Haha I'm glad I wasn't the only one who saw how funny "nail your trim" was.
On the website:
Love the testimonials, well done
Pics are beautiful, really like the work. Play them up some more.
Now here is where you may stop liking me:
Text is way way way too small. Unless your target market is 20-35, I'd bump the font up.
Need some headings and breaks in that chunk-o-text, make it easier to read. On top of that, the copy is very much I, Me, We; change it to a more how the customer benefits. It's not that you can nail up chair rail, it's that you can give that old world charm and character to a home.
Navigation is too small font wise, and isn't prominent enough design wise. Make it easy for the visitor to find whatever they came to the site for.
Which brings me to the next point, I'm not sure what you're using this site for? Build awareness of your company? Position yourself as an expert? Generate some new leads? It's looking a lot like an online business card / brochure, not a lot like a marketing tool.
****Screeching brakes!****
Just realized there is a lot of we, when really it's just a me. All over your page is we can...we do...we will, but on your blog you state that you're a one man shop. If you don't want to rewrite your copy to a more customer oriented view (which will help conversions), at the very least change all the we's to me's.
In your blog post it sounds like you're very proud of the work you do, so I would put that into focus. Go for the consummate craftsman as opposed to talking about a "we" that doesn't exist.
****Back to our regularly scheduled review****
I like your blog posts, but someone must of told you bolded text was important for SEO ranking. They didn't tell you that it's not that important at all, but how important the following is:
1. Doing keyword research (knowing what keywords will bring you traffic, and that you have a chance to rank for are)
2. Using keyword density (the amount of times said keyword appears on a page)
3. You should only be going after 1 - 2 keywords per page.
4. Your title tag is the sweet lady of it all
Write for humans first. If I had to read "Hi everyone, how is your HOME? ...as well as the installation of a new RAILING" I'd get annoyed pretty fast. Bold sparingly, and only the words you want your visitors to key on.
It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine adds exclamation points to every sentence of her ex-boyfriend's books she's editing (Electronic beer to the first person who can name her boyfriend...he's the one with the glasses from Malaysia that Kramer wants.)
No call to action. What do you want them to do? Phone you for an estimate, shoot you an email with their details, read your new blog posts? Gotta make it clear to your visitors what you want them to do next, or they won't do anything at all.
You don't have anything in place to capture contact details, so how are you going to market to all those hot prospects that visit your site but don't drop you a line? You know they are hot prospects because very rarely is someone surfing the net looking to check in on all their local contractors, so they either have a project in mind right now or are shopping people to line one up. You're letting all your fish slip outta your net!
Did a brief look at SEO, but I would just suggest you change the title tags to something more SEO friendly, research the keywords you want to go after and beef up the density, and make sure you or your web fella install the Wordpress SEO plugin.
--
Hope I wasn't too harsh, but with pics and work like that I think you could do a lot better. However, just my $.35 worth
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaackkkkkkkkkkkk![]()
Haha I'm glad I wasn't the only one who saw how funny "nail your trim" was.
On the website:
Love the testimonials, well done
Pics are beautiful, really like the work. Play them up some more.
Now here is where you may stop liking me:
Text is way way way too small. Unless your target market is 20-35, I'd bump the font up.
Need some headings and breaks in that chunk-o-text, make it easier to read. On top of that, the copy is very much I, Me, We; change it to a more how the customer benefits. It's not that you can nail up chair rail, it's that you can give that old world charm and character to a home.
Navigation is too small font wise, and isn't prominent enough design wise. Make it easy for the visitor to find whatever they came to the site for.
Which brings me to the next point, I'm not sure what you're using this site for? Build awareness of your company? Position yourself as an expert? Generate some new leads? It's looking a lot like an online business card / brochure, not a lot like a marketing tool.
****Screeching brakes!****
Just realized there is a lot of we, when really it's just a me. All over your page is we can...we do...we will, but on your blog you state that you're a one man shop. If you don't want to rewrite your copy to a more customer oriented view (which will help conversions), at the very least change all the we's to me's.
In your blog post it sounds like you're very proud of the work you do, so I would put that into focus. Go for the consummate craftsman as opposed to talking about a "we" that doesn't exist.
****Back to our regularly scheduled review****
I like your blog posts, but someone must of told you bolded text was important for SEO ranking. They didn't tell you that it's not that important at all, but how important the following is:
1. Doing keyword research (knowing what keywords will bring you traffic, and that you have a chance to rank for are)
2. Using keyword density (the amount of times said keyword appears on a page)
3. You should only be going after 1 - 2 keywords per page.
4. Your title tag is the sweet lady of it all
Write for humans first. If I had to read "Hi everyone, how is your HOME? ...as well as the installation of a new RAILING" I'd get annoyed pretty fast. Bold sparingly, and only the words you want your visitors to key on.
It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine adds exclamation points to every sentence of her ex-boyfriend's books she's editing (Electronic beer to the first person who can name her boyfriend...he's the one with the glasses from Malaysia that Kramer wants.)
No call to action. What do you want them to do? Phone you for an estimate, shoot you an email with their details, read your new blog posts? Gotta make it clear to your visitors what you want them to do next, or they won't do anything at all.
You don't have anything in place to capture contact details, so how are you going to market to all those hot prospects that visit your site but don't drop you a line? You know they are hot prospects because very rarely is someone surfing the net looking to check in on all their local contractors, so they either have a project in mind right now or are shopping people to line one up. You're letting all your fish slip outta your net!
Did a brief look at SEO, but I would just suggest you change the title tags to something more SEO friendly, research the keywords you want to go after and beef up the density, and make sure you or your web fella install the Wordpress SEO plugin.
--
Hope I wasn't too harsh, but with pics and work like that I think you could do a lot better. However, just my $.35 worth
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaackkkkkkkkkkkk![]()