Website Up...opinions?

TaitINC

Our website is finally up and running. It went live today, so there might be a few bugs they need to work out. Just wanted to put the link up here and see what you all think. Let me know any of your ideas on how to better the site.

www.taitroofing.com

BKFranks

Looks good. Needs META tags still. http://searchenginewatch.com/2167931

Also use this resource for SEO optimization
http://www.seocentro.com/tools/searc...-position.html

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cbscreative

Overall, I like it. Seems to be plenty well organized enough. It's clean looking too, but probably just a bit too tall on the top image (not a big issue though).

For an honest critique though, the copy needs improvement. Get rid of "welcome to our website." It's a waste of space, way overused, does nothing to capture attention, and puts those critical first few seconds a visitor lands on your page at risk for losing the visitor (usually called the 8 second rule).

I would encourage you to get rid of the we this and we that. Site visitors care about one thing: Why should they choose you? Address their needs, speak TO them, not about you. When you tell them about you, it must still demonstrate why that should matter to them. When you accomplish this in your sales copy, you will be in a very small percentage, because the vast majority of promotional materials make the exact same mistake.

The first two paragraphs should be wadded up and thrown in a special file for curbside recycling. To demonstrate the principle above, let me use your third paragraph and then do a rewite:

Quote:

Our mission is to fulfill the needs of our clients in a straightforward, honest and diligent way. We strive to provide the highest quality service at competitive pricing. We know our clients will enjoy the fruits of our endeavors for years to come.

You probably don't think much about your roof until you see evidence that something is wrong. Water is relentless! It is merciless in its determination to ruin your investment. The people you trust to provide roofing services should be chosen carefully. You don't need the headaches that other homeowners have suffered by getting the cheapest price or an unproven roofing contractor. Let us use our 35 years of expertise to solve your roofing needs before it turns into a bigger, more expensive problem later.

Notice the use of words like roof/roofing, services, and contractor. This is important for search engines, but most importantly, it speaks to the needs of a site visitor. Writing for the web requires both to be effective.

Tinstaafl

I'm an old phart. The font isn't comfortable.

cbscreative

I'm guessing you're referring to the blue headings because the body text is pretty standard, or is for me anyway.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

MattCoops

One of the better contractor sites I've seen.
Easy on the eyes, good presentation, and organized neatly.
Great site.
Although wondering why portfolio link for roofing company has image of a fireplace?

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Matt with Cupan Custom Tile & Paint of Lowell, Massachusetts
Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
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TaitINC

cbs- thanks for the info on the meta tags and other suggestions. They aren't done with the site completely, but i will make sure they address that. We are also working on seo stuff with them.

Tin- what are you finding difficult about the text? anything i can fix i will.

matt- we are much more than just roofing. we have two company's, Tait roofing and taitco. taitco offers everything from new construction to handyman services.

MattCoops

You may want to consider having two seperate web entities one for roofing company and one for the "everything else" company.

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Matt with Cupan Custom Tile & Paint of Lowell, Massachusetts
Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
(978) 601-8774 | cupantile@gmail.com | view tile pictures and more

cbscreative

I would second that. In addition to that very good advice, I suggest you also avoid cross linking. It would probably be OK to link from Taitco to the roofing site, but I'd don't recommend vice versa. Without some long winded explanation of SEO, let me just say that reciprocal links are not as effective as they used to be. They can even hurt you if you're not careful.

By doing the roofing site just for roofing, you'll be able to optimize it better. By not linking to the everything site, you won't introduce the potential to reduce "relevancy" in the link. This is a case for the "less is more" priniciple. Stay focused.

Also, you're welcome on the advice.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

Tinstaafl

Oops! Sorry for not getting back sooner. It's actually a minor quibble, but one you may want to address if you're targeting the [ka-ching!] older segment of the population.

The text is well laid out and quite readable, but I just plain don't care for the font. I have to make a conscious effort to read it, as opposed to the fonts used on the majority of sites I've visited. Not even sure what they are--Verdana, Arial, Helvetica?

I've been an avid reader all my life, and normally my eyes just gulp down phrases and entire sentences at a time. The font you have there makes me read words, if that makes any sense.

Tinstaafl

Here's what I see. Anyone seeing it differently?

Attached Thumbnails

 

SLSTech

Tin - while I agree that the font is not the easiest to read - it looks allot clearer when I view the website compared to your pic

TAIT nice job - I would also suggest 2 web sites, linked to each other

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Tinstaafl

Looks virtually identical here. We may have different screen resolutions or something. I just posted that in case I was running into some odd font-substitution thing, which your post indicates isn't the case.

cbscreative

Although I cast my vote as agreeing on two separate sites, my post above advises NOT linking them (a one way link from Taitco to the roofing site will be OK though).

I realize that I am unknown here, so my expertise in this area is not known either. An easy solution is to do some research. "Reciprocal linking" is now an outdated practice. In short, it got abused to try to "trick" the search engines. Anything abused ends up falling from favor. Search engines are very adaptive, so strategies that worked 2+ years ago will not necessarily work now.

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Steve Chittenden
Web/SEO Geek • Graphic Artist • Writer • Marketing Guy
One reason I know so much about the web and marketing is that I don't have to know as much about construction.

HousieG

Your site was clean and professional looking. I think you did a great job. What type of software did you use to build this if you dont mind me asking?

TaitINC

HousieG- I didn't design the web page, I had a company do it for me. All I did was come up with a basic layout that I wanted, and he took it from there. He does excellent work. His company is The Kyle David Group. If anyone is interested he is out of Allentown PA and his website is www.kyledavidgroup.com

Spencer

asnider

Looks great. May I ask how much you were charged for it?

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Adam Snider
Opus Magnum Software - Creators of EZJOB
Construction Software Reviews & Articles

TaitINC

We paid somewhere near 3k. He worked very diligently on the page, uploading digital photos and old photos he had to scan on. I'm happy with the final product, and have had a good response from our clientele. In our annual holiday flier we listed the web page, and had over 1200 hits within the first 3 weeks of going live.

SethHoldren

That's about what you'll pay for a strong, well optimized site, unless you go with a pretty large company who cranks out websites like crazy.

Did they include SEO over a period of time for that price?

I like the site, it looks pretty solid to me.

As far as little details go, I would ask for a "favicon" (the little tiny 16 x 16 logo that shows up in the browser tab at the top, like the yellow hard hat on CT.)

Also, if the URL's for your pages were relevant keywords instead of "?id=" format, that would help with SEO, especially if you plan to add pages over time to help your rankings.

Otherwise, very clean and well designed...it's a great foundation to build on.

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Website Critiques

The Construction Marketing Blog

MALCO.New.York

"Our mission is to fulfill the needs of our clients in a straightforward, honest and diligent way."

Change way to manner.


I like this..........

"Welcome to our website . . . whether you are an (one of our many) existing customers or just looking around, thank you for your interest."

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