced with fireplaces, or vice-versa, a fireplace guy licensed as electrician.

So now, please tell me, where can I find someone like that? What, the Yellow Pages? Google Maps? Are you kidding me? Did you see those lists? And no, my buddy did not refer a good electrician to me either.

Let’s look at Yellow Pages. Results for “Electricians in Calgary”: three sponsored listings plus another 45 businesses. All have phone numbers. Some have websites and emails. One has photos, several have videos, and three have reviews. Unfortunately there are no keywords available. Obviously, I would narrow results if “fireplace” was a keyword.

Let’s look at Google: A few sponsored links and a bunch of organic listings. Some are electricians, others are classifieds (kijiji), the BBB, a couple directories (more directories?), and one or two review sites. Plus, of course, Google Maps (aka Google Places, formerly Google Local).

Now, you may think this is great! Plenty of choices, right? Actually, I don’t think so! Now I have to do a lot of research: read some business profiles and consumer reviews to find out who is qualified to do a good job. My budget is also limited; I figure this is a hundred bucks job, not more. Then what am I supposed to do? Select a few companies and call them one by one, explain the problem to each of them, get quotes, book appointments? Man, that requires some effort and it sounds time consuming!

I have a better solution: PinBud. Yeah, I’m not joking! The website is brand new but it is already returning some good results. Businesses are enrolling every day – for free! – all over Canada and United States, in many service categories, with all kinds of keywords and information. I can sort and display results by distance, by number of listings per page, or by working hours. I can indicate the search radius around my address. Or I can look for my keywords. Sorting by ratings and number of reviews is also available.

Each PinBud business listing has a detailed presentation page. If they completed their profile I can see a relevant description, contact information, location on the map, current deals and discounts, and previous job portfolio. User reviews and ratings are also enabled. Really, a listing on PinBud looks already as good as, if not better than, most other directories out there.

But our truly great local search improvement is the one contact form for multiple service providers. I can select several good local businesses, complete a quick and easy service request form, and send my quote request to all of them in one easy step.

So, here I go: I search for Electricians around my postal code, T2Y 4L6. PinBud returns 191 businesses located in a 25 km radius. That sounds like an awful lot, so I reduce the area to 10 km. I still get 59 businesses. Nevertheless, the first three listings are PinBud members that I can contact at once using the one request form. Ideally I should get tens of businesses so I can sort, review and select five or ten of them, but three will do for now. (Hello, Calgary Electricians! Why aren’t you there on PinBud already?)

I am sending my job request to the three Electricians I selected, and then I will wait for their response and decide for the best quote (not necessarily the cheapest).  In the end, one electrician will get the job and we will have a working fireplace this winter. And no moth either!

Chris (going back to my Jagermeister now)

The first version of PinBud was launched in Canada at the beginning of 2010. Since then we've manage to grow steadily the number of businesses that have open an account with us, so PinBud.ca features now quite interesting listings in areas such as:

• plumbers in Calgary
• general contracting and renovations in Calgary
• interior design in Calgary
• basement renovations in Calgary
• office & shop renovations in Calgary
• fireplaces in Calgary
• tax preparers in Calgary
• accountants and bookkeepers in Calgary
• interior design in Edmonton
• painting in Edmonton
• graphic designers in Calgary
• realtors and appraisers in Calgary
• and many more…

We still have to populate certain categories, such as dentists in Calgary, where we would love to see more plain members. As we wrote earlier, PinBud's 'own radius' feature is ideal for businesses such as a dental clinic or a veterinarian cabinet in search for clients. Using 'own radius' feature, combined with vouchers, a dentist or a vet can easily get clients from outside its community.

But we have now almost 300 businesses that can be contacted and participate in bids for a lot of jobs. Thus, we have also experience the first  "single requests for service" / "get quotes" and we must say that our system works like we wanted: it's simple to understand, simple to use and the first users seem to love it.

So, don't wait anymore:

• open your account 
• fill-in the profile
• get reviews
• publish your badge
• answer and bid…
• enjoy PinBud!