It may help if you add what you are looking to spend on having a website generated? As if you are looking to spend 200$ you will attract a specific type of designer, whereas if you are looking to speend 5000$ you will get a different type.

I have no clue of what the budget should be! I like 200 more than 5k obviously lol.

The question is do you prefer 1 lead of 100 leads from your website?

If money is a concern I would suggest install Wordpress on your hosting platform and start giving it a go yourself. At least start laying out your pages and the structure.

allinremodeling said:

I have no clue of what the budget should be! I like 200 more than 5k obviously lol.

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3-5k usually.

Your web site will not generate leads. Leads are generated by on-line reviews, paid advertising, and anything else (SEO work?) that gets someone to click through to your web site.

You can get all the click throughs you want, but if its just upping your bounce rate as people land on your page and leave you haven't generated any leads.

It takes a good balance between having a good website and having good SEO and I guess being good at what you do to covert those clicks into leads.

CarpenterSFO said:

Your web site will not generate leads. Leads are generated by on-line reviews, paid advertising, and anything else (SEO work?) that gets someone to click through to your web site.

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I can have my designer create one for you similar to mine, if interested.

www.PrecisionSignServices.com

The number one way you will be found on the internet is Google Places and I hear no one in this forum talking about Google Places? I pay $500 (plus one time $200 start up fee) a year for a basic website, but that plan includes full on page SEO optimization, hosting and Google Places Optimization.

You might need to dig a little deeper...:whistling

Alliance said:

The number one way you will be found on the internet is Google Places and I hear no one in this forum talking about Google Places?

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It's important to realize that setting up a website will not automatically bring traffic. You can be guaranteed that you will get ZERO traffic with NO website though so getting something online is the first step. Then people will find you when they search for you.

After the site is online, you'll have to promote it or advertise to really get traffic and leads. You can do this through directories, Google Adwords advertising, and organic SEO. Lots of ways but the key is to do something.

I hear a lot of contractors saying they get a lot of business from their website, but how are customers finding the website? Google has three search engines on most serp's (search engine results pages).

1. Adwords-I hear a lot of talk about that
2. Organic-I hear a lot of talk in this forum about that
3. Google Places-not so much talk

In my opinion most traffic from your website comes Google Places. That is if you are in the 7 pack. The seven pack is the list that appears below the top Adwords or just a few listings lower. The 7 pack is listed A thru G with a red mark

How many of you guys have:

1 Claimed your Google listing
2. Listed your 5 categories
3. Optimized your listing 100%
4. Had your listing verified and added your verification code
5. Done any off page optimization

Oh we do places, not a whole lot of us post down in here though.

Ive been eyeing a company that works out of an area a decent distance from me show up in my local pack around my area. Its starting to baffle me as his site has nothing done to it really except he uses Adwords pretty heavily , relatively I guess.

People wonder if it helps with local ranking, I have my doubts...

We have had a FootBridge site for I think 2 years now. It's a $150 a month and great for someone that wants a good looking site and doesn't want to shell out a lot upfront.

You have a nice site,,,,,, but,,,,,, at the bottom of the second page isn't doing you any favors. Home remodeling Durham NC should be your primary keyword.

Footbridge had a link network which was for years almost untouchable. Now since those link farms have been drastically devalued, not so much. You could get off there network, disavow those toxic links and make page one in very little time. This will likely cost you around $2k which will be recouped on the first job..

CQC said:

We have had a FootBridge site for I think 2 years now. It's a $150 a month and great for someone that wants a good looking site and doesn't want to shell out a lot upfront.

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Jbm is the exception since he works dilligently building his seo..

Im not sure I agree with that.

You can rank in the seven pack and not even have a website as long as you have a Google+ page. The quality of your website has nothing to do with ranking in Places.

Thats something I forgot to ask do you have a Google+ profile and is your website and this forum linked to it?

I agree that if the search term your customer is using is "masonry" then that limits the geo area you will get customers from, but if the search term is "masonry boston" and you're in the seven pack then you should be making big bucks.

Here is a million dollar tip: citations are to Places what backlinks are to organic.

how many citations do you have?

My site is fine, I was alluding to google giving results to people who spend money on adwords , as is evident by the company with not much behind the scenes of his site showing up in my area.

I respectfully disagree. Adwords and SEO are not related in any way. Read my last post in "whats your favorite form of advertising. The company you refer to has a high rank because their places page is optimized.