Test Your Company Website

Mike Finley

Sorry, no link to a high tech computerized checker of your website for something. I get a lot of marketing stuff, some crap some sort of crap, some okay. This falls under the okay.

How do potential customers see company websites, listed in order of the decision process:

1. Look for the type of work the company does
2. Form an opinion - professional website = professional service, amateur website = amateur service
3. Look for photos of the staff & learn about their qualifications
4. Look for customer references
5. Look for photos of past jobs
6. Look for information about remodeling techniques about the contractors type of work
7. Decide whether to want to hire that company or not

According to them, a customer will make a decision whether you are hireable or not within less than 2 minutes spent on your website. So you can look at the list and see if your website measures up to what they say customers are doing. The part about looking for photos of the staff and their qualifications is a suprise to me.

Gordo

Mike,
That was good info. I am in the process of formulating a website. I am contracting a professional company to do it. Cost=$6000. This thing will have all the bells and whistles.

Whats everybody else paying? That is for a professional company to do it?

Oh, Mike.....just a heads up....I was on your site the other day....pretty cool......but there are a couple of typos.

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Looks like some pros were here.

Mike Finley

Only a couple? If you happen to know where they are hit me with em.

I'm tossing the idea around of hiring a high school English teacher to proof it for me. Lord knows I could use it.

Gordo

Yeah. I was all over the place on your site.......will have to visit again to point them out.

How much did you spend on yours?

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Looks like some pros were here.

supercrew

Mike, as i recall i was way smarter than both my high school english teacher and my college english professor. heck i'll proof read your post if the pays right.

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copusbuilder

Then you need to capitalize your I's

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www.etexasrentals.com
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AkA Richard Cranium

Mike Finley

Probably couldn't afford you, school teachers work pretty cheap ya know.

You'd probably be marking up the paper by 40% and figuring in your insurance and overhead.

Seriously though the school teacher thing is a good one, I've done stuff like that before for business related items. I just hired a semi-retired HR professional to look over our company employee handbook and present an opinion on it, cost me a whopping $50.00 and she "warned" me ahead of time she charges $20 a hour.

There is a huge talent pool out there of super talented people if you know where to look in the not so obvious places. Lot of talent at SCORE too.

Mike Finley

I've probably got about $50 bucks into it them by now.

donb1959

6K for a site is astronomical. In todays overabundance of web designers you can can an os-commerce site with all the flash and java your heart desires for way less than 1/3 of that. Try freelancer.com or guru.com, post a project and let folks bid on it, you will be surprised by the talent out there, and how many people are itching for your business.

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Mike Finley

Not sure I agree 6K is astronomical.

Not only is there a abundance of web-designers, but there is an abundance of mediocre web designers charging 1500 to build mediocre websites. I would have no problem spending 10K on a web site if it the results were an outstanding 10k website.

I know a lot of people are big fans of those sites where you get bids on design, never got any outstanding results from that process, just mediocre. I guess since I can do mediocre myself they don't have any appeal to me. I've found working with somebody local and establishing an on-going relationship has been the most helpful to me.

The other big problem and I mean big, is most of those sites seem to be made up of the Internet generation, and they only have design experience for the web. Web designs rarely translate very well to printed media designs. They look great on the web all googly colored and such, but take that design to print and it looks amateurish. Artwork designed by a designer who works in print media translates fine going the other way.

Just my observations.

George Z

And if I am allowed to add,
"the Internet generation" is missing something: the marketing side of it.

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George Z

The cost sounds ok, it depends on what the bells and whistles are.
Make sure you get some Content Management System with that.

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mickeyco

Interesting, I too am surprised by #3 "Look for photos of the staff & learn about their qualifications", I can see the qualifications but the photos of staff is surprising. I would think pics of some staff members might cost you the job.

$6000 for a website with all the bells and whistles seems a bit steep unless you're a real big company with applications running on the server. I thinking between $500 - $ 2000 for most small to medium sized contractors sites.


Pic of my staff, better get them on my website.

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Teetorbilt

I had a website (Teetor.net) for years. Return, 0. Let it go. No loss.

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copusbuilder

The main problem I have with mine is getting changes made. The operator seems to have a problem differentiating between before and after pictures.
He likes to make all the changes at once and gets confused when I send too much?

I could see the $6000 if the person had experience in construction and knew how to do it.
Has anyone tried the guy who is in the builder magazines??

My main purpose of having a web site (for me) was so people could find me. If they type in my name in any search engine I come up. This has been valuable for older customers who have lost our # and forget how to use a phonebook?
It has had hits (that called) but never any that would make me roll over in bed.

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www.copusconstruction.com
www.etexasrentals.com
www.thelakevoice.com
AkA Richard Cranium

copusbuilder

Mickeyco, are you doing business in East Texas or did all my past employees head north?

I actually have pics of my guys on the web site. Customers like being able to tell their friends to go to the web site and see "Bob" the guy I was telling you about!!

They love it more when they get a pic of their house on the site!!

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www.copusconstruction.com
www.etexasrentals.com
www.thelakevoice.com
AkA Richard Cranium

Gordo

The bells and whistles include CMS. Also, service any time down the road when needed.

I will be using this site as a marketing tool to educate the public/potential client as to the value of our services. Seems lately that I consult the client......then I end up repeating myself 10 times later. With this site the will already know what they are getting into and I can refer them back to it when a situation arises.

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Looks like some pros were here.

Gordo

#1 and #5 look like twins. Is the water bad where you live?

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Looks like some pros were here.

Gordo

The service will be provided in this cost. They mess up....they change it.

Copus, how about just posting your name on google?

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Looks like some pros were here.

AAPaint

I have a website that works. It gets me leads on a regular basis, and they are ALL good leads. The website is doing exactly what I wanted it to. People who request work from us through the site already consider us to be the only choice, or one of the best. I get better return on leads from this site than from any other source.

My site is updated monthly, lists extremely well in search engines, and looks pretty cool too! We have a monthly newsletter both e-mail and print, we can change anything at any time, and I have a marketing manager that helps with all my other marketing efforts.

Grand total? About $5-600 for the site, and about $65/month for updates, and all the other stuff I mentioned.

If you are really ready to fork out $6,000 for a website, you should do yourself a favor and contact Aaron at Footbridgemedia.com and at least here what his company can offer you. I responded to their add to get a "website that sells" a long time ago, and that's exactly what I have now. A very good sales tool at a very good price.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.