Do web site work?

[Kimber Landscapes]

The recent poll made me think to ask...
Does your web site work well?
What do you use it for?
Who made it?
How do you get people there?

[MASTERMOWER]

Yes and no.

No if you believe all you have to do is build a site, upload it, leave it be, and results will pour in.

Yes if you're committed to promoting your website, building it in such a way that people are swayed to respond, and following up to leads in a timely fashion.

In reality, this topic could have its own section because it can get very complicated. In my opinion, my website sucks balls, but yet potential customers visit it, like what they see, and respond to a special email I have set aside for all web inquiries. It's fairly simple, but that's all it has to be.

I think a big problem with company websites is that they want to tell you about them. That's fine if your some huge ass corporation, but we are in the service sector behind the wheel of a small boat - you want to tell your prospects what's in it for them.

Those are a few of my thoughts. I too hope this developes into a good discussion because there certainly is a lot to learn in this area....I'm still learning to.

----------

Ah $hi+, I didn't answer your questions.

1. Does mine work well? Moderately well - hopefully I'll re-create it again this year for better performance. Needs to be updated with current info and promotional material anyhow.
2. What do I use it for? To sell services
3. Who made it? Myself
4. How do I get people there? I list the website on every piece of promotional material...it's even plastered on my trucks tailgate...on my yellow page ads, online directory listings, business cards, estimate forms, just everywhere!! Assume noone will know about your website unless you tell them about it! I even went so far to begin to tag other domains to it. With my company name, the best domain was already bought by a company in Austraila of all places. I was left with a half azzed domain which is hard to tell someone. "Yeah, that website is www dot landscape s-o-l-n-s dot com." It caused mass confusion. I tagged landscapesolutionsks to the site so it's easier to remember. Still though, I'd like a shorter domain. Just sucks..........EXACTLY why I preach heavily why you ought to buy up a domain quickly even if you have no intention to build a site for quite some time. A domain costs less than $10 per year. Better to get something you like before your left with "scrubcuts.com"

[Kimber Landscapes]

Pretty good site, the name is bad though.
I am in the process of changing my domain name.

[Kimber Landscapes]

Kimberlandscapes.com is ready what do you think?

[GrassMaster]

Please bare with me, I'm trying to help you!

Kimberlandscapes.com is ready what do you think?

How long has your web site been on the internet? This year?

What's wrong with the name? Isn't that the name of your business?

Service is misspelled in your description meta tag.

Consider changing the Title Tag from Kimber Landscapes to...

<title>Lawn Service Maintenance Landscaping, Orange - Seminole, Orlando Florida</title> 

That's 72 characters including whitespace, perfect title tag size!

If you take your web site out of frames, you'll be better off. You can use your MSFP Header & Footer borders to carry over the look & feel of the web site from one page to another. Go look at www.lawnbook.com it's not perfect but it works.

Between the footer & header borders you can use tables (percentage tables) to place your content in. You can use like a cell on the left side to place your links in if you want the links on the left.

Those java applet buttons need to go... You need text links going to your pages. It is said that crawlers & spiders can't follow java. It can be argued but why take a chance?

I wouldn't name the pages oldblablabla.htm, use this for naming pages. landscape_computer_design.htm, lawn_service_awards.htm, lawn_maintenance_subdivisions.htm... Get the picture?

You need to reduce your file sizes. (Picture files) The Pictures physical sizes are OK, but the file sizes of the pics is too big.

Example: The long narrow picture of the white truck pulling the trailer (truck_4.gif) is 35,349KB it would take a person on dial up that's never been to your web site before, 17.5 seconds to load that one picture. If they have 56.6 dialup it would take 8.5 seconds to load that one picture. Now consider how many pics are there & their sizes. At least 80% to 90% of all dialup people would leave before the page loads.

You want people that do searches for Lawn Service Maintenance, Landscaping in the Orange, Seminole, Orlando Florida area to find you. This is what I know about & I'm very good at it!

No matter what you put on your web site or name the tags, if they type www.kimberlandscapes.com they will find you. You don't need "Kimber Landscapes" for a page title. You need what & where you do it in your title, description meta tags.

I'm offer you suggestions that I know will work & I know what I'm talking about. I'm not a graphic designer, yes I struggle with nice web page design but I know my stuff about Search Engine Optimzation... I started on the internet in 1994 by 1997 I was reading & studying about search engine optimization & 10 years later I still read & learn about it. How did you find me? Most likely through a search for lawn service business at Google or some other search engine or something close to that? Maybe? Sort of?

There's a lot more that can be done but if you do the above, the $200 I should have charged you for this will bring you back $1,000's within one year from the time Google Indexes your web site!

It's a lot of work but it will make all effort spent on your web site well worth it.

Please copy this text if you want too because I will remove it later...

[Kimber Landscapes]

WOW great info. I will try to work these ideas in. Thank you very much.

[taaz]

You're off to a good start, but I strongly suggest finding a different background.

GrassMaster gave you some very helpful advice -- however; you didn't start your site with the mandatory <!DOCTYPE Declaration> which is not only for validation per W3C compliance, but also to ensure your site displays properly in all browsers -- therefore, you have the following 2 code errors and 130 code warnings that you may want to fix...

line 1 column 1 - Warning: missing <!DOCTYPE> declaration
line 26 column 274 - Warning: missing </font> before <div>
line 29 column 1 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 32 column 38 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 33 column 27 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 33 column 59 - Warning: <blink> is not approved by W3C
line 33 column 27 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 34 column 27 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 37 column 25 - Warning: missing </font> before </div>
line 40 column 15 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 40 column 197 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 42 column 4 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 43 column 15 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 49 column 110 - Warning: missing </font> before <div>
line 51 column 1 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 53 column 84 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 54 column 29 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 54 column 29 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 55 column 29 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 55 column 29 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 57 column 29 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 58 column 11 - Warning: <marquee> is not approved by W3C
line 57 column 29 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 61 column 29 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 68 column 85 - Error: <o:p> is not recognized!
line 68 column 85 - Warning: discarding unexpected <o:p>
line 69 column 11 - Warning: discarding unexpected </o:p>
line 86 column 23 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 91 column 49 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 92 column 123 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 96 column 23 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 97 column 214 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 98 column 125 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 100 column 214 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 101 column 125 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 104 column 49 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 105 column 34 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 108 column 73 - Error: <o:p> is not recognized!
line 108 column 73 - Warning: discarding unexpected <o:p>
line 105 column 34 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 110 column 49 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 110 column 49 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 111 column 34 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 112 column 9 - Warning: <marquee> is not approved by W3C
line 114 column 13 - Warning: discarding unexpected </o:p>
line 111 column 34 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 116 column 47 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 125 column 15 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 135 column 115 - Warning: missing </font> before <div>
line 136 column 1 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 136 column 1 - Warning: missing </font> before <form>
line 137 column 1 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 142 column 21 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 152 column 23 - Warning: missing </font> before </div>
line 184 column 32 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 186 column 25 - Warning: missing </font> before </div>
line 193 column 30 - Warning: discarding unexpected </font>
line 195 column 70 - Warning: missing </font> before <p>
line 196 column 27 - Warning: inserting implicit <font>
line 15 column 1 - Warning: <script> proprietary attribute "fptype"
line 15 column 1 - Warning: <script> inserting "type" attribute
line 21 column 1 - Warning: <script> proprietary attribute "fptype"
line 21 column 1 - Warning: <script> inserting "type" attribute
line 29 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "background"
line 29 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolordark"
line 29 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolorlight"
line 31 column 87 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 43 column 22 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "background"
line 43 column 22 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "height"
line 43 column 22 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolordark"
line 43 column 22 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolorlight"
line 51 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "background"
line 51 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "height"
line 51 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolordark"
line 51 column 24 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolorlight"
line 53 column 7 - Warning: <td> proprietary attribute "background"
line 71 column 338 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "dynamicanimation"
line 71 column 338 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "lowsrc"
line 71 column 338 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 72 column 279 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "dynamicanimation"
line 72 column 279 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "lowsrc"
line 72 column 279 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 73 column 297 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "dynamicanimation"
line 73 column 297 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "lowsrc"
line 73 column 297 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 74 column 279 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "dynamicanimation"
line 74 column 279 - Warning: <img> proprietary attribute "lowsrc"
line 74 column 279 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 106 column 13 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 107 column 13 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 107 column 74 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 110 column 49 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 116 column 154 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 117 column 34 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 118 column 47 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 127 column 91 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 128 column 110 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 129 column 105 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 132 column 110 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 145 column 81 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 146 column 110 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 147 column 95 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 150 column 99 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 170 column 123 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 193 column 268 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "background"
line 193 column 268 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "height"
line 193 column 268 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolordark"
line 193 column 268 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute "bordercolorlight"
line 195 column 7 - Warning: <td> proprietary attribute "background"
line 26 column 274 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 32 column 38 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 37 column 25 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 40 column 197 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 53 column 84 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 67 column 18 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 77 column 22 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 78 column 80 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 79 column 26 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 79 column 62 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 80 column 49 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 81 column 16 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 91 column 49 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 97 column 214 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 100 column 214 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 104 column 49 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 113 column 16 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 120 column 36 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 135 column 115 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 136 column 1 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 152 column 23 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 186 column 25 - Warning: trimming empty <font>
line 195 column 70 - Warning: trimming empty <font>

[A&J]

Holy crap, Taaz, how did you generate that report???

[primetim31]

Hey guys. To help you generate traffic both to your website and to your business in general, you should try posting your portfolio of yards to YardShare (see the link below). Not only will you be advertising your business, but you can list your website address, which will link back to your site. This will generate interested traffic as well as improve your Google PageRank. It's completely free and can only give you more exposure......which never hurts!

[T2]

Another good way to generate traffic is with social bookmarking here are the top three sites:

1 digg.com
2 Technorati.com
3 del.icio.us

Have fun!

[1stclasscleaning]

The recent poll made me think to ask...
Does your web site work well?
What do you use it for?
Who made it?
How do you get people there?

hi
my website is working well ,it was not working well before
i use it selling cleaning product ,there is company called www.marketraise.com they made it . and optimize it . now it is resulting well.this is rally good company.