Home Heating Google Ads worth it?

Are Google Adwords, Yahoo, and Bing advertising right for home heating companies? Here at Fuelstart we too are guilty of using Google Adwords to get the word out about our company and services. We all know Google is the Cadillac of online advertising, but I'm amazed how much certain keywords cost.

For example keywords such as

Heating oil prices ma

Best heating oil prices

Connecticut Oil

Massachusetts Oil

all will cost you a minimum of 50cents a click. These clicks add up fast! Depending on what you set your daily budget for and how far your demographic reach is. You could easily rack up 50 clicks and end up quickly spending $25 bucks. This might sound like short money, but do this consistently throughout the year and it will cost you well over $9000.

By no means I'm telling you not to use these advertising services. Heck we use them. The point I'm trying to make is just advertise on Fuelstart.com. No no just kidding. The real point is make sure you keep an eye on your daily budget and be sure your targeting the right area demographic. This will save your company lots of wasted clicks and more importantly save you Money!

BTW: We offer cheap highly targeted online advertising services. Click here for more details.

Best Places to Buy Wood Pellets Online

When I first thought about writing this blog post I thought it would be easy to come up with a top 5 list "Best Places to Buy Wood Pellets Online". After doing a little bit of  research I soon discovered there really isn't many places you can order and pay for wood pellets online without picking up a phone. I was actually surprised with the lack of Ecommerce ordering offered by wood pellet resellers. Why aren't more companies embracing the ease of use of systems like Google Checkout and Paypal? They offer low fee's and for the most part pretty straight forward to use. Ecommerce sites are a dime a dozen these days. Which makes it even more puzzling. Why aren't more companies expanding their businesses by switching their current websites to handle online transactions? With that said my high hopes of having a list of 5 was sadly shrunk to only 2.


2.) CJ's Pellet Depot offers the high quality wood pellets by delivery or pickup to the Greater Springfield, MA and Greater Hartford, CT areas

And #1 drum roll please............

1.) WoodPellets.com Their mission is to make it very easy to find, buy, and use wood pellets and other bio-fuels to heat your home. They ship the best fuels in the industry to you through the most efficient transportation methods available – right to your home.

If I missed any wood pellet resellers that has an online ordering system please feel free to comment and direct us to the site. Thanks!

Another Basement Full of Heating Oil

I feel like I read about these types of accidents all the time. Homeowners wake up! Remove the old pipes if you no longer use Oil! Click the link below to read about the this incident.

Crude Awakening: Wrong Delivery Fills Man's Basement with Heating Oil

What's the deal with the cost of Propane?

Recently we received an email from a fellow Fuelstart community member upset about the fluctuating price of propane. Below is a portion of that email.

"I had a 325 gallon propane tank filled 2 days ago (1/6/2010) from my local propane dealer with a price of $2.6247 per gallon (140 gallons). I was quoted the day for the delivery at 2.53 per gallon ( increase of almost 10% in 1 day). My neighbor had his propane tank filled today and was charged $5.13 per gallon (200 gallons equals over $1000)from his local propane dealer. I think all of the states should pass a regulation to make all the fuel oil and propane delivery companies post their price per gallon on their website or on website such as yours or the state agency websites.

Also should show the price the dealer is paying for fuel from their source (end of pipeline, etc) and the transportation, and the tariffs, and retail price based on volume the consumer uses. I think that this is the only way to give the consumer reassurance that he is being treated fairly. I also thought maybe you could suggest other places I might be to send this request for action."

I agree with this user. That is why started we Fuelstart in the first place! We have contacted several propane dealers and they are reluctant to post their prices here or even there on own website. I guess one of the main reasons is that they have different prices based on the usage of the propane. Such as cooking or heating purposes. As far as recommendations go I would let your local propane dealer's know that you would like to see the price posted here or on their own companies website. The bottom line is they have the right to charge what ever they want for the products they sell. It's up to the consumer to make sure they are being tried fairly. Hopefully in time they will start posting prices as most heating oil companies have already adopted and embraced this practice.

Older blog post Why is Propane so Expensive?

Cheapest Oil UK and Ireland

During the past couple of weeks I've been exchanging emails with the founder of http://www.cheapestoil.co.uk/ (UK and Northern Ireland) and http://www.cheapestoil.ie/ (Republic of Ireland).They like us are a fuel price comparsion website. According to their founder in Northern Ireland, where they are based, about 72% of people heat their homes with oil. They have dealt with similar struggles getting some Oil dealers to adopt the concept of using the internet to promote their respective companies. We have been sharing ideas and hope to bring new features that can help both homeowners and fuel dealers.

Across the big pond they are currently in the grip of the worst cold snap in 30 years. The price of heating oil has risen from £350 ($560) to over £410 ($656) for a standard supply of 900 litres (which is about 237 U.S. gallons) and there are delays caused by snow and ice in getting deliveries. Naturally, people are going berserk, accusing oil distributors of profiteering and the message of stock market prices going up isn’t being heard.

Here in America Oil has went up, but nothing like we saw a couple of years ago. Nevertheless we both agree that our websites serve as a great tool for homeowners and fuel dealers. We that said I'm glad we both share the same thoughts and will continue build our websites to better serve the community.