New Website

wolffhomerepair

I just finished it this morning. Take a look and let me know what you think. I made this using Yahoo sitebuilder. I know it is pretty basic but a good start. Comments please.http://www.wolffhomerepair.com

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http://www.wolffhomerepair.com


" Of course I don't look busy, I did it right the first time "

TMF

well I dont post much on here,and I dont build websites.But I think the first page of a website should be inviting to a customer who is looking at it.I have recieved many good responces to my website because of the first page.

Mike Finley

I think you have described it pretty well yourself - "pretty basic but a good start."

wolffhomerepair

Thanks to all who have looked at it. With all the traffic My site now comes up on yahoo searches and google searches. I will be updating some graphics in a day or two. Hopefully it will make it look more attractive.

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http://www.wolffhomerepair.com


" Of course I don't look busy, I did it right the first time "

Afford-Handyman

Hi

Like you said is a good start. I think clients like to see before and after pictures. I put those in my site and have a lot of compliments on them.

I also went to competitors websites and looked what they had there and learn from what they have there that I liked.

Good look

ZHG

Normally it will need 3 month to get a real business.

copusbuilder

Perhaps a picture of yourself where you have "message from brian"?
I think people like to see someone when they make statements??

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AkA Richard Cranium

mickeyco

I hate critiquing other people's websites, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I can't help myself and it's only meant in a constructive way. I would get away from the template, I've seen the same template used by several people here (http://www.lightyouup.net/ ), go for an original site that doesn't look like the others, you've got the graphics from the trailer so I would use them and maybe make the site look like the trailer. Make the navigation on all pages consistent and easy to find. List more of you services. Lose the counter, use google stats, the stats from your web provider or some other stats provider. Resize some of the pictures for easier viewing and loading. Get rid of the link to Contractors Talk, you don't want customers to come here and see you bitch about them, ask questions about a job you're doing for them or coming here and find info that will lead them to think they can do it themselves and don't need you. Search some of the older posts about websites there is some great info and links. Take a look at the other member's sites for some ideas.

Here's a pic for your site if you want it:

wolffhomerepair

Mickey
Thanks for all the great advise I really appreciate it. I made some more changes taking into account some of the advise given.
I have to know how did you make the truck image?

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http://www.wolffhomerepair.com


" Of course I don't look busy, I did it right the first time "

mickeyco

I created a new folder on my desktop and put the pictures of your trailer and a blank truck in it. Then I moved the folder around and opened it about an hour later and there it was. Kiddin' I used PhotoShop, your trailer pics and a truck picture, some cropping, skewing and the pen tool. I've been doing that type of stuff for years, the idea is to make the business look professional and "BIG". When I had my company site my shop was a storage locker and occasional helpers, but basically a one man show. I took picture of the storage unit, added my own sign with PhotoShop, did the same with a truck picture and it made the business look professional, big and established and I think helped. I've had people ask me where's the fancy truck and I'd tell them the boss gets to drive that one.

streetracer

Have the Wolf's background match the page background. Tighten up the space between the slogan "Wolff Home Repair offers services from the smallest fix to full remodeling." and the three bullets. Add a little space below the picture of the trailer on the home page so it's not crowding the bottom.

I'm not sure how valuable that Timber Tech logo is. You probably worked hard for the privilege of displaying it, but do homeowners know what it means? The white background on that disrupts the visual flow - much like with the wolf.

Attached Images

 

streetracer

P.S. Change the page titles so they read "Wolff Home Repair - Home Page", "Wolff Home Repair - About Us" and so on. It used to help with search engine placement - not sure if it still does, but it's what everyone does so when in Rome do as the Romans.

mickeyco

You're getting there, I'd get away from the templates and Yahoo site builder and try a html editor, I found this free one and posted it before, http://www.nvu.com , I've tried and it does a nice job and it's free. There are also some real good free imaging editing programs out there, I forgot the names but they were in some of the posts on this board, just do a search. Here's a page I put together with Nvu (the free editor, I'm not pushing it and have no affiliation, I just think it's a good free product) and your web page, take a look, it might give you some ideas.

http://www.mickeyco.com/pom/w/

donb1959

Mick,
Would you be interested in putting a site togehter for me? I have worked with two freelancers thus far neither of which I was thrilled with. My bro in law who's a programmer for IBM took a look at the code, he said one was generated using Dreamweaver, and one was generated using Frontpage. He said the code had alot of errors in it that search engines would not care for.

My bro in law doesn't really know about the inner workings of web site design, but he does know code. I would be doing this for my wifes company. This is basicly what I need.

I am not looking for anything flashy, but it does need to be attractive. All code needs to be fully compliant.It will also need to be an ecommerce capable site.
* Up to 7 HTML pages, text and images supplied by client
* Custom layout design
* Emails protected from email spiders

* Creation of a robots.txt file
* User testing and cross-browser compatibility checks

* Search engine optimization for all pages
* Submission of index page to major search directories

* Basic instructions on where and how to upload/edit new pages
* Text and image updates that I can perform myself as she sells products so would need updating frequantly.

I went to freelancer.com and guru, got several bids, and as I said I've already worked with a couple local freelancers. If this is something you feel you could do please respond.

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mickeyco

donb1959,

I do a lot web sites, but usually ones without ecommerce, in trade for work (architectural services, plumbing, etc.) and/or extra money for beer and motorcycle/car parts. I do web/graphic work for two businesses that have ecommerce, but it can be quite involved and costly and I doubt I would have the time. I might be able to help you with some info. There's a lot and I'm dead tired, had a bad day (great story though) and am heading off to bed. I'll post some info hopefully sometime tomorrow if things don't go like they went today.

Quote

Now, this is something I can talk about for hours! Search Engine Optimization and Web Development as I do this for a living!

Anyway, unique page titles are an absolute MUST if you want to get any traffic from the search engines. Also, I would center your site and put the content into a white table and leave your current background as it is.

Another thing to do is make sure your LOCATION is on each of your pages as well as your contact information. Best place would be in the footer of each page. This will help you with Search Engines and also it will help your visitors instantly see your contact info no matter how they enter your site.

Also, you should submit your website to a bunch of home improvement directories so you can get indexed. When you are submitting, do not put your company name as your submission title. Instead, put the search terms most likely to be used in the search engine by someone looking for your services.

In other words, someone is Seattle Washington looking to have their kitchen remodeled is not going to search for your company name. They will search for "kitchen remodeler in seattle washington". So if you do that type of service, you want the search engines to "KNOW" that is what your website is about.

Let me know if any of this doesnt make sense as I know it's quite a bit to take the first time around

Teresa

mickeyco

donb1959,

Don't know if this will help or not but without knowing what you're selling and how much (monthly $'s) it would be kind of hard to gage what you might need. I do work with two companies one real big and they use ColdFusion, have a team of developers (can't do a lick of graphic work though) and it's real expensive, but what it does is incredible. The other is a friend's shop he has a storefront, an e-commerce and eBay store sites and does about $30K a month online, and pays a few thousand a month on fees for the sites (initial setup & website was expensive). If you're wife is only going to be selling a small amount I would try an eBay store, it's reasonably priced and will accept credit card payments. You could build a regular website with a link to your eBay store, have your domain name point to your eBay store, or have the eBay store open in your own website in a frame. I think some of the big service providers like yahoo offer small business packages with merchant accounts that might be a good way to go but you'll have to learn how there system works, they usually provide tutorials. You could do it on your own with your own web space but to accept credit cards you'll need a secure server (https) and a security certificate or have a service handle the merchant end of it. The one thing I would make sure to do, it's been mention on the board before, is be sure you are the owner of your domain name (www.youname.com). As far as the code being fully compliant it's not that big of a deal, I know Frontpage writes some funky code but Dreamweaver does pretty well, sometimes you need to do a few corrections, but if you validate (http://validator.w3.org/) some of the biggest companies web sites (Ford, Dodge, RCA etc) you will find very few are 100%. Unless you have major errors, no links, keyword, header or titles your site will be indexed by google and other less important ones will find it to. Submitting yourself is not necessary in my opinion but you can do it yourself, it's very easy, http://www.google.com/addurl.html for google and the others search engines have the same. Since almost every provider has a different methods for uploading and editing, you have to learn form them or do it with your own program online or off and then upload. SEO is not a bad idea but I think it's overrated, the right keywords, headers and text will get you visitors it's not magic that should cost a lot, I think advertising would be money better spent. Templatemoster.com sells e-commerce templates real cheap that can be modified if you want to give it a shot yourself. Another consideration is what type of server you're on and what applications are on the server. I've done a few small e-commerce sites but I wouldn't have the time to do it and explain to someone how to upload it, maintain it and work out the bugs. I try to stick to smaller sites without e-commerce for time reasons, but I know a couple local guys (by me in Chicago) if you need someone but it's expensive.

clampman

Don,

I got to agree with everything Mickey said. And don't worry about the code. I did my site with dreamweaver, and you would think from looking at a validator program printout that the code was written in ancient Aztec Hieroglypincs and would be totally illegible.

Yet, if you search for a miter clamp or a mitre clamp or miter clamps or mitre clamps on google - which I never bothered submitting my site to - my site is the first on the list- ahead of all the multinational corporations that make and/or sell miter or mitre clamps.

The only place I submitted my site to was DMOZ, and they never accepted it. But the funny thing is - they have a link back to my site from when I checked to find out the status of it. And that does as much good as being indexed.

One thing Mickey didn't come right out and say is that the one who is going to have to do the work to draw the traffic is YOU. A buddy of mine told me that, but I got some hotshot to do mine - and I trashed the whole thing and learned how to do it myself.

What I did was to read everything I could find published about how search engines work - and lurk on the SEO message boards. And I followed what seemed to make the most sense.

I now have over 50 pages of html taylored to bring in the kind of visitors who might buy my product. Most have absolutely nothing to do with my product, nor can my product even be used in making what the pages describe. But each page links back to my home page.

By checking your statistics, you can tell which search strings your visitors are using. For instance, I had a few lines about Staining Cherry in an article. A bunch of people were getting to my site that way even though my site didn't show up on google until page 30 something (that's not a typo - page THIRTY something) when I typed Staining Cherry.

So I fleshed out that section, switched keykwords, repositioned the staining part on the page, increased header size. That took me a total of maybe 20 minutes. Now my site is the second one that pops up on Google (out of over a million) when you type staining cherry. I don't even sell stain for chrissake, much less make it. But some of those people who got there that way are now customers of mine. And a whole lot more of them get there now than when I was on page thirty something.

My point is that YOU KNOW BEST what you want. Sorry, but web sites are never done, and you are the only one who knows enough about your business to do it so it works.

Wolfman,
You got the right idea. Keep adding pages, key "Phrases" not key "words", and have some fun. Like Mickey said, you have to title every page, and do a description and add keywords. I like to have all the words in the title also in the keywords, and description as well as in the heading of the page. Then have them in the html text in the first 50 words or so. If you are using MS Internet Explorer you can click "view" and then "source" on the pull down, and see what other people are doing. You will get something that looks like this:

<html>
<head>
<title>Natural Staining Technique for Cherry</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="keywords" content="Staining cherry, blotch free staining cherry, no cherry blotching,installing wide radius cabinet tops, ">
<meta name="description" content="Blotch free cherry staining, finishing cherry, and installing cherry cabinet tops on radius cherry cabinets.">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
</head>

If I can do it, you can. I never even turned on a computer till 1996. As a matter of fact (now this is embarrassing) after I got it set up in my home office I wound up asking my daughter if she knew how to turn it off. She did of course, being six years old at the time.

But I finally learned the other stuff using the same peck and poke method used by pidgeons in those psychology labs.


Good luck.

jimc