Website Help

edjohnson

I would like to upgrade my website. The problem is from what i can tell, Prices range from $00.00 to hundreds of $$$.
How do you find (what to look for) and what is reasonable price for say an average website of up to maybe 10 pages with pics. I mean I've gotten prices of $150.00 to build and $100.00/year to host. And others like $800.00 design and $200.00 a MONTH to host.....I just want a clean, professional looking site (that gets rankings), but don't have to have all the flash and stuff.
I sure would like some straight talk.

Thanks for any help.

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Douglas Johnson
Taskmasters Wood Maintenance
866-443-7692
Log Home Restoration-Stripping-Staining-Chinking-Cob Blasting

SCCTrim

http://www.webparity.net/

This is who I used, easy to communicate with and reasonable on fee's imo.

edited to add my site has been up for 3 weeks..

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Adams County Remodeling

Greg Di

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songstershops

First about hosting - you shouldn't have to pay anymore than $15 per month for hosting. In fact hostgator.com has packages that range from $4.95 per month to $12.95. You don't have a monster website and you aren't getting thousands of people to it each day so you don't need a big hosting package. Don't let anyone talk you into anything more.

As for a website. The sky is the limit and thats what makes the decision so hard. All good websites need to have the same basic components.
Content is extremely important if you want your website to rank organically in the search engines. Pages need to SEO optimized. This isn't rocket science but it does need to be planned out carefully to avoid redoing pages.
The first step to making a successful website is keyword research. What keywords and phrases are people using to find you or your competitors. After you establish your main keyword groups then you create content involving those words.
Content for a website in your trade should be very easy. Basically you want to explain everything possible to your prospective customer. Education is very important. Don't take anything for granted. Assume your visitor knows nothing. They will read and retain whats important to them.
I know this doesn't answer your question on cost but before you can get a good quote you need to know exactly what you want.

The other thing that you should consider is allowing your visitors to interact with your site. This encourages them to come back and visit. The more they visit the better. Frequent visits leads to customer confidence in your service and you which in turn leads to sales.
Ways visitors can interact is if you have blog type posts on your site which allow the visitor to make comments. You can also have a forum like this.
The best way to interact with visitors is to encourage them to sign up for your newsletter or give them a free report.
Developing an online customer list is very valuable as you can offer advice, tips, discounts, other products and joint venture with other professional in your area. People remember you when you send them things. Happy people tell all their friends. There is no more powerful advertising then word of mouth - especially from a happy customer.

Your website should represent what your business is and who you are. It should be another important tool just like your business cards. It becomes your office - a place where people can hang out and learn all about you and your service without being sold to.

Before you go looking for anymore quotes come up with a list of what you need. Basically a plan of what it should look like, what it should have for content and what interactive functions you are going to have to make your website "sticky". Then when you ask for quotes you are comparing apples to apples.

I'd be happy to help you come up with a plan and then turn you loose to find appropriate quotes.

Now since this is my first post here and no one knows me, I'd like to tell you why I'm here.
One of my clients is a member here (he's in the HVAC industry and has 2 web sites) and told me today that he saw several threads asking about seo, websites, etc. So I've come to help you guys. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about websites, seo, tracking, analytics etc
I'm not here to sell anything. I help out at other forums and if you have questions that need answers in "my industry" I'll be happy to help.

tinner666

Pick your name and reg it first. Don't leave that to the webmaster/host you use. Some of us here just build out own, That way, we can update on the fly.
Names range fro $7.49 to $30.+ per year. Depends on where/who you reg with.

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Ed the Roofer

I heard that there is going to be an excellent article in the upcoming Journal Of Light Construction magazine which takes a website newbie through all of the ropes.

If you don't already subscribe to that magazine, it is a worthwhile one for contractors to get.

Ed

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CBG

who was that masked man???....thanks for the primer on website development & hosting, songshops. I'll be in touch with you shortly for advice, suggestions, etc. as I'm currently in the formative "creative stages" for my website, and your suggestions seemed pretty near on target, thanks.

CBG

Ed, thanks for the tip-off on the upcoming JLC article. I'll keep an eye out for it.

dougchips

$200 a month to host might be fair if it includes edits/small changes to your site. Then again India is full of people who will work for $1 or $2 an hour and will host your site for $10-$15 a year. The same people in India can design you a site for $10-$50, it might turn out great or it might suck.

I would suggest Googling all of the search terms for your industry and find out who shows up in the results for major US cities. Call these companies and ask them about their results:

1. How much do they pay a month?

2. What work does their design/SEO company do each month (link building, adding pages, creating content.................)?

3. What do they do each month for the site?

4. How many visitors do they get each month?

5. What percentage of their visitors fill out a request estimate form and then what percentage of them actually make a purchase?


Most people assume that they will pay $***.xx once again they have a working website forever. Your website will require constant changes, new links, fresh content.....it's just like a little baby that wants to grow. I would guess that 90% of the people who create websites do nothing once they pay the upfront fee and they get crappy results in return.

What I'm trying to get across is regardless of who creates your site it should fail unless you have a plan to make it work. Think of it as a store front business, how are people going to find you and what is going to attract them to enter your business(website).

One last thing....I would suggest a budget of at a few hundred dollars a month or at least 5 hours a week of you time to help that baby grow.

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lawndart

Look for a web designer that knows how to build your pages for the search engines. Its called search engine optimization (SEO). Any company that specializes in this will provide you with targeted keywords, to use for your campaign after interviewing you. They'll have a realistic plan in place for your site.

Beware of the companies that claim to get you listed in the tops spots right away. These companies use tricks, that can get you blacklisted from the search engines. It's a slow steady process, but once your site has made it to the top, you'll earn lots of business from the site every year. Good luck to you.

PS.. Hire an SEO expert, or learn about it yourself, you wont regret the time, or money invested if done properly.

edjohnson

Great information..Gives me alot more to explore. Anybody else that wants to chime in..... PLEASE DO.
I'm still on the hunt.

__________________
Douglas Johnson
Taskmasters Wood Maintenance
866-443-7692
Log Home Restoration-Stripping-Staining-Chinking-Cob Blasting

tin man

The new thing is a web site that merges with a blog.This will save you a lot of money over time as you can add new content yourself in the form of blog posts that show on home page,very cool and I think great for SEO.

In my opinion ,in order of importance on page SEO 30% off page SEO 70%.Having a page you can update yourself is what you want.

a link to a page set up this way http://www.bostonpackandship.com/

Home Air Direct

This is a thumbs up for Songstershops. I am one of her clients and I am hooked on her service and ability.

I am an HVAC Contractor and actually have multiple websites. I have a blog, an information website as well as a full blown store. All of the sites connect to one another. As the poster above stated, the linking process helps increase the chances of ranking.

If anyone would like to ask me specific questions, regarding the projects that we have worked on together, feel free to contact me at info(at)homeairdirect(dot)com. I think the best part of working with her is her ability to grasp what I want to achieve by her extremely thorough interview ability. I told her that I wanted to reach a certain audience and that I needed to sell specific HVAC products, and it happened. She gets it.

I actually tried to build my own sites in the beginning, but soon came to the conclusion that my time was best spent doing what I do best, and that I could not afford the hours I was putting in with stuff that had me crossing my eyes. I found Debbie @ Songstershops, I told her exactly what I wanted to do and she made it come to life. Best investment I have ever made....Period!

I have no gain from promoting her. I am actually the one who found you guys going through the mental gyrations of the best way to have an effective website, and I was remembering back to my own anxiety, so I thought maybe I could help someone else. I told her she should post here. I hope that is ok.

Here is a sample of my store and my current blog (that is not as current as it should be My fault)

Oops.... I have not been here long enough to post URLS, so was unable to show. Sorry, but suffice to say, THEY ARE GOOD.

I wish all of you success, and I hope this helps. Btw....Great Forum