WEBSITE WANTED: show me the best

ArtisanRemod said:

I am in the process of identifying several goals both business and personal, and creating a website is one of the first. I have put it off for no good reason too long.
That being said, I am hoping you guys can share some that you feel are the best on here.
Any help much appreciated, Jason.

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This guy is the best,tell him I sent you...:thumbup:

https://www.contractorrevolutionmedia.com/web/googleadwords.html




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Thanks for the quick reply. I already have someone to build the site, and I like her work. A bonus is that we will be swapping some remodeling work for the site build. What I'm looking for is something to model mine after. My strength is not in web design but I know what I like when I see it.
Hoping to get some links to simple effective sites.

I like the web sites of CaliforniaDecks, TNTServices, OhioHomeDoctor, RobertCDF, LeoG. They vary greatly in content, style, and slickness; some are more home-made; some are vendor-provided. But they're all relevant locally and seem to accurately reflect what the business is, at least as far as I can guess from members' activities here. I think they're largely mobile-unfriendly, though, which I think is wrong. Most of my web site hits are from mobile devices now, and I can't imagine that trend is going to do anything but get stronger.

The key is to get it out there, get links to it from review sites, and put enough content - pictures of projects, easy information about how to get ahold of you - on it so that people can tell who you are. Focus on making a good site - that accurately reflects who you are and what your business is - before you focus on SEO.

There are some good SEO folks on C.T., who can probably give you some more expert advice, but it's my impression (and it makes sense to me) that Google is trying to make SEO irrelevant. They want organic search to provide only meaningful content, and not SEO-pumped stuff. That's not altruistic, either - their goal is for you to buy advertising rather than SEO consulting. IMO. Sorry to get off track.

CarpenterSFO said:

I like the web sites of CaliforniaDecks, TNTServices, OhioHomeDoctor, RobertCDF, LeoG. They vary greatly in content, style, and slickness; some are more home-made; some are vendor-provided. But they're all relevant locally and seem to accurately reflect what the business is, at least as far as I can guess from members activities here. I think they're largely mobile-unfriendly, though, which I think is wrong. Most of my web site hits are from mobile devices now, and I can't imagine that trend is going to do anything but get stronger. The key is to get it out there, get links to it from review sites, and put enough content - pictures of projects, easy information about how to get ahold of you - on it so that people can tell who you are. Focus on making a good site - that accurately reflects who you are and what your business is - before you focus on SEO. There are some good SEO folks on C.T., who can probably give you some more expert advice, but it's my impression (and it makes sense to me) that Google is trying to make SEO irrelevant. They want organic search to provide only meaningful content, and not SEO-pumped stuff. That's not altruistic, either - their goal is for you to buy advertising rather than SEO consulting. IMO. Sory to get off track.

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I just payed to have my content re-written, I'll keep the same layout but the content will look more professional. I also payed for SEO. We will see. :thumbsup:

HARRY304E said:

This guy is the best,tell him I sent you...:thumbup:

https://www.contractorrevolutionmedia.com/web/googleadwords.html




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I would assume your site is electrical success systems?

that persons site is way to new to be labeled the "best" with no trac record or websites to display even.

The best show off the sites they have made, they openly say their sites rank and their customers are flooded with leads. The best have statistical data to back up their claims.

Their sites look ok though, but the footers are horrible as im sure the rest of the sites have their issues.

JBM said:

I would assume your site is electrical success systems?

that persons site is way to new to be labeled the "best" with no trac record or websites to display even.

The best show off the sites they have made, they openly say their sites rank and their customers are flooded with leads. The best have statistical data to back up their claims.

Their sites look ok though, but the footers are horrible as im sure the rest of the sites have their issues.

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Almost every time you talk websites it is almost like another language- foreign.

Maybe I have the wrong idea on what a site should look like, but those sites are easy to navigate, fairly interesting text that as a consumer I don't know I'd click out and to another.

I plan on revamping my site this winter so IMO this is a great thread.

As far as readability, most of the front page of your site is very hard to read, maybe not so hard for you because you know what it says I'm just a little surprised of your perspective.

JBM said:

Im not going to lie, I like it when contractors in general think seo is dead.

Good luck guys

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Did a seminar the other day about Social Media Marketing and SEO. If you think SEO is key words, meta data and all under the hood exclusively ... That's losing credibility - on the death bed.

Going forward Search engine Optimization will not be about that - rather content and it's relevance to the user and user's search/es. Actually kind of Orwellian but that's the wave going forward. Had a good discussion with an associate on how Target uses algorythms and seraches and web based advertising over the last 10 years. Same with Amazon and a few others... Keywords are like being in Kindergarten...But some color within the lines better than others :clap::laughing:

Time will tell.

Best site Ive seen in a while simple and to the point.
http://www.rmgconstruction.com/garages.htm

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All the photos are awesome. Potential customers love this. They could probably be organized a lot better though, especially if they care about having a larger footprint in search. His photos could be renamed for better optimization too.

eg.. Instead of "Garage1%20015.jpg" it could be named "18-by-20-foot-custom-brick-pool-house-with-porch.jpg"

The latter takes a lot more time and for a contractor who has many photos it's a wasted opportunity if your web guy doesn't capitalize on that. Sometimes when a website costs more it's because of these little details that some web dudes ignore. It takes more time resizing and renaming all of your photos.

This is what looks right to me. Love the before and after slide show.

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His homepage is ok, the slideshow is a gimmick that can be installed on any website. He' got very simple navigation which is good and then messes up everything with a lack of descriptive content (words) on his gallery pages and by trying to squish all of his services onto one page. You have to break them down into individual pages.

Anyone worried about SEO and where it's going can always get into paid search now because that's where it's really going, lol. Wait a few months to rank your site (if you've got someone knowledgeable and a proper site) or pay to play right now on places like Google Adwords, Bing/Yahoo PPC and even Facebook. You still need proper landing pages for this too and usually many more than what most guys want to believe.

"All the photos are awesome. Potential customers love this. They could probably be organized a lot better though, especially if they care about having a larger footprint in search. His photos could be renamed for better optimization too."

Many look photoshopped to me. Not necessarily a bad thing I guess, but not what I would be interested in.
As far as TNT's slideshow gimmick, I think the fact that you dont have to click off the main page makes it an easy site to use. No clicking needed. I think as contractors, and in your case, web designers, our opinions of what looks good is not necessarily what our target customer sees.

As far as TNT's slideshow gimmick, I think the fact that you dont have to click off the main page makes it an easy site to use. No clicking needed. I think as contractors, and in your case, web designers, our opinions of what looks good is not necessarily what our target customer sees.

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Your visitor shouldn't need to click off the homepage almost ever... In fact when done right your visitor might not ever even see your homepage. Ideally your visitor will land on a "landing page" of your website that educates them on the particular service that they searched for and then tries to collect an immediate decision from them by placing prominent calls-to-action on the page.

If they search your company name then landing on the homepage is fine.