BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #20 on: December 16, 2009, 09:04:42 pm »
I don't agree 100% with whats said, there are web designers out there that just charge a lot of money for their sites - Paying a lot does not guarentee results. I also think that if your in a advertising driven trade then you will need a good site that sits high in the natural listings. Adwords or ppc is a false way of getting site traffic as most people on here are aiming for a small area of local trade rather than competing with the nationals. Your website will be part of a big picture created by your advertising as a whole, I agree that YPages is over priced and over its best and I still get good results from the BT phone book.
 I don't advertise drive cleaning or any other cleaning service with anything other than a home grown website done on the very basic template programme but we are doing fine with it. I have just bought her serif webplus X4 so the templates will go and my images will be watermarked.
 I don't blame you for canvassing on here though ;D

JandS

  • Posts: 4236
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #21 on: December 17, 2009, 12:14:32 pm »
The Vista Print templates are very good and you can soon read up on SEO
it's not rocket science
In fact sometimes I wonder what goes on on Google.
Type in carpet cleaning in my area and I come up as number 1 but number 2
is a window cleaning company, what's the point of that?

 "and to anyone saying seo is simple, then they are massively mistaken. why would companies charge lots of money for this service if it can be done yourself"

Because either they can afford to because they haven't got time themselves or there under the same illusions as a lot of other people.

John 
Impossible done straight away, miracles can take a little longer.

Pristine Clean

  • Posts: 1149
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #22 on: December 17, 2009, 04:48:23 pm »
Hi Green solutions.

As much as I agree with certain aspects of your post. I also disagree with some parts as well.

I am MCSE & MCP Certified and have worked in the computer industry in the states for many years and in the UK working my socks off. Yes it does require skill, knowledge to build a website site.

Most commercially based software such as FW, DW etc are out of reach for the ad hoc user. So as we have the software we should be able to build a better site.

But this software requires No skill. It does it for you. No coding like the old days. (Not unless something special is required) Scripts are easily designed in a matter of seconds.

However the general public who dabble in it to save themselves money can be achieved. I would not actually recomend a vistaprint site but it can be done.

As for SEO it a money making scheme. It all is. including the hosting. Easy money if you have the kit. Either from home or business. So she could go a step further and actually save on hosting and host it from home. That way no fees whatsoever.
SEO is only KEYWORDS. Google even has the tools for SEO. Then you could get technical not too much and link from relevant sites. This will help in your ranking. There are many other ways but it can be done by them and they can acheieve a great result.

Dave
"You have to except that some days you are the statue and other days you are a pigeon"

BDCS

  • Posts: 4777
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #23 on: December 17, 2009, 06:07:25 pm »
You only need to view the source of your competitors sites to find their keywords and your halfway there. Has google ever actually stated how the algorithms really work, when they change them, how they rank pages and all the other over posh terms they use to try and extract a cash flow from people who know no better. In doing this you are chasing goal posts that google could move at anytime they wish, Bing could be the next thing and then its change again. Who knows "exactly what you mean and gives back exactly what you want".
 So long as your website allows enough people to find you at a sensible price who gives a ..... You pays your money and takes your chance.

Adam P

  • Posts: 1433
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #24 on: December 17, 2009, 06:41:56 pm »
You only need to view the source of your competitors sites to find their keywords and your halfway there. Has google ever actually stated how the algorithms really work, when they change them, how they rank pages and all the other over posh terms they use to try and extract a cash flow from people who know no better. In doing this you are chasing goal posts that google could move at anytime they wish, Bing could be the next thing and then its change again. Who knows "exactly what you mean and gives back exactly what you want".
 So long as your website allows enough people to find you at a sensible price who gives a ..... You pays your money and takes your chance.

halyway there with just viewing competition keywords? as mentioned seo is greatly under appreciated. this is great though as for those who appreciate seo, they can easily benefit from it.

the op is doing domestic work, good luck to him if he decides to try and make a website and then seo on his own. the competition is far far greater for this area compared to drive way cleaning.

people are ranking well from doing little seo and making their own website because they have little competition. Perphaps this is down to the area of cleaning, or the location, or both, but that doesn't mean it's the same for everyone.

unfortunately i feel if the op makes his own website, he will see little to no benefits directly from it, and it will end up being another website that can't compete with compeition. The only benefit (but then it may not be one) is if someone offline notices a web address on things like business cards/vehicles etc, so assumes without looking that they must be a bit more official.

the benefits of having a professional website are great and shouldn't be overlooked. you get one decent job from the website and bam you have paid for it, then another and bam you can pay for decent ongoing seo etc. plus on top of that, due to a large amount of competition the op will have to be paying to advertise to be found, and with the cost of places like yell.com you risk wasting money if there is better alternatives listed along side you.


Hi Green solutions.

As much as I agree with certain aspects of your post. I also disagree with some parts as well.

I am MCSE & MCP Certified and have worked in the computer industry in the states for many years and in the UK working my socks off. Yes it does require skill, knowledge to build a website site.

what area of computer industry? as much as you propobably do have relevent background, i hope you can appreciate that at the moment it's like saying i clean houses so i know how to professionally clean hospitals.



As for SEO it a money making scheme. It all is. including the hosting. Easy money if you have the kit. Either from home or business. So she could go a step further and actually save on hosting and host it from home. That way no fees whatsoever.
SEO is only KEYWORDS. Google even has the tools for SEO. Then you could get technical not too much and link from relevant sites. This will help in your ranking. There are many other ways but it can be done by them and they can acheieve a great result.

Dave

host it from home? hosting is a money making scheme? sorry to sound pedanctic but i really don't understand how you can say this. my host charges £17 for the most basic package with a free domain name for one year, this is great hosting and costs litterally nothing. How can this be a money making scheme when they are on just pounds a month?

hosting it from home is even more money to the op, she will have to pay to buy a server, then maintain it, then have it running 24/7, else if she turns it off, her website is unfindable. She will also have to buy a decent one as one big factor for websites is the loading time, anything more then a couple seconds and most users will try else where.

Pristine Clean

  • Posts: 1149
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #25 on: December 18, 2009, 06:18:13 am »
Hi Greensolutions,

My area of expertise in the computer industry was working with DW, FW, PS CS4 building and hosting websites. As well as supporting VB6, COBAL, C++ .NET platforms on windows and unix, Linux and apache systems.

I could go on to list many other programming languages and software packages that I am very familiar with and still do some freelance work for several large companies based here and in the US.

Now software today has developed more into a WYSIWYG so there is virtually no need to know any programming knowldge today.

As for hosting at home some people will not realise that a Server is or can be a PC from there local Currys or Argos.

All they need to know is  how to apply dynamic DNS, port forwarding, firewall configuration or local static IP configuration.

Then add some hosting software ie Linux, Apache I am sure I do not need to go into too much detail here as it could get confusing. Then hey presto you can now host in all of the matter of under 1 hour. Within 1 - 48 hours should be available to everyone.

Or if you need to get technical they could use
IIS 7.5 is the latest update to the IIS 7.0 server. This release comes with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. This integrates many separate downloads available from Microsoft into the release.

Highlights include:

Integration of the new FTP with the OS
Integration of Admin Pack Extension with the OS
IIS Powershell provider
Rich Application Hosting
Improvements to FastCGI
IIS Core changes and improvements
IIS Best Practice Analyzer

However this is post was not meant to be about who has knowledge or an argument. It was simply about wether to have professional do it for you or can it be done by the home user.

The answer is Yes it can be done with great results by a home user. I also agree that a professional should be able to do a better job simply on the basis of ther tools available to them and especialy that some but not all should have had training and or even a degree in an area of the computer industry relevant to that area.

As for the costing many hosting companies easily charge in the region of £250 - £1500 Could go alot higher per annum for implimentation, design, SEO & Hosting which maybe out of reach for some small businesses. By that I do not mean a £10 per month hosing and they use a control panel to design there own.

Like I said before I was not dissagreeing with you on it all. Just the fact that it can be done well at home.

Vidahost.com for £17.00 where you host your site is not bad I guess. Reveiws are pretty good. But thats a basic package.

But your website has a few faults as of 06.36am
on the bottom right where the links are for

Contact Us : Careers : Terms and Conditions : Privacy Policy

You get: Page does not exist. on all those links above - Google will cache those which wont be very good.



Dave
"You have to except that some days you are the statue and other days you are a pigeon"

Adam P

  • Posts: 1433
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #26 on: December 18, 2009, 03:49:11 pm »
thanks for pointing that out.

i can't be bothered to debate this at the moment. hosting from home is a bad idea as you even mention, you wont go into detail as it'll get too techinical. you have experience in this so maybe you are forgetting how hard people find using the internet, let alone hosting a website. we are cleaners after all.

good luck to the op whatever you decide to do. you're going into a very competitive industry, i hope what you have to compete with works well enough for you :)

Re: Website or not??
« Reply #27 on: December 19, 2009, 01:33:59 pm »
thanks for pointing that out.

i can't be bothered to debate this at the moment. hosting from home is a bad idea as you even mention, you wont go into detail as it'll get too techinical. you have experience in this so maybe you are forgetting how hard people find using the internet, let alone hosting a website. we are cleaners after all.

good luck to the op whatever you decide to do. you're going into a very competitive industry, i hope what you have to compete with works well enough for you :)

I think every one of us make decisions based on each owns situation and what you are or are not willing to buy, pay for or do yourself.
One thing I never try and do is under estimate a person and their abilities. At first things might be hard and things may not make sense, but anything can be learnt, depending on how much time and effort is put into learning it.

Speaking of which, your website has given me a great idea and even offers a very unique feature to potential customers in your area (quotes). I have been working on producing a similar system for us in order to set us apart from all others. Granted its a crude version at present, but hopefully I would be able to spend more time in developing it next year to make it really flexible.

One thing ive been wondering though is what language did you design your website in?

Regards,

Tom.

Adam P

  • Posts: 1433
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #28 on: December 20, 2009, 12:13:54 pm »
One thing ive been wondering though is what language did you design your website in?

Regards,

Tom.

i assume you mean the quote form? that'll be php.

btw, although the quote form may seem good idea to me and you, i actually find it can be harmful to business, as when the customer does a quote i'm not there to sell the price to them, so they see x amount and think oh that's high and then goes with someone else who'll quote at the property. i have never gone to a property to quote and then been unsuccesful, however we get quotes sometimes 15 a day on great days but more often 1-3 a day, and so few go ahead. i am toying with the idea of removing and instead putting a phone number/email and seeing if we get more success through that.

Re: Website or not??
« Reply #29 on: December 21, 2009, 10:03:52 am »
I know where you are coming from. But the idea behind the quote is to get the person to understand this is a guide figure.

Additionally round here, the way I have it set up at the moment (although not live) we undercut other people as well as slightly over (sorry used the range ;) )

Although our website is bringing in a nice stream of visitors, we are getting fewer enquiries. Granted I believe this to be the time of year more than anything. I think the best thing to try is run two versions of the website side by side and divide the visitors (google tool) to see which ones yields better results.

Regards,

Tom.

Adam P

  • Posts: 1433
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #30 on: December 21, 2009, 10:08:19 am »
exactly, although the amount of visitors i get is hard to monitor the difference as you could just simple be sending the wrong visitors to the wrong site, but if you had hundreds a day then maybe it's not so bad. yeah we do try and show this is a guide price a few times and not the actual one, but still people are more likely to pay  higher price imo when we are there then when we are not, especially for regular weekly cleans, they can see who we are and see if we are worth the extra £4 extra per clean, but online they can't, and then they have our price, and then they can meet with competition to get theirs, then even if we are cheaper, they have met with compeititon and more likely to go with them.

Re: Website or not??
« Reply #31 on: December 21, 2009, 10:16:29 am »
I do agree there.
I also think that you almost had it right with your "Book Now" link. Me personally though have phrased it differently. The aim at each step is to let the person looking know that we will only give accurate quotes/estimates in person and the website tool is just to give them an indicator.

I have to admit I am now toying with another idea on asking for a price comparison (nothing major mind) but this would bring about a whole new issues.

I think the only sure fire way to follow these online quotes up is to alter the form slightly. Have the name and phone capture first then provide the estimate. This way you are able to follow it up with a call to try and get to meet them...

Regards,

Tom.

Adam P

  • Posts: 1433
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #32 on: December 21, 2009, 10:32:31 am »
yeah although thats a great idea for busines, it's something i purposely left out as i don't want to force the user to use my services, if they don't trust my services and use someone elses i feel this is my fault and i hsould change it so they want to use me more.

do you mind me see your site?

sherco

  • Posts: 1041
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #33 on: December 21, 2009, 10:48:05 am »
I never quote over the web, or by phone i always make an appointment and go and do a test area on there floor to show them what i can do, 9 times out of 10 i get the job as i sell my services to them, and explain why the should use me rather than the next guy.  ;D
Natural stone floor restoration service.
Natural stone fixing and repairs.
www.poshstonefloors.co.uk

Re: Website or not??
« Reply #34 on: December 21, 2009, 10:57:27 am »
do you mind me see your site?

Not at all, feel free. Just my name on the left there add .co.uk

Regards,

Tom.

Adam P

  • Posts: 1433
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #35 on: December 21, 2009, 11:38:21 am »
I never quote over the web, or by phone i always make an appointment and go and do a test area on there floor to show them what i can do, 9 times out of 10 i get the job as i sell my services to them, and explain why the should use me rather than the next guy.  ;D

exactly, seems to be benefits to both though, i advertise on adwords we do quotes, so this seems to bring in more customers, but we lose just as many as they aren't as likely to use us if they are shopping around and have to meet with one company.

i like your site angel cleaner, who made it? good use of mootools. a few things imo which should be changed is the nice big header image should cycle through images relevent to the page, e.g. house cleaning shouldn't show office cleaning image. also imo i don't like saying just £x.xx, but instead from £x.xx, as you're saying just as though it's cheap, but do you want to come across as cheap, but also if you feel it's cheap but what if someone else thats a lot of money, so saying just and someone can't afford just that, they are too poor etc. just my opinion

also i couldn't find a direct link to computer cleaning

Re: Website or not??
« Reply #36 on: December 21, 2009, 12:07:14 pm »
Hi,

The site was put together by myself. There are some images granted which were taken by others but then we cant be good at everything.

The price does actually state "From Just" instead of "Just" or "From". My personal opinion was that if you use Just, then its a set price, or if you use from, then someone has to meet a lot of criterias to get that price. Where as From Just is a more mellow way of saying it could cost more.

The header flash banner at present (which isnt actually flash entirely) currently displays 3 images. These would be increased and altered to be more relevant depending on what page your on, but at the moment its ok. With regards to the computer cleaning, I need to finalise the words and get some images sorted so this then can go live.

I would be interested to know though how many cleaning businesses can and do offer computer cleaning? We do have a number of reasons for the offer, but what I wonder is how many of the businesses that do offer it do so with a qualified person undertaking the work ?

mystery

  • Posts: 48
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #37 on: December 24, 2009, 02:03:16 am »
Hi All, Thanks for your many replies...Some good advice in there  :)

So my decision is to let someone else do it for me, tbh it wasnt too much of a consideration, I don't have the time required to get to grips with SEO, get listed & build a website.

I thought I had found someone locally (recommended to me), but struggling to get hold of them now, hopefully just the christmas rush. This is them http://www.amethyst-consultancy.co.uk/examples.htm .....feedback welcome!
They quoted me approx (although I think it will be more) £200 for website & SEO, which seems very cheap, but they do work from templates.

Having googled lots of times for cleaners in my area, the pickings on the net are very slim (which was why I wondered if I actually needed a website in the first place!) I'm not sure what sort of content I would need, any hints or suggestions? Obviously I need to get some ideas together to give my designer.

Should I try looking at other websites further afield? Obviously I dont want to look at the National cleaners, so not so sure where to look?

Predominantly, we stick to domestic cleaning, which I have always priced per job, rather than per hour (which Ive had few issues with). Should I include anything about pricing do you think? I saw it was mentioned earlier in the thread thats all, so it's something to think about.

Anything else that a customer would especially want to know other than your services (obviously)??

Thanks so much for all your posts & taking the time to give advice. And Merry Christmas to you all too  ;D

Re: Website or not??
« Reply #38 on: December 24, 2009, 08:36:07 am »
Personally I wouldnt use that place. £200 is cheap but not uncommon.

The examples I looked at were shocking if im honest. You can do a lot better for your money. lol, even I would consider sorting you a website out for £200 if it means you do not use that place :) .

Dont forget (and often this can swing both ways) your online profile is there to represent you online in your absence. If the website looks poor and as if it had no effort, then this is what customers see. If customers now think to go elsewhere is a different story, but im sure you get the picture.

Regards,

Tom.

Nathanael Jones

  • Posts: 5596
Re: Website or not??
« Reply #39 on: December 24, 2009, 07:08:22 pm »

The examples I looked at were shocking if im honest.

I hate to knock another mans work,.. but Tom is right. The optimisation on the sites I clicked was minimal to non-existent. :(