company website

Status
Not open for further replies.
T

teco

Senior Member
Location
Mass north shore
Hi Guys,

I would like to hear from the contractors who have their own company website.
I am looking at having one designed for the 1st time. If some of you could share your experiences with me?

Do they bring in any new business?
Does it support its own fees etc?
Did you design it yourself or hire a pro?
Have any customers commented on it?

Any info would be great. Thank you.
 
W

wireguru

Senior Member
i think in this day and age, anyone in business needs a website. If anything just to publish your name and phone number. (if you have a phone number that spells something, dont put it that way on your website it causes problems with blackberry and other smartphones)

quickbooks has a new website service that looked pretty good for basic needs
 
zog

zog

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
Hire someone, won;t cost much. I have seen so many that were obviously done by someone trying to save money and usually they look horrible. Clean, professional, with all your contact info (Including off hours). Photos of past projects are always nice, but make sure they don;t have anything stupid, saw one last week of a project posted that had beer cans in background.
 
T

teco

Senior Member
Location
Mass north shore
Wireguru, you may be right, maybe i should have had one by now. 21 years in business, never thought i needed one. I'm trying to find ways to bring in more business. Still very slow.

Zog, no beer cans lol, I am leaning towards of using a pro
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
teco said:
Do they bring in any new business?
Does it support its own fees etc?
Did you design it yourself or hire a pro?
Have any customers commented on it?

Any info would be great. Thank you.
Click to expand...
  1. Depends on the site, and more importantly the client base - but I would opt to say "no" in most cases because you need to know the site is there, and the way to do that is referral - and that will be outside your site... Yelp - google - an ad on your truck etc. There are ways to help it be found through paid advertising - search hit's... If you do service work that might be a very good idea - but for most sub-contractors - a waste of money.
  2. See above... But site space providers can be ~$10 a month... Depending on traffic and Mb... CHEAP! Most people just use them in our industry as a big virtual - business card....
  3. If you're looking to support a geek - or an artist - sure... But they have many options for templates that are both functional and just as effective - with instant gratification without having to beat 'Shilo' :roll: to death waiting for him to realize his artistic vision for you.... Or sort through any of his creative quirks... For instance the site you are on right now is only a very slightly modified template for a bulletin board available from the company listed at the bottom of the page... You can shop around for a template you like... Or a domain host may even provide you with free site building software or templates... Example
  4. Depends on what the site does - and how they interact with it. Some companies I've been with, and a few of them I helped them with their sites to do various things - just to learn more about you before calling, some to actually contact you with a form for information collection, some for billing too...
 
T

teco

Senior Member
Location
Mass north shore
e57, Some very useful tips, thank you. I was thinking quite a bit about some of those points. I wonder if someone in my area would find me on a search engine, say by searching for an electrician in my town, or would it cost big bucks to make that happen? I do know that sometimes i use a search engine when i'm looking for a service i can't do. I have hired folks this way.
 
480sparky

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
teco said:
e57, Some very useful tips, thank you. I was thinking quite a bit about some of those points. I wonder if someone in my area would find me on a search engine, say by searching for an electrician in my town, or would it cost big bucks to make that happen? I do know that sometimes i use a search engine when i'm looking for a service i can't do. I have hired folks this way.
Click to expand...

What do you have on your site for metatags?
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
StephenSDH said:
Search Engines (including google) largely ignore meta-tags. Although I still use them just incase.
Click to expand...
Not sure if you know how google makes its money - you pay them... You'll come up - pay per click... The rest of the things that come up in searches are based on content, and popularity each has a weight - and over time web bots and crawlers software rank this info. And separate this info - for where the person is searching from... While meta tags are important - but it was realized long ago - if they were the sole basis for ranking content - every search would return - porn.... And old friend on mine used to put the entire dictionary into meta tags for those types of sites.... (I personally blame him for a lot of things web related...) So they had to find another way... Hey - why not look at the "content"?!?

For instance if you are in California - and you search "Electrician Certification" in google you will get all kinds of sponsored ads, then the unsponsored content - a website of mine will be right around 3-5 in position there under the state DAS. I've never paid for that - it's just been around for a while, and it has "Content" on it, and that "Content" contains those words. And it gets quite a lot of traffic - lots of people look at it read information - click on links to other info on it - then go back to it a menu - click on more links to more info on my site - and off of my site - go back, and each time they visit it - the page gets ranked... Ranked by contact hits and content.... (Funny I'm actually thinking of dropping that site...)

You would be really surprised at how many websites have very little actual "content". When it is actual content that has become most recent in searches...

I just searched "Electrician San Francisco" - the top PAID - sponsored link is an out of town company from San Jose - who's home page says this...
"Web site under construction. Sorry for inconvenience."

Now that's clever.... :roll: Pay to get noticed - and have nothing to say....

And I'm sorry to say many other search sites return only other search sites to find info like yellow pages and yelp.... - google at the very least pops up actual EC's in my area...

Anyway - as I mentioned before - odds are - unless you pay advertising, or have a lot of traffic to your site on content - most people are going to your site as an initial information gathering to find out more about you. And they most likely found out about you in another way... Your card in their hand, your truck in their 'hood, or curious to see where that stuff after the @ in your email address leads them....
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top