WashLocator.com - 4 Months of Featured Listing FREE this week!

[The Wash Locator Guy]

Ok everyone…here it goes! I am proud to announce the launch of WashLocator.com! A different but simple approach.

We are a new platform designed to quickly and effectively help your customers who are actively searching for a car wash online to find the specific type of car wash they are looking for and to help you, the business operators, tell them about your business at the exact moment they are searching and looking to make a decision. Best of all, at Washlocator.com your standard business listing is always free! WashLocator.com is the only place where you will be able to list your wash location by specific types and features, and those specifics will be searchable by customers trying to find you. Since location is often the most important, we’ve emphasized that in our design. This tool is built with car wash owners and operators in mind to more simply and better represent your business online and to make it quick and efficient for a customer searching for a wash in your area to find you. We aim to become the de-facto way people search for a car wash online and to make sure we are at the top of the list when one of the up to 10 million Google searches per month happens across the US for “car wash.”

Claim or List your wash location today and help create a new way to provide useful and specific information for your customers to find you! Additionally, I would welcome any feedback good or bad, I will do my best to respond to any thoughtful comments and concerns below. We will be continuing to iterate and improve functions and design as we learn more about how the site is used.

***UPDATE*** To follow our launch announcement and to celebrate The Car Wash Show this week, we are automatically giving everyone who claims their location 4 free months as a Featured Listing as a thank you during our ramp up!! All that is required is to visit WashLocator.com, find your location or add it, and then claim it. It will automatically be elevated to featured status, with no strings attached and no billing information required. We are offering this to anyone who claims between now and May 18th, at midnight PST. Claim and update your listing today with WashLocator to give your new customers an easy way to find you!

***We do have a couple of items we are finalizing on the platform over the next week but we wanted to invite you into our project so that you would be among the first to start providing the specifics about your wash location early. Once we tidy up these details, we’ll be starting our push for user traffic to the site***

www.WashLocator.com

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

As I mentioned, here are a couple of items we are wrapping up this week and what a featured posting will look like on the map:
Items we are wrapping up this week:

• Owners Dashboard Message Center
• Owners Garage Layout
• Become a Featured Listing
• Search by Wash Feature finalizing
• Displaying the analytics
• Some design elements and button elements

 

[traveler17]

Not trying to be rude and maybe I’m not comprehending but 99.9% of customers search from google , regulars/members and word of mouth.

 

[Dan kamsickas]

This really sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

It's not rude at all, and thanks for asking. It's the question I think most people are wondering about. And it is certainly daunting to say(from my perspective, I don't think the biggest platform in the world(Google) is getting this quite right. I think that's because there isn't anywhere else to look, there isn't an alternative really. The reason I did this is because I think there is a lot of nuance to various locations and as a consumer, the results on Google can be messy if you are looking for something specific. I am not sure where you live but try a search for a "touchless car wash near me" or search for a "car wash with a subscription near me" and see what comes up. In my area(Denver), it just lists everything that is categorized as Car Wash. Google has given the restaurant industry the ability to be nuanced and you can find "Tacos near me" and it won't show you Italian food, but it hasn't done that for the car wash business. As I started to look closer I was impressed by the features and innovations at many different wash locations. I wondered how someone who might have just moved to your community and wants a monthly subscription to a place that also has a pet wash would even find that other than by combing through page by page or just happening to stop by. Long story short, I think that if given the chance, the 99.9% of people searching online(up to 10 million per month), at least a chunk of them would like to search by more specific detail to find what they are looking for. As we grow, do you think it would be nice to be able to tell them at the moment they are searching that you have a "1st month free" promotion or some other type of promotion? Or even have it integrated right to your current system?

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

This really sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Thanks Dan, and it's a wild ride to launch something new and not know if it will succeed or not. However, I am betting on the fact there are a sizeable chunk of people out there who shared the frustration I had as well as the many people I surveyed as I set out to build this. There are a bunch of people who are just going to go to "that one car wash over by Home Depot" that they like and there are certainly people who aren't particular about what kind of wash they get as long as it is convenient and the service is good. I believe there are a lot of people who are accustomed to turning to the internet to find what they want. They could be car enthusiasts, people who are new to your area, people passing through, and more. So time will tell Dan but I am hoping to create something that both helps operators share more specifics about their locations and something that helps your customers find you because you offer just what they are looking for!

 

[AnalyticWash]

The better question is how much does it cost me to get a sticky on the forum?

The idea is alright but I don't like the fact that your are trying to be Yelp of Car Wash search. We all know how great they are to work with. I think you will have a ridiculous time getting a user base.

How much are you charging for a promoted listed?

The reason you have so many bad results with Google is that owners don't correctly focus on SEO for their type of wash. Also, your average consumer doesn't know anything about carwashes which results in generic searches for "car wash".

 

[Dan kamsickas]

there are certainly people who aren't particular about what kind of wash they get as long as it is convenient and the service is good.

That always has been, and always will be, the single biggest determining factor.

 

[Axxlrod]

So the idea is that the average customer is going to go this website to search for a car wash instead of just googling? I don't see them using a two-step process instead of the single step of googling.

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

The better question is how much does it cost me to get a sticky on the forum?

The idea is alright but I don't like the fact that your are trying to be Yelp of Car Wash search. We all know how great they are to work with. I think you will have a ridiculous time getting a user base.

How much are you charging for a promoted listed?

The reason you have so many bad results with Google is that owners don't correctly focus on SEO for their type of wash. Also, your average consumer doesn't know anything about carwashes which results in generic searches for "car wash".

Shoot the admin a message, I am sure he'd be glad to cover it with you, it's not my business to air

With that said, thanks for your thoughtful comments, please keep them coming! Trust me, I am 100% not trying to be YELP for the exact reasons you mentioned and many, including myself, have experienced. For example, I don't see any posts from them here asking operators how they would like to be treated and represented and asking for how they can be better. My actual hope is to create a platform that is specific enough to the industry that it becomes a reliable and useful source for the group of people who are looking online and possibly for something specific. I believe the customer's decision to find a wash online is something that happens kind of impulsively and they might take a quick skim of what Google has to say and they may be greeted by a myriad of varying results. My hope is that we can create a way for someone to find just what they are looking for and be on their way in 60 seconds or less.

And you know, I had considered going around and talking to each individual car wash owner/operator about maximizing their SEO and updating and managing their websites monthly...but then I thought maybe there was a better way! While I am kidding, I did come to believe it might be nice to have a simple (and free!) place to list the type and features of your wash so someone can find it and not have to go out and be a master of SEO or digital advertising. That way they can keep focusing on what they do best, running their car wash! As we ramp, we'll make sure we're at the top of the search results for "Car Wash" so that each business doesn't have to!

We aim to be an improved tool in the toolbelt of all the things that go into running a car wash business. We are most certainly not the only tool.

And lastly, we have an announcement coming tomorrow about the featured status so stay tuned for that! But once the paid featured status becomes available it will be $26/month for our launch period pricing. As you alluded to, there is a cost to things like advertising in this forum as well as operational cost and cost to push up the rankings with Google. But our goal is to generate a slice of the traffic of up to 10 million searches per month online for customers searching for a wash and give them a cleaner and faster way to find what they are looking for.

Thanks again for your input!

 

[Dan kamsickas]

I can applaud your thought and effort but, to be frank, you're really off base. The overwhelming majority of people wash their vehicles as part of a larger set of travels near their home. For example: I have errands to run tomorrow morning(Home Depot, butcher shop, etc.) and because my truck is filthy I will get it washed at one of the facilities that I am already aware of that fits into my other errands. I would wager whatever you want that the number of people who actually search for a wash near them via google is an infinitesimally small percentage of actual wash customers.

 

[traveler17]

Again this not a knock for trying something new because that’s how great things happen. But with what you’re trying imo is not going to work. Collectively here you have single and multi site operators with decades of experience of how to attract a customer base and I would listen to the feedback given. When you go out of town and looking for a place to visit, eat etc…are you going to download an app looking for who bakes , grills or fries their chicken?? To much hassle. Go to search engine, type in food your looking for and off ya go. Prove us wrong and I’ll be the first to say good job.

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

I can applaud your thought and effort but, to be frank, you're really off base. The overwhelming majority of people wash their vehicles as part of a larger set of travels near their home. For example: I have errands to run tomorrow morning(Home Depot, butcher shop, etc.) and because my truck is filthy I will get it washed at one of the facilities that I am already aware of that fits into my other errands. I would wager whatever you want that the number of people who actually search for a wash near them via Google is an infinitesimally small percentage of actual wash customers.

Thanks Dan, it is certainly risky to try and do something new and I certainly don't mind you telling me from your experience where the issues are here. As traveler17 said, many of you have many many years of experience and knowledge in attracting customers. I'm open to hearing any and all of your feedback (except telling me to pack it in and quit lol) I very much agree with you that is how the vast majority of wash decisions are made and that they are often impulsive and conditional. That's how I do it too! But I am also your customer who is irritated I can't find what I wanted online. Maybe it's regional but in Denver, there are a ton of options and my errands take 30 minutes to one side of town or the other. There will be people who are your regulars who you have treated well that will keep coming back because of the facility and service you provide and they won't have the need to go online looking. But someone who is new to your area, or passing through with an RV covered in bugs that they need an oversize bay for, or someone who had a bad experience and wants to try to find a new place? To your point, they might only need to find you once and then you do what you do and they'll keep coming back. Most(99.99%) people won't do this every single time they are looking but they might do it to find something that is close to their new job or somewhere great to help them take care of their sweet brand new ride they just traded their beater in for.

I know there is a mountain to climb here and I appreciate everyone's input on trying something new. The good news is, it's FREE for you to just list the details of your location. It will cost you nothing to find out if we can make it work, you can just sit back and see if I can make it happen I'm not trying to hurt anyone's business, I am trying to create a pathway for you to reach specific customers who might be looking for something you specifically do. Here is the math and this is from Google and not me. If there are around 10 million searches per month on Google for Car washes, then that's 20,000 per state (obviously it is ridiculous to divide it like that but it's for argument's sake). So for whatever reason, people are online and they are looking. Those are people who are looking for a new place for whatever reason. There are clearly way more than that in washes every month per state. But if we manage to grow to get 10% of the people who weren't happy with the results Google provided and they see our site by name next and think it might help them find what they want, then we have a pretty successful venture going.

 

[Roz]

For fun I used Google with the keywords carwash locator and wash locator. Your site did not pop up at all so you might want I get that aspect fixed to help with the momentum.
Good luck.

 

[Dan kamsickas]

Again this not a knock for trying something new because that’s how great things happen. But with what you’re trying imo is not going to work. Collectively here you have single and multi site operators with decades of experience of how to attract a customer base and I would listen to the feedback given. When you go out of town and looking for a place to visit, eat etc…are you going to download an app looking for who bakes , grills or fries their chicken?? To much hassle. Go to search engine, type in food your looking for and off ya go. Prove us wrong and I’ll be the first to say good job.

I just hit the voice button on my steering wheel, say "Fried Chicken", and the closest places pop up on google maps on my display.

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

For fun I used Google with the keywords carwash locator and wash locator. Your site did not pop up at all so you might want I get that aspect fixed to help with the momentum.
Good luck.

Hey Roz! Thanks for checking it out and you're right, that is a little intentional right this moment. The website went live a little over a week ago and we were "hiding" our database from Google a little while we were finishing a couple of things and talking about our launch with early adopters. We have a couple of things going online shortly that will move us to the front page and as we build we'll likely even do some paid placement with Google.

 

[traveler17]

I just hit the voice button on my steering wheel, say "Fried Chicken", and the closest places pop up on google maps on my display.

You should join his app then. Ya just proved my point, go to google and type it in. Are you going to sign up for an app that tells you where to find fried chicken ???

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

Not trying to be rude and maybe I’m not comprehending but 99.9% of customers search from google , regulars/members and word of mouth.

You should join his app then. Ya just proved my point, go to google and type it in. Are you going to sign up for an app that tells you where to find fried chicken ???

I may have underestimated the love for fried chicken!! Follow up question, would you be mad if you said "Fried Chicken" after pressing the button on your steering wheel and it took you to a vegetarian joint known for its "fried chicken alternative??"

 

[traveler17]

I may have underestimated the love for fried chicken!! Follow up question, would you be mad if you said "Fried Chicken" after pressing the button on your steering wheel and it took you to a vegetarian joint known for its "fried chicken alternative??"

Yeah most definitely but for me personally I wouldn’t pay for an app to tell me and “I love fried chicken “

 

[The Wash Locator Guy]

Yeah most definitely but for me personally I wouldn’t pay for an app to tell me and “I love fried chicken “

Me too!! The good news is that there is nothing to download and it's free so no need to pay! Just trying to help new customers in your area find you