Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: jasonl on June 01, 2010, 07:51:28 pm
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Built by Mark from DP
www.carpetcleaners-bournemouth.co.uk
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like the lay out, like the wording but not enough (actually none at all) personal pictures of you and your equipment, (oo er misses) ;D
thats just my taste though.
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I think the odour control page is too technical. dumb it down as bit so regular people can understand it
you need a better picture of yourself. all the other picture are fine, how do viewers know its not you, and would they even care ::) ::)
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Step 6 on home page has 'scotchguard' spelt wrong, I recognise some of that text ;D looks great to me
Shaun
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Nice looking site in firefox ie8 etc, but, always a but with me :)
This is how some one would see it if they used ie6 as their browser....
Some things can be done to make it look right, Mark will be able to sort it out, browsers are a pain for a web designer, if it looks ok in ie6 and firefox its normally ok in all others, current stats say that around 10% of people still use ie6 ??? So its well worth making it look right for them. Try it and see what yours looks like http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/
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Paul have you ever thought of doing web design? you're very thorough and knowledgeable on it.
Shaun
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Thanks for the comments . I was wanting the Phone mumbers bigger /on every page , is this good to do ?
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Paul have you ever thought of doing web design? you're very thorough and knowledgeable on it.
Shaun
;D if I knew as much about carpet cleaning as I do about web design I'd be a very good carpet cleaner, used to do it shaun many years ago, wish I'd have gone down that business route in some ways, trying to get back into it again, but its having the time to learn and tinker with all the new stuff when trying to run a cleaning business, its not old school html with loads of code and tables that I learnt anymore, its divs and plenty of css.
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Very Imformative , nice out lay but as above needs pics :)
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Regarding the telephone number being bigger I think it depends on how you want them to contact you, if you don't want to stop to answer your phone then push them toward form submission.
Shaun
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Site looks well glossy - nice one cyril - main thing for me is lack of visible fone number without leaving homepage. The pics in general look so perfect they might be a tad unbeleivable? and the shot of cleaning mousse bottle also looks a bit CD tho dont know whether you linked to them or not?? Overall a very pro looking site and so should inspire confidence and credibilty from the custys. My opinions not meant to be derogatory just my initial thoughts - know where u comin from as just had mine updated and its quite a rollercoaster wondering whats right n wrong - good luck and best wishes
Stu
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I'd be tempted just to get Mark to add it to the logo, something like this:
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I just noticed the logo is the wrong version ,, the fire is blue and the water is red!
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Other than those few points which others have picked up it's a lovely site, i'm actually quiet surprised that it was built by Mark.
Regards
dash t
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Dash you sound surprised are Mark's sites not your taste? (not a leading question) I see sites and think 'don't like that' the trouble is with the carpet cleaning community on line we all buy the same and anything different can be frowned upon.
Shaun
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Well it has been up a few days ,and I have got the money and time I put into it back already.
Hope to have several more by the end of summer.
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Jason
looks good. remember that anything someone else says about you holds more weight that you saying it. your testimonials are lost in the page
respect
Ian Harper
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On your EOT cleaning page the word 'tenancy' is spelled three different ways; tennency, tenacy, tennacy. Under your logo on your homepage Bournemouth is spelled incorrectly. Just small things but that's what our customers are looking for....attention to detail.
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Dash you sound surprised are Mark's sites not your taste? (not a leading question) I see sites and think 'don't like that' the trouble is with the carpet cleaning community on line we all buy the same and anything different can be frowned upon.
Shaun
Shaun yes I cannot say that I'm a big fan of Marks website, nothing personal as regards to him because he obviously is a very nice person and offers people value for money.
However what i dont like is everybodies website being almost identical. I'm not saying my website is perfect is not, as is not yet complete and i'm still working on it now. Yet i can proudly say that is down to my efforts, it googles well exactly for what i want , plus is unique.
the major issue in cleaning industry is almost everysite you go on is same old same old thing, henry hoover, women with mops etc :-X with carpet cleanings is very much same, gallery of before and after, pictures of equipment etc etc, i think you get the point.
When you go on builders websites, they all do the same but their websites range in the designs, same for other trades, online shops are not all the same etc, but in our industry most of them are. I think it must be down to the people in our industry to whom website is just a website.
We get 90% of business from our website, it's a face of our company not just a box with few words in it and pictures to show how good we are.
Anyways that's just my personal opinion and i think i shouldn't be saying all this as I will get alot of stick now.
Regards
dash t
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i agree with dash, though i would as i disagree with the pay little for someone to use an automated template builder to do any of the web design work, then from that you get a site that luckily gets ok results as there is not much competition, plus you're linked from each other site that has been created by mark, which is against googles rules so when they realise this they'll punish the site owner and each one that links to them.
it's kind of like when you see these sites,
http://www.cleaningguildford.co.uk/
http://www.commercialcleanersguildford.co.uk/
http://www.contractcleaningservicesguildford.com/
http://www.officecleaningguildford.co.uk/
http://www.ascotletcleaning.co.uk/
http://www.cleaningservicesguildford.com/
gets a bit samey and you start to realise little work has gone into those sites to make them unique for the business. e.g. although jason's site is ok, it has little reason to be a carpet cleaners site, and a carpet cleaner that specialises in fire and flood restoration.
imo ways to improve the site design would be first to remove the guestsonline widget. was that mark's latest find or your choice? imo a customer doesn't want to see that. it adds nothing to the users experience and is typically found on amateurs websites (not my opinion). others may have an opinion and think it works well which is fair enough, just in my experience you see this useless rubbish all the time and think was someone paid to put that there?
what's the login/register do for the customer? it's in a very important part of the page (could be replaced with your phone number), which it would need to be on sites like facebook, but does it add anything of value to the visitor? if it does it's not very clear that it does.
if you disable images the header links go almost invisible. something to think about for future as more and more people are using the internet on their phone and often a lot don't load images to cut down on loading times.
perhaps a little small detail but the font used for the contact numbers isn't very readable as at the moment some parts are wide, then others are very thin. something a little more round or one that at least uses a similar width for all parts of the character would be better
re-check spelling over and over and copy/paste each block of text into word so no spelling mistakes as that'll show a lot of mistakes if there is any
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the concept behind these sites is to give a carpet cleaner a profestional web presence
at low cost - these sites cost £200 for the money you get a lot of functionality
show many any web development company in the uk that will give you
a site with CMS - Lightbox gallerry images sliders embeded videos for this kind of money
as far as seo goes - have always said at this price we give a standard SEo pagage
Ie Structred content which google likes - SEFS Site maps ect
The bottom line is our sites earn carpet cleaners money
Ps we have a 4 to 5 week waiting list for sites so they cant be that crap can they
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Ps we have a 4 to 5 week waiting list for sites so they cant be that crap can they
i currently have a waiting list for eot cleans, does that mean i'm good at eot cleans? none are repeat customers.
i'm not going to go into this arguement again however i will just say you're right in that you offer cheap service for a cheap price. a businesses website is one of the biggest ways to get new customers and will continue to grow and grow as the better way for new customers, so i get lost when people pay peanuts for someone to design the website when it's so important.
sorry no offence jason as i'm sure you're very experienced, but as john has said your site looks "low cost" and is what potentially your biggest source of new business will see first. ;)
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where does John say his site look 'low cost' they come at a low cost not look low cost. most people who search for a company will not be failed web designers but ordinary people looking for a cleaning company,
they don't notice that the site is similar to one 300 miles away because they will never see that other site.
plus mark never said he he offers [cheap service for a cheap price[/i],these are your words, not his. perhaps we should see your website designs as a comparison..... are you still trying to start a website design service?
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As quoted from a previous post
that's yours, come on you're a web designer show us your portfolio of work
let be honest, Mark does what you dream of doing, he has a very successful web design business, if you want to criticise him then let us see the websites companies have paid you to design,
at the moment you are looking like a jealous wannabee
Here some of my sites
http://www.carpet-cleaners-surrey.co.uk/
http://rug-cleaners-wimbledon.co.uk/
http://www.carpetcleaners-cardiff.com/
http://carpetcleaners-pontypridd.co.uk/
lets look at some of your work.
You seem intent with a vengeance of ripping my company to bits and costing my family money
The sites are low cost be they are not cheap and nasty
If you actually understood how we built the sites may be you could
see how we can had so much functionality at little cost.
We rap functionality into components and insert it into the base frame work
so once written and incorporated it is available to use in all our websites
without any additional cost in time other then the initial development
our latest
additions are Ajax site search and a lightbox gallery.
Most web companies
wont even do a 1 page website for £200 wake up what we are offering is an absolute
bargain.
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where does John say his site look 'low cost' they come at a low cost not look low cost. most people who search for a company will not be failed web designers but ordinary people looking for a cleaning company,
they don't notice that the site is similar to one 300 miles away because they will never see that other site.
plus mark never said he he offers [cheap service for a cheap price[/i],these are your words, not his. perhaps we should see your website designs as a comparison..... are you still trying to start a website design service?
i don't need to provide examples to prove my point. people on here know me enough i don't need to prove anything :)
i never said he said "cheap service for a cheap price". thank you for pointing out what i said a few posts ago ???
you're right though he never said they look low cost, so i will edit it. they are low costs site, and imo that shows. the biggest way to attract new customers looks low cost. again not denying it gets results.
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Why dont you want to show us your sites?
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John / Mark,
I've said it before and I'll say it again. You are too cheap. You could do your basic sites at £ 497.00 and you'd still have a waiting list.
There is a lad on another forum who has recently paid £ 2,500 for a five page site.
It has the same basic on site stuff as yours do (he does not get any offsite promotion for that money. The only difference is that it is a sliced graphic comp (which by the look of it is about half a days work .. maybe even an existing design that has been tweaked).
As you say, carpet cleaning is a pretty low competition area and the basic stuff is usually enough to get ranked.
Just out of interest, personally, I do not like large flash graphics at the top of sites. Do you have any test results that suggest they are better?
Adam,
I know what you are saying about looks but in my experience, it is still the content that is the most important.
I've been involved with a site for a couple of years which get's pasted by web designers because it looks naff and has extremely long copy. It was built in Frontpage with tables (it actually only displays right in Internet Explorer).
What they do not see is the traffic stats and the clients' comments. Most say how interesting and informative it is compared to others. We are in the process of rebuilding using pure CSS but the site owners refuse to change the look (they argue why change something that works?).
This is a good discussion if it does not develop into a slanging match,
Garry
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We are now using using gzip and image sprites in the design to speed them up again this is a another continual feature we are adding to the frame work -
One thing I havent explained is our module positions on our frame work are colapsable
so if people dont want the big graphic they dont have to have it - the base frame is just a set of divs
into which joomla inserts content or modules - very little is staicaly coded into the site template
even the javascript and css sheets are dynamical inserted into the template
so we only use what we need to use.
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Hi Jason,
You seem like a nice gezzer, in its best sense. So i thought i would take the time to go over the site a bit. This is my thoughts, so dont take it personally.
Your contact details are too low, many users dont scroll down.
You need a Call to action
Your scrolling pictures show a toxic chemical?
Your services should be on the left, examine the way people browse and expect menus.
You need much more original and engaging text on your pages. (some people might read it, most dont) Google wants like i think its 250 words per page, dont quote me long time since i done ours which is top for our target keywords and has been for 4 years.
Email me i send you a good link to investigate, i just cant do it on a open forum.
Graeme
PS Look at how the anyclean guys have done it (i would say us but they have done a better job than me), it converts = works.
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This is a work in progress hopefully jason will take all the comments on board and make a decision on what he wants on is website-
Has I said nothing is hard coded in the sites to move a menu to the left or a different postion - change menu list orders -move items to different positions are all five minite jobs. these sites are fluid and unused postions colapse so all can be adjusted any time to suit
I would like also to pass comment on the people whom assume that joomla is a build your own cheap web site construction system it is not the build your own site £20.00 package which is offered by cheap hosting companys
it is a very well written complex very felxiable object oriented system when thoroughly understood can echive
amazing things - the word template system is banded about a lot about joomla the templates in joomla
are not tradittional templates you see on template sites but a a framework to render joomla output a bit like scaffolding.
Sorry boys but the days off flat file website devlopment are over just knowing a bit of html and javascript and the ability to blag your way through with snippet or two of jquery are gone php mysql database driven websites are the future of the web.
over 30million people have chosen joomla to build there websites can they all be wrong
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lol what a load of tosh. you sound like a sales person for rug doctor; anyone in the know knows it sounds like a load of bull, but to someone who doesn't it sounds like an amazing machine. you're selling a template (which i'm sure you've denied before but now changed story) which is automatically given to you by a system, you then chose colour etc which again is all very simplified by the system and you click add this widget, add this widget (clear form the guestonline widget use) it's clearly some widget that took 5 seconds to click the button install and done, charge client £200 :) this is essentially what you are but more expensive, and imo not as nice... http://www.templatemonster.com/joomla-templates.php
gosh i'm so jealous as i'm a web developer/designer, this is exactly what i want to be doing, using a template builder to do it all ::) do you say anywhere on your site that what you'll do is use a free template, on a free system, to make a site almost identical to others, then offer bad (if any) input for things like content, places for important data. as a web designer (that has a big waiting list) i'd expect you to know the basics, but they're missing from all your sites i have seen.
take what i say how you want. i'm against you because i'm jealous etc if it helps.
why don't i post my own sites? why would i? it adds nothing to this thread, you or anyone else wont say "oh yeah from looking at your sites i agree with you cleansurrey", you'll do one very predictable thing (want to take a guess?), so why bother? i don't understand how showing my sites would prove or add anything to the subject.
"php/mysql sites are the way of the future" is true for certain sites. in this case it's almost pointless for mysql. what do you need a database for on this site? php of course makes life much much easier, but mysql for a carpet cleaners website of 5/6 pages?
how is stating 30 million users using joomla any validation of your services? how many people use the rug doctors? how many people use the greatest carpet cleaning machine? if i buy the most commonly used machine does that mean i'm a good carpet cleaner? again going back to the sales rubbish
it is not the build your own site £20.00 package which is offered by cheap hosting companys
fairly certain it is. unless you're saying the joomla which you've downloaded for free is different to the one hosting companies use?
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verry aggresive post
Yes some parts of joomla core have been altered by me mainly router.php so we can create clean SEF Urls
May be look at your own site as you still have fragments of query strings in your Urls
why do you continually refuse to show samples of this wonderfull work you preport to do the fact is you cannot compete against us and this is the root of all your comments
your own site is cms for green cleaning looks like word press (Free Open Source Contnet Managent Sytem) why didn't you hand code this one then from scratch.
A resonable request to view some of your work if you are going to pass comment on othe peoples only fair to let people see what you have done.
A good website designer can earn far more money then a carpet cleaner sorry boys but is true - so why are you cleaning carpets are you a website designer who cleans
carpets or you a carpet cleaner who builds websites.
Saying we dont do anything for the £200 We Charge for sites is just silly - the sites dont appear by magic
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show me how my main site looks like wordpress lol. anyone experienced would know if it was straight away. my blog is powered by wordpress, with my own bespoke design, which i made to match my site.
i don't understand what you meant by saying that I said I make wonderful sites etc? if it's the root of all my comments how come then others say the same as me or similar?
a cleaner earns say £7 per hour, a web designer can say earn £10 per hour but easily a heck of a lot more when good. i don't cleaning carpets and never have. however i'm running a business, so i'm not paid a cleaners wage, i'm paid the wage of someone running a business, so stating i earn less or whatever then you is silly, and i'd have thought very obvious that it was a pointless thing to say in this thread.
the templates i linked to don't appear by magic either, but they're essentially the same thing, just much cheaper and nicer. now if i try to be as positive as possible, i guess you could say the £200 is worth paying (and only for this reason) as you get linked to from other carpet cleaning sites, which although is against Google's rules, does help if it goes un-noticed.
The sites you're creating appear to be made by a student first learning about web design/development, missing out on important things that have been mentioned by people on this site who currently aren't even web designer/developers, yet you are and you have a waiting list! for that reason and many others i'd recommend paying someone else. sorry
this thread has really gone off topic and we'll never both agree. i said i didn't want to go into a big debate about your sites, just a quick point so that people can get a better more open view on things. i think i've made valid points that have only been in the interest of other people and meant to help, not just have a go for no reason other then jealousy or whatever you claim i'm doing this for. i'm gaining nothing by posting this, infact i may even be losing as some probably think less of me.
i hope jason's site is a success and that he considers some of the things i and others have said about some of the ways to improve the basics which are perhaps missing from this template.
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this post has now served it purpose and has been hijacked for a personal disagreement. so I'm locking it.
I'm sure if Jason requires any other specific feed back he can start another post
mike
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o dear
:o
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I think it should of been locked ages ago,
Kev Loomes was banned for far less, even if a cc mentions cleaners mate like last time it was locked earlier than this post.
What is unfair for one should be unfair for others..
Andrew
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A good website designer can earn far more money then a carpet cleaner sorry boys but is true - so why are you cleaning carpets are you a website designer who cleans carpets or you a carpet cleaner who builds websites.
John I would argue with that greatly, this post just shows that you think you are better than all those people here, you build their " affordable" websites so they can go out and clean earning peanuts. Well, well you are absolutelly right you know why? because sort of customers it attracts only prepared to pay peanuts!
Jason look I dont have any issues with your website and i'm sure it will bring you loads of work because your website does look good ( as i have said i was surprised) although few things needs to be changed. Saying this look at Johns previous post and the websites he has posted. They all look almost identical and thats what i was trying to say before this has gone too far!
regards
dash t
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looks like someone unlocked the topic
you build their " affordable" websites so they can go out and clean earning peanuts. Well, well you are absolutely right you know why? because sort of customers it attracts only prepared to pay peanuts!
regards
dash t
' Peanuts'.......how do you know how much the companies who use Marks websites earn? I know a lot of carpet cleaner who have DPs site and they don't earn Peanuts.
and I agree with Andrew this topic should have been locked ages ago as it gives free publicity to DP which is been fueled by the petty squabbling, cleansurrey thinks he's having a dig at John but he is loving it, the more active the topic the more free publicity he gets.
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the comments were all excepted graciously and everyone is entitled to an opinoin and different tastes
what I took offence to was the fact that one and only one postie was making out I am just ripping off
carpet cleaners with the product we supply.
Has I said the sites are flexable if jason decides to take advice and moves menues to left we will move them
if a says get rid of the scroller at the top we'll remove if hes not happy with a photo or text well change it
Personaly I like Dark Black looking sites the wife hates them everybodys different.
has mentioned before its the cleaner who as the finally say on were thing go and what they say
I am no longer going to comment on this post if you wish to carry it on advising jason what you
think is site needs then all well and good he can let me know what he wants to do
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looks like someone unlocked the topic
you build their " affordable" websites so they can go out and clean earning peanuts. Well, well you are absolutely right you know why? because sort of customers it attracts only prepared to pay peanuts!
regards
dash t
' Peanuts'.......how do you know how much the companies who use Marks websites earn? I know a lot of carpet cleaner who have DPs site and they don't earn Peanuts.
and I agree with Andrew this topic should have been locked ages ago as it gives free publicity to DP which is been fueled by the petty squabbling, cleansurrey thinks he's having a dig at John but he is loving it, the more active the topic the more free publicity he gets.
Ok Mike,im not going to argue with you as i like this website and wouldn't like to get banned over a petty argument!
What p***** me off is that John Jost openly said that carpet cleaners dont earn alot and it's much bertter to be a web designer, when probably most of their business comes from those people, so he's openly saying that by even charging £200.00 per website he still earns alot more than most of people on here! So just shows how much he knows, plus why would someone say something like this if he thinks his wensites bring people alot of money?
dash t
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dash t we are not arguing we are communicating and why would you get banned ::) ::)
I keep quoting you because you keep posting rubbish, you keep misquoting john to try and prove your point, you have just done it again
you said " John Just openly said that carpet cleaners dont earn a lot" ..... where did he say this ? this is just a blatant misquote
he said " A good website designer can earn far more money then a carpet cleaner which is true
just like the 'peanut' statement you constantly misquote if you want to quote some one then use the quote button and don't twist what people are saying. if you can't put your point across without the need to accuse people of saying saying something they haven't then perhaps you should refrain from posting rubbish
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if you can't put your point across without the need to accuse people of saying saying something they haven't then perhaps you should refrain from posting rubbish
Dont worry Mike you wont see me post "rubish" anymore. I'm sorry if I've upset anyone!
Regards,
Dash T
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Thanks for all the comments, obviously I have canvassed the opinion of customers and friends who may look at the site more objectively.
The spelling mistakes and glaring mistakes will be corrected .
I am happy with the site overall and the service I received , I feel that I have had excellent value for money.
I have no interest in spending £2000 plus on a website as I have in the past, as it is only a small part of my overall marketing strategy.
I think green tree not posting his work speaks volumes ;D
Best wishes and thankyou again for all your input.