Is computer repair a viable profession right now?

[Ascendant]

Wasn't sure of the best place to post this, so here goes... I'm 34, and looking to change professions. Long story as to why, but the health and fitness industry I have worked with over the past 15 years is completely dead due to the economy. It is only a small part of why I'm changing professions, but nonetheless, has been a contributing factor.

So anyway, I'm headed back to school, and trying to figure out something I can do part-time which will be flexible hours that I can revolve around a primary focus on college.

Since I have worked with computers since the Commodore 64 existed, I thought I might create a computer repair website and try to do that locally. However, I'm not really sure how competitive the industry is and whether or not it would be worth my time.

Since I moved recently, I had to start from scratch again in my industry. I spent countless hours putting together a website for freelance personal training, and after about 6 weeks, I've managed to get it to the first page of local searches. However, it has still not pulled me in anything because of how bad the economy impacted us (and how competitive the industry is now because of it). I just don't want to waste any more time on it.

But anyway, I was wondering for those who opened a personal business in their areas, how competitive is it? How hard was it to get yourself to the top of the local searches? Is it something where you can develop a good website and draw people in, or is it like personal training, where you have to constantly aggressively market and sell to pull in any business? Any info you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated, because I really don't want to develop another web page and spend weeks upon weeks all for no return again.

 

[berry120]

What is your area? Something like this will largely depend on where abouts you are - the US can be quite different from the UK for instance.

 

[Dngrsone]

Frankly, there are just too many guys with screwdrivers and internet connections; unless you have the resources to go big with advertising and such or you have a specialty niche to occupy, then it's not going to be a money-maker.

If you can tailor your angle toward those health-and-fitness organizations, for instance, say specialize in their particular programming needs, then you might have a chance.

 

[Ascendant]

What is your area? Something like this will largely depend on where abouts you are - the US can be quite different from the UK for instance.

I'm in the US.

 

[Ascendant]

Frankly, there are just too many guys with screwdrivers and internet connections; unless you have the resources to go big with advertising and such or you have a specialty niche to occupy, then it's not going to be a money-maker.

If you can tailor your angle toward those health-and-fitness organizations, for instance, say specialize in their particular programming needs, then you might have a chance.

Well, I won't have time to put a ton of focus into something like this. All I wanted to make was just a website and local business listings to be a local resource for computer repair.

From what I saw so far, there's only one actual website for a local computer repair business, but then there's a ton of other companies listed on local business pages (yellow pages, google local, etc.). When I saw that there was only one local website, I figured it might be worth it. After seeing there are well over 2 dozen local business listings for computer repair, I'm starting to think this would be a complete waste of effort.

 

[waldorfpc]

Well, it all depends on who you are going to target. You may find it more profitable to target a specific niche group, such as doctor's offices. Many of them are trying to go paperless now, and it is a good thing to get in on if you can. You can market yourself as trying to help them. Tell them you are there to meet their needs, and you completely understand the sensitivity of their data and will take measures to insure it is safe.

You can also offer services to business by contract. In my area, that seems to be the best money maker. While the market is saturated, you can make it by being creative and thinking outside the box.

One way you can be creative is by looking at your competitors and see what they are doing. Once you have watched them enough, begin thinking about what you will offer that they do not. An example of this is that none of your competitors stay open twenty-four hours. They all close at six. You can then either decide to run a twenty-four hour business or keep much later hours. You can also offer specials your competitors do not.

SEO is not too hard if you get a strategy down. I'll give you some suggestions of things you can do to get you started.

1. provide answers to computer repair related questions on Yahoo Answers. In the source box, put a link back to your website. Doing this is an excellent way to get backlinks. Be sure, though, to incorporate keywords into your answers.
2. Keep a blog offering computer repair tips. You can make this blog part of your website. Once you have gotten your blog built up enough, comment on other people's blogs with a link leading back to yours. The best way to do this is to use anchor text, like having a keyword and linking it back to your site, and making sure the comment is relevant. After all, you do not want your comment to be marked as spam.
3. Write short articles and submit them to top article directories. Make sure you have keywords throughout your articles and have your site URL in the resource box. Top directories I recommend are Searchwarp and EZine Articles.

Before you do any organic SEO, make sure you do careful keyword research and use a combination of competitive and noncompetitive keywords. A combination of short and long-tailed phrases will do you fine.

Some keyword research tools you can use are:

*www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com
*Google Insights for Search
*Google Trends
*SEO Software. Simplified. | SEOmoz

I hope I have helped. Best wishes to you. I believe you can do it, and you will do fine.

 

[MMM]

Wasn't sure of the best place to post this, so here goes... I'm 34, and looking to change professions. Long story as to why, but the health and fitness industry I have worked with over the past 15 years is completely dead due to the economy. It is only a small part of why I'm changing professions, but nonetheless, has been a contributing factor.

So anyway, I'm headed back to school, and trying to figure out something I can do part-time which will be flexible hours that I can revolve around a primary focus on college.

Since I have worked with computers since the Commodore 64 existed, I thought I might create a computer repair website and try to do that locally. However, I'm not really sure how competitive the industry is and whether or not it would be worth my time.

Since I moved recently, I had to start from scratch again in my industry. I spent countless hours putting together a website for freelance personal training, and after about 6 weeks, I've managed to get it to the first page of local searches. However, it has still not pulled me in anything because of how bad the economy impacted us (and how competitive the industry is now because of it). I just don't want to waste any more time on it.

But anyway, I was wondering for those who opened a personal business in their areas, how competitive is it? How hard was it to get yourself to the top of the local searches? Is it something where you can develop a good website and draw people in, or is it like personal training, where you have to constantly aggressively market and sell to pull in any business? Any info you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated, because I really don't want to develop another web page and spend weeks upon weeks all for no return again.

For software related issues there might be a market but for hardware forget it as new computers are real cheap these days.
I personally think the computer industry is too competitive & advertising plays a big part at a cost.

 

[setishock]

Repairshops and repair persons are a dime a dozen. Even the members here can build systems and do advanced trouble shooting. When some one asks for help there's places like this that can walk a person through what to look for and most of the time, how to fix it.
I'd look for something related you could do.

 

[jmacavali]

Repairshops and repair persons are a dime a dozen. Even the members here can build systems and do advanced trouble shooting. When some one asks for help there's places like this that can walk a person through what to look for and most of the time, how to fix it.
I'd look for something related you could do.

It also comes down to the size of the city/town you live in. If you're like me and live in a small little hillbilly town, the closest repair shop is about 20 miles away in the "big city" , then you might have a chance at doing some business locally if you can find one or two people to let you work on their computer and then they can spread it around by word of mouth. If however, you live in a bigger city where there are already established/reputable repair shops then it's going to be much harder. Either way, you're still not likely to make anything more than "lunch money" if you are going to be focusing on schooling first.

 

[Ascendant]

Well thanks so much for all the information. You've all been very helpful, and I really appreciate it.

@ Waldorf - I really like your suggestions. I think the one that would be most viable for me at this point would be to put together an offer to send out to local businesses to help them with going paperless in any way I can. Probably won't give me a whole lot of work, but at least most of that work would have relatively flexible hours.