[bobplum]

Hi members,just wondered what your views and opinions are on this.
I called in at a local web site designer company today and  asked them
Their opinion of my web site and how it could be improved in order to
Generate me some more `leads`etc.
After looking at it,they said it was old fashioned and out of date and that
Was the reason I was`nt getting any enquiries.It also was`nt getting picked
Up on `Google .
This is what they have offered me.

A 3 page template solution.
Template design of 3 pages.
Static Image Banner.(Creating visual Impact)
Website Editor (Compatible with Macs`and PC`s )
Purchasing Professional Stock Images ( Lifetime Licenced)
Customer Feed Back Form or Contract Form.
2 MB Download Space for PDF`s etc.
Location Map
Dedicated Customer Account Manager            £199. 95p plus VAT


Monthly Fee £11.74p plus VAT ( Covers Domain Renewal,Hosting,E,Mail,
Backups,CMS and unlimited support )

My website is    www.gleemclean.co.uk


Thanks in advance for replies.

have you tried the one being advertised on TV i think its called 1 to 1 websites  try that

[CleartechLee]

I use 1and1.co.uk they are good price wise and have decent features for the low cost

[Window Washers]

I use 1and1.co.uk they are good price wise and have decent features for the low cost

a low cost website will not make you any return, it is low cost for a reason

[Tom White]

I use 1and1.co.uk they are good price wise and have decent features for the low cost

a low cost website will not make you any return, it is low cost for a reason

Hmmmm.  Mine is a DIY website, therefore free, and I pay £12 a year for hosting.  And after the paid for rankings, I'm the first top ranking in my local area on google search.  I've had two jobs from it this week.

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

Tosh,this is my whole and very point.With your site being
As basic and cost effective as it is,,,,and ya got 2 jobs last
Week,,,,,,,,I hav`nt had 2 jobs from mine in the whole time
I`ve had my web site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most members say there`s nothing wrong with my site as it
Is.

If that’s the case,why don`t I get any leads thru`it ?
What am I doing wrong ?
I just don`t get it at all



Lewis  Doubtfire

[Inside Out]

As I said before. If you ONLY have your website, you're, as someone put it, a needle in a haystack. Get yourself listed on yell.com, tompson local, google etc. Actually google windowcleaner in your area, the whatever listings come up, register yourself on as many as possible.

It'll take some of your time, but will ne worth it.

The more places you are, the easier you are to find, the more hits you will get, the more work will come your way.

Register yourself here too statcounter.com. its free, and you'll be able to monitor your hits on site.

And make yourself a facebook page! I get 1 or 2 jobs a week off of that too!

Hope this helps.

[Window Washers]

I use 1and1.co.uk they are good price wise and have decent features for the low cost

a low cost website will not make you any return, it is low cost for a reason

Hmmmm.  Mine is a DIY website, therefore free, and I pay £12 a year for hosting.  And after the paid for rankings, I'm the first top ranking in my local area on google search.  I've had two jobs from it this week.

Tosh, do you know what you are doing with a website ? and do you paid for rankings ?

[Window Washers]

Tosh,this is my whole and very point.With your site being
As basic and cost effective as it is,,,,and ya got 2 jobs last
Week,,,,,,,,I hav`nt had 2 jobs from mine in the whole time
I`ve had my web site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most members say there`s nothing wrong with my site as it
Is.

If that’s the case,why don`t I get any leads thru`it ?
What am I doing wrong ?
I just don`t get it at all



Lewis  Doubtfire

Lewis it is missing the most basic of things, the people that say it looks ok, are right, BUT with websites looks are not everything, there is a lot more to a website than the visuals of it, this is taken from the source code of your website (what a search engine spider will look at):

meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Gleem Clean</title> This part is the title of your website now unless they already know your name it is next to useless
<meta name="keywords" content="there is nothing in this there should be at least one keyword" />
<meta name="description" content="this describes your website to visitors, there is nothign written here" />
<link href="default.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>

the h tags and alt tags in your site could also be optimized at present there not, this is one of the reasons you get nothing from it.
lewis the first thing I would do is change this and test it out, add the relevent things to it.

Or pay someone that knows what they are doing to do it for you.

If you want to get work from a website you need to work at it more so now than you used to due to googles panda updates (will not go into that as it getting very confusing)

[Dave Willis]

Might not be the website as such. It might just be that there is little work in your area anyway. I have a decent site and free listings with several companies. I also have a statcounter on my site to monitor the views. There is little local traffic coming through although I do get work.
People who sell websites will obviously feed you all the bull they can, I believe a website is just another tool to help with sales. There are other ways.

[H S and Son]

I use 1and1.co.uk they are good price wise and have decent features for the low cost

a low cost website will not make you any return, it is low cost for a reason

Now now Ian, that's not a particularly accurate statement is it :0)

[Window Washers]

I use 1and1.co.uk they are good price wise and have decent features for the low cost

a low cost website will not make you any return, it is low cost for a reason

Now now Ian, that's not a particularly accurate statement is it :0)

ok I will reword it, Just for you and Tosh 
getting a low cost website and trying to do something you dont have a clue about is not a good investment, how about that.

Or Low cost websites lack (Normally  ) what more professional ones have in the way of SEO, then some companies are website designers and dont have a clue about SEO which does not help people that do not understand it.
Someone put on here that webdesigners will sell you and thats right, if they do make sure you question the SEO of the site as thats one of the keys for you to get traffic.


Tosh spents time on his website yet seems not to value his time, IMO thats not a low cost website, he may have paid very little but I bet money it took him a load of his time to do it, which to me has a cost.

is that any better, if not I will try to re word it again for you Matt 

[H S and Son]

;0)

Looks alright to me 

[Window Washers]

;0)

Looks alright to me 

Good stuff

[bobby p]

i would get a photo of a house on there as you do domestic. and get that guy turning sideaways on so he is smiling to the camera  .

[marcus stacks]

I do free design and only charge for the hosting and SEO each month. 14.99 once the site hits page one. No point in having a website if its not on page one your business critical term, example "window cleaners in YOUR TARGET AREA!" so thats all i charge for!

heres an example of a layout i lik to use (coded by hand as i was taught)

http://www.template6.tattoo-web-design.co.uk/ the design is copyright to me but is free to use as long as long as you want and as long as it remains on my servers. This design is an seo DREAM as I wrote every line of code to be as SEO friendly as possible!

A guy who is using this layout can be found here  http://www.reachtoclean.co.uk (customised to his own specifications). Now goto google and type in "window cleaners wakefield" and see the result!

this can be customised to your needs logos/colours features added or removed, a coupld more pages thrown in. As you can see its very flash and conforms to W3C coding standard which all sites should... Its also very smart, blocking much of the spam that comes from the "callback request form!"

I also supply a login area you can add/edit/delete news/offer items testimonies and faq's. I’m working on adding on an area people can manage their customers details, keep records and stuff but that’s down the road!

As I say my design and setup is free (you just can’t move the site elsewhere) but I have to charge for hosting and SEO to get the site ranking well on page one (14.99 per calendar month)!

If you like the layout linked to above and want to use it (obviously i would customise it to your business needs, colours/photos/logos/pages) email me at admin@tattoo-web-design.co.uk and ill try and fit you in, you may have to wait a couple of weeks but ill get around to you!

p.s i only take on a single person per town, pointless trying to get two sites ranking well for the same area, so if your targeting a town that someone else i do work for is covering i cant help!

[carl stanton]

;0)

Looks alright to me 

Good stuff

that was a big sigh Ian  lol

[Window Washers]

;0)

Looks alright to me  

Good stuff

that was a big sigh Ian   lol

lol it was  


Marcus, do people really pay you £14.99 to hold there company over a barrel ? I thought that business model stopped around the same time everyone lost there websites with free netname.

Your site looks great but IMO people should hold the rights to there website not a person charging them monthly. that page look very much like a wordpress theme I have.


Ian
I am not saying this to try and get myself business because I am not interested in taking on any more at the moment. (just to clear that up for Carl  )

[marcus stacks]

>>>Marcus, do people really pay you £14.99 to hold there company over a barrel ? <<<

No m8, people pay me 14.99 a month if they have a site that isnt getting them any work and I give them a site that DOES get them work. Its called *adverting*, no different than paying for advertising ANYWHERE ELSE. I dont charge for the design i just throw it in because it looks BETTER than what these people have to work with in the first place. They can stick to thier current website that isnt bringing them in new work. I dont force anyone to have a website that works....... So to sum up I am HAPPY to do the same SEO work on thier current sites m8!

Page one of Google is where the business is at! and as I worked for a SEO company before I KNOW ONE will keep your site at page one for less! in fact they will say "we are very good at getting our clients to page one" take your money upfront and not care. I get clients to page one FIRST and they can walk away whenever they want! Go ring a few legit places right now and let us know how much they charge upfront, £300 per year at the very least JUST for SEO, they dont throw in a free website.

How am I holding anyone over a barrel by giving them a tool that works, a tool they can walk away from ANY time they want?

No thats not an open source wordpress site, its a closed source proper website i built from scratch over months. Tell me does your site pass this basic test? http://validator.w3.org/

Wordpress sites look okay but under the hood, very badly coded! Big difference in quality from someone who studied at uni for 3 years to a wordpress site...

[carl stanton]

[quote ]
I am not saying this to try and get myself business because I am not interested in taking on any more at the moment. (just to clear that up for Carl  )
[/quote]
thank you 

any way here is a simple way to think of a website, if you have a car that looks great but the engine is duff,what use is it, you need to know or get some one to sort the engine

[Window Washers]

>>>Marcus, do people really pay you £14.99 to hold there company over a barrel ? <<<

No m8, people come to me if they have a site that isnt getting them any work and I give them a site that DOES get them work. Its called *adverting*, no different than paying for advertising ANYWHERE ELSE. 7.99 a month of that is hosting. They can stick to thier current website that isnt bringing them in new work. I dont force anyone to have a website that works.......

Page one of Google is where the business is at! and as I worked for a SEO company before I KNOW ONE will keep your site at page one for less! in fact they will say "we are very good at getting our clients to page one" take your money upfront and not care. I get clients to page one FIRST and they can walk away whenever they want! Go ring a few legit places right now and let us know how much they charge upfront, £300 per year at the very least JUST for SEO, they dont throw in a free website

No thats not an open source wordpress site, its a closed source proper website. Tell me does your site pass this basic test?http://validator.w3.org/


wordpress sites look okay but under the hood, very badly coded!

on my marketing sites, validator does not like the widgits I use to be honest, yet I rank page one of google as that is where the traffic is  

Why don't you offer webdesign that others can host are very least so they own it ?
I know what advertising is and what your offering could be good value the problem is they don't own it, you do this was my point.

You would be surprised what seo can be done for £14.99 a month by the way  
I have heard all the sales crap from seo companies makes me laugh when they call me, I used to work in one myself by the way.

Ian

P.S Marcus I love your Logo