Your Opinion Please.

[Western]

Eddy,

I agree with the guys, Jim makes a great point in both his reply's.

I was over sold, sorry, I think like others have said give the basics..You will sell them when on the free job inspection/// "consultation" (good word)

couple of thoughts..

On your intro, I would reference your time in the business. such as " I'm Eddie Walker, a general contractor for the past 20 years" gives you more creditability, they know in the 1st sentence your not a "green horn".

Also when referring to "qualified associates" sounds a little well, wally world..sorry

Maybe something like " qualified craftsmen approved by me" or something of the sort. again seems to give YOU more credibility as a good judge of a craftsman/ trades, with a strict idea of good workmanship.

I think you can say allot in very little.
As others mentioned a reference Q&A is great, leave it up to the prospective client if they want to know your philosophy, history ect tra.

And references, especially ones that have used you multiple times is tops..with a photo of the person it would be gold, puts a neighborly all American "we can trust him cause they did" twist to it..and they may even know each other= sale..

Eddy, you have allot of talent, that will speak for itself when you meet them.

Hopefully this came across as nothing more than positive opinion.

 

[BarryinMN]

I'll chime in as well.

A new customer is looking for something specific: fix bath - new garage etc. An existing customer is looking for confirmation that you can do a new thing. Doors, windows, remodel kitchen, etc.

You have 30 sec to pull the customer in - 3 clicks max. Visuals are powerful worth 1000 words. Testimonials with a little story & pix of customer with the finished job gets the meto relationship started.

Lots of feel good text but the bulk is for the plain english contract.

Hire a kid to do a competitive market analysis & assemble your site. Best money spent since getting married!!

 

[keegs]

Eddie,

I'll give you my 2 cents...If you go with a website you'll need to consider how prospective customers will find it. I'll be the contrarian and say that if folks are going to go to the trouble to find you online, you want to give them some information. I think you may be on the right track with some photos and maybe some short video clips of some jobs you're especially proud of, your associates....the dog ...the truck...

I've spent the past few years working on our cottage which is in a rural farming community in Maine where it seems many folks are just beginning to use email.

I found it very hard finding tradesman. There were a few online resources but I really wasn't very successful overall. It would have been convenient for an outsider to the community like myself to be able to go online to find help. The yellow pages were only marginally better than my online search. A majority of those I tried to contact by phone seemed to screen their calls and for one reason or another didn't get back to me. I tried the local chamber of commerce who sent me to the local home center which was somewhat more fruitful.

When I read your post I thought back to my experience over the past few years and realized that the guy who cuts my grass recommended the guy who hauled the gravel for the driveway who also owns an excavator and does septic systems...and is connected with the plumbing inspector. The carpenter that did some framing in the basement recommended a mason who was too busy to take my job but passed me on to another mason who teaches at the local vocational technical school and needed a summer job....who recommended an excellent GC...two brothers he grew up with. The foreman from the power company who put the light poles in recommended an electrician who installed the service to the house....one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet BTW.

This word of mouth method had some advantages also because in some small way the guy who's recommending has some skin in the game. Getting plugged in took time, but once there, things really moved for me.

 

[MarkV]

I have to go with the majority on the length. Though I understand your intent when outlining your bid process, payment process, materials and such it was sounding like the details of a builder/client contract to me. You might break down those paragraphs to single sentence statements and offer a sample contract anyone who would like full details.

MarkV

 

[Big Bri]

Hi Eddie,
I will keep it short "hire a PRO" to do what you are trying to do. Stick to what YOU do best "General Contracting". (See how few words it takes to get your point across)
Ken

i agree, hire a pro to do your site. also hire a pro to write your mission statement. find a place that does typing for collage thesis, or court reporting or advertising. They usualy know the correct way to word things
(i know i'm not a pro and have used this type of service before) i also thought it was to long.
i would also leave out the family stuff as well.

My name is Eddie Walker and I'm a Licensed General Contractor. This is what I do for a living, and to support my family. To do this, I will do the best job possible to satisfy you. When I am done, it is my goal for you to want to hire me again and even more importantly, to tell your friends about me. I will never make enough money off of one job to not have to work again, so itç—´ extremely important to me to make you a satisfied client.

not to be mean but i wouldn't hire you on that opening statement. i think it makes you look small time.

Don't put your name in the first paragraph. leave it for your sig at the bottom. Don't talk about how much money you do or don't make ether.
almost sounds winey. i also won't hire anyone who list "god", or that they are a "chistian" or have "been saved" . its not that i have a problem with it, it just not the place for it. thats just my opinion

I wish you all the luck, i hope your business grows as well as everyone else here. i know times are tough
Brian

 

[charlz]

Well... I am going to take a slightly different tack here.

I didn't even make it 2% of the way through your first post

You don't really need a 'website pro' to put this together, you need someone who can write a resume as this is what this website will be. As a hiring manager I read a lot of resumes when trying to fill a position. If I can't figure out in 30 seconds or less that you have what it takes it goes in the trash can.

I would likely go with something like this:

Simple introductory paragraph - what you do and what your experience is

Bulleted list of types of work (additions, roofing repairs, gazebos, whatever)

Before and After pictures of your most dramatic projects.

Contact information


All the rest of the stuff can be included in a 'Letter from Eddie' or 'About Eddie' section that the reader can go through if desired.

And last but not least, find a webpage layout that you like... and copy it

 

[hilld]

Eddie,

here are a couple of suggestions.

Since you are in it for the quality and to do things the right way, not to make a quick buck like some others out there, why not highlight that like such.

I treat every job like it is my own home. I make sure the work is done right the first time around, if a problem should develop down the road, I WILL make it right.

I can provide many local references for you to check out, I stand 100% behind my work and I am proud of it.

I want to make sure you are 100% satisfied as I am not satisfied until you are.

Also:

I work mostly alone on your project, but I have a small set of highly skilled and reliable craftsmen (subcontractors) to rely on if needed.

Hope this helps and good luck with the website, pretty soon you might have hire some people.

Derek

 

[jnjpream]

When you build your website.. Be sure to go here and take notes on what NOT to do to it.

My wife is in class right now leraning web design and this is one of the first places they told them to go..

Web design techniques and principles from Web Pages That Suck - learn good web design by looking at bad web design - Home Page

 

[dmccarty]

Eddie,

Looking at websites of GCs/builders/contractors over the years the biggest problem I have had is getting any information from the website. If the website is nothing more than a place showing me an address and a phone number it is pretty useless. I can get the phone number from the phone book.

What I want is to know about YOU. What YOU do. And how YOU do it. I think you provided that information. But the information could be better presented either as FAQ or as individual pages such as:
- Who Am I
- Big Projects
- Small Projects
- Billing
etc.

If you can, give examples of costs. Why waste time with someone who wants to do a project for $1,000 but it will cost $3,000. You don't need to be waste your time and theirs to find out they only have $1,000 but its going to cost far more than that amount. Having that kind of information on the website can help. It bothers me when I go to a website and their are no prices. Yes these things have lots of variables but an example with a number is helpful.

And have lots of photos illustrating your points.

I personally want as much information about someone I am hiring that I can get.

In the past I have had arguments with recruiters who wanted me to shorten my resume because it was too long and managers would not read it. Which I told them was perfectly ok by me. Why do I want to be hired by a mangler who is too busy to read a couple of pages of a resume? That is the manglers JOB. One of the manglers most important responsibilities is hiring and retaining the best people possible. How can they do that if they don't have information? And if they are too busy to do their job correctly why do I want work for them?

A resume is a filter of people. It works both ways. It worked for me finding work for years. Hopefully I wont have to do it again but I think that is wishful thinking on my part with today's realities.

What you are putting up on a website for a business is a resume to help you get work. I don't think you want all of the information dumped on one page but I do think you want the information spread over multiple pages.

Our local community college has business and web design classes that can be taken over the Internet. You don't go to a classroom at all. You just watch the instructors lecture which are release a couple of times a week. You ave a couple of weeks after the class ends to watch all of the videos. Makes it real easy to fit into a schedule.

Later,
Da

 

[eepete]

I've had precious few encounters with any of the trades that went well. When it was time to build our current house in 2006, I was the general contractor because I couldn't find anyone I liked for that role. I also found very few people who were happy with any work they had done. Most people I know would rather either get a root canal or do it poorly themselves rather than call someone in to do a job. There are exceptions, and those are individuals who did a good job for someone and then word of mouth gets them all their jobs.

I say this so you know what the mindset of the reader is.

dmccarty is right, let me spin it differently. You are treating a web site as a piece of paper. It's not. A website is a great tool for taking information and breaking it down so that the attention spanned challenged general public (that would be your future customers) can absorb lots of information by clicking on lots of parts of a web site and getting it in small doses. The interactive nature of this makes them feel that they are in control and not having to read some long thing that someone wrote. Depending on how they have been burned in the past (and they all have) they may be more interested in one aspect of what you do than another. So lots of pages with information broken down is better than any long summary. You also need to add pictures on each page, even if it's just a picture of some job you did, worksites you've been in charge of, etc. Look at any brochure for tractors. There's more pictures than text. The fact that the wheels are clean even though it's a picture of a loader is accepted by the viewer who's hope for a project is winning out over past experience. Marketing takes the false hope of the consumer and transfers it onto the selling entity. People really want to believe in you, you just have to give them a reason for doing so.

After they've looked at the index page, they will check out another page or two. This is where they take whatever their particular concern is and see how you deal with it. If you survive this 1st 45 seconds browsing, then they will check out more of the site. Everything you've got in your initial blurb is good. It just has to be broken down into the format people expect on a web site. It needs pictures because it's a marketing tool. You may need to take a class in web design or hire someone who can do this right.

Getting back to my house, we did select an architect and design build group for our house. When I was "shopping" for such services, if the person did not have a web site I would not consider them. The quality of the site greatly influenced my decision. Think of it this way- much like life, often how you say something is as important as what you say.

As you can tell from my response and it's length, I would never hire myself to write a website. Hope this shift in perspective on how information is presented by a web site helps.

Pete

 

[charlz]

In the past I have had arguments with recruiters who wanted me to shorten my resume because it was too long and managers would not read it. Which I told them was perfectly ok by me. Why do I want to be hired by a mangler who is too busy to read a couple of pages of a resume? That is the manglers JOB. One of the manglers most important responsibilities is hiring and retaining the best people possible. How can they do that if they don't have information? And if they are too busy to do their job correctly why do I want work for them?

A resume is a filter of people. It works both ways. It worked for me finding work for years. Hopefully I wont have to do it again but I think that is wishful thinking on my part with today's realities.

In my world it's pretty simple. I hire well paid professionals to get stuff done in a clear, concise manner as quickly and with as little intervention from me as possible. If the layout and text of your resume doesn't convey to me that you can do that then you will never get an interview. Getting an interview is the point of a resume, not to convey your life's work in multiple volumes. That's what coffee breaks are for after you get the job

In Eddie's case here the first page is his resume. The other pages are the 'telephone' interview. If they like what they see enough to have him come look the job over, that is the 'in person' interview.

 

[/pine]

I will comment on a different angle from what others have advised on (content)
...I currently make a good amount of money administrating (yellow page type) business directories on the web...If you are looking at the Internet to enhance your advertising scheme don't make the mistake of overlooking the benefit of good SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

...Word of mouth is a great way to expand your recognition in the market place but nothing will get your word out better or faster to a wider audience than good search engine placement...
...You can create the best web site in the world with excellent content, presentation and navigation but without good SEO...the only people that will find it are those that already know about it...


Your web page will seve you best with the biggest exposure/audience you can get...search engines are a web page's best friend...take advantage of them...

"Local Search" is one of the fastest growing sectors of Internet search...as mentioned in a recent thread about yellow page advertising...print ads are going the way of the steam engine...search engines are the ticket...!

Some SEO basics...

Title your pages appropriately and make sure the title is relative (make sure to use <Title></Title> tags...Your page title should contain at least one or more of your "keywords"

keywords make sure to include relative keywords both in your 'Title' and the content of the page (text)..."keywords" should be relative to the content i.e. what you are selling..even if it is a service rather than a distinct product...also make sure to include your keywords in <meta> tags in the header of your source code (meta tag content is not seen by the public but is by search engines)

header tags "header tags" <h1>, <h2> and<h3> tags are paramount to get good search engine recognition...always use one set (and one set only) of <h1> tags per page...they should bracket the most important statement (text) on a page...likewise with the <h2> and <h3> tags but you can use multiple sets of the latter on a single page...it is extremely important to use the same keywords (text) in the h1 tags as you use in both the <title> and the meta (keyword) tags...

These three SEO basics will get your page indexed by search engines like Google, Yahoo, BING etc..etc. very quickly...sometime within a few days when your "keywords" are used in a search query...

Like TBN readers know...pictures are worth a 1000 words or more...but as important as pictures are...you must take advantage of "ALT" tags to define the content of any and all images on your pages...If you are not familiar with Alt tags... hover your cursor over an image and a small text box pops up...you are looking at the result of "Alt" tags if there are no alt tags there is no pop up...(alt tags were originally developed for use by handicapped (blind) users...but have become very important in SEO)
...search engine crawlers can't see pictures but they do read (and index) the content of "Alt" tags...use succinct descriptive text in Alt tags.

I would be happy to expand on any of these tips if they are not clear

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply and offer me your advice. It's been better then I had hoped. It's good to hear what others think about what I've written, and what they are looking for. Potential clients are probably seeing it and having the same problems with it as all of you are. I'm working on cutting down on the ramblings, and getting to the point.

Pictures are giving me issues. I've figured out how to add pictures to the page, but creating folders for them so I can have them in a catagory have not worked out so far. Something like a folder for decks, bathrooms, floors, fireplaces and so on.

For those of you who want to see what I have so far, go to Home Page

The next rainy day, I'm going to print this out and highlight all the things that I want to change, add and get rid of. Then put them onto a word document to get the spelling right, and then copy and past it to my site.

As for hiring a pro, I"m going to remain stuborn there and keep at it myself. It's a character flaw, but not one of my worse ones!!!! LOL

Eddie

 

[2manyrocks]

Maybe a little different perspective---some websites try to lure customers by giving tips, recommendations, how-tos. If you have some ideas about the kind of work you want, then try to position yourself as someone who has the expertise in that work who is honest and dependable.

I don't look for trades people on the internet. I ask at the local building supplier. I ask people I know who've built something, and I ask them who did their work and if they are satisfied.

When you start bringing in help, be careful to use help that builds your reputation instead of tearing it down. If there are any problems, you're the one who'll get the calls.

 

[Oleozz]

If you get a "pro" to do your site be sure to get one that understands the language of your work. I had a professional do our web site for my kennel and bird dog training business and on the first draft she had over 40 spelling and grammar mistakes. Although we had talked at length about what I did she still did not understand the jargon of the dog world.
Keep it short but precise, good pics, and you will have a winner.
Good luck.

 

[jayste]

Eddie, I've seen a lot of good ideas and constructive criticism here. I'm wondering if all considered if you would even need the "pro" as well. I'm not saying that the "pros" aren't needed but you are asking a bunch of "Do-it-yourselfers"! Let's face it if pros weren't needed you wouldn't have need for this effort. I agree with others when they say keep it to the point, use tabs, bullets when breaking it down and most of all pictures.

Jay

 

[dmccarty]

In my world it's pretty simple. I hire well paid professionals to get stuff done in a clear, concise manner as quickly and with as little intervention from me as possible. If the layout and text of your resume doesn't convey to me that you can do that then you will never get an interview. Getting an interview is the point of a resume, not to convey your life's work in multiple volumes. That's what coffee breaks are for after you get the job

In Eddie's case here the first page is his resume. The other pages are the 'telephone' interview. If they like what they see enough to have him come look the job over, that is the 'in person' interview.

How do I as the job seeker KNOW exactly what the hiring manager wants/needs?

I dont know. I will know they want X, Y and Z because it is listed as a required skill. But there might be other skills that they would like but do not realize or did not list.

I am not talking about having a hard to read book of a resume but one that shows relevant work experience. If a Manager is too lazy to read a couple pieces of paper that should only take them moments to first scan I don't want to work for them. Why waste MY time interviewing with them?

I have been on the job seeker and the job hirer side. NEVER, EVER when I was interviewing people did I have enough information on a resume in the corporate world. I always wanted MORE.

I have done back ground investigations in a non business environment on people. I know how much money the job seeker has made for years, their credit history/ratings, lists of references, friends, employers, and family. All get contacted and contacts are made from those contacts. What the job seeker states is checked and verified. In that job I have enough information about the job seeker.

By the time I graduate with a four year degree I had worked for the Federal government doing grunt computer work but also maintaining a district wide network. Created the process, bought the hardware, wrote the software, and implemented a anonymous employee survey across the district. The district was all of FLA south of the lake. Before "computer forensics" meant anything I was looking at computers siezed via a search warrant while CID was still rounding up people in the building.

I had also worked at a major computer company. The work for that company started in HR were I ordered and installed all of the PCs and other computer systems that they needed but never had. Which led to doing research about various issues. Which in turn got me a job working with a department of lobbyists to procure hardware and software as well as creating a database. Eventually I worked in hardware development and software development.

Oh, and I did some consulting on the side.

That quick summary would take a page and it has no details and I skipped a few things. No buzzwords. Fill in what is needed to give more details and I think it was a three page resume.

The Coop office was using my resume as an example of what a resume should look like as well the value of a Coop work experience. I certainly had a wide range of experience before I got my sheep skin. And I NEEDED every bit of it as well.

Thinking about what Eddie is doing actually helped ME. I am creating my own website but I did not like it for some reason. I had done what Eddie had done to a certain extent but I was starting to split things into different pages. Looking at Eddie's "page" made it obvious what issues I had with my own page but yet could not quite figure out...

Another problem with websites is that some are just too complicated. They make you work too hard to get the info you for which you are searching. Or they are too fancy. They look good but no info. Just pretty pictures. They use too much Flash in both meanings of the word. The Disney website is a perfect example. Very well done. Lots of Flash. Music. Pretty Pictures. The website is a visual and sound work of art.

But finding information is a different story.

Later,
Dan

 

[WBWI]

Eddie- as noted by others first into was way too long. Look at this local site for an idea of what might work Extreme Basements - A Division of Mukwonago Remodeling, LLC

 

[charlz]

Another problem with websites is that some are just too complicated. They make you work too hard to get the info you for which you are searching. Or they are too fancy. They look good but no info. Just pretty pictures. They use too much Flash in both meanings of the word. The Disney website is a perfect example. Very well done. Lots of Flash. Music. Pretty Pictures. The website is a visual and sound work of art.

But finding information is a different story.

Right. In Eddies case the whole point is to get them to pick up the phone and call him. Which is why I liken it to a resume.

To me the base message should be:

I am a Professional and I get [stuff] done
Here is some [stuff] I will do
Here is some [stuff] I did
Here is how to contact me to get your [stuff] done.

 

[/pine]

FWIW...meant as pointers/suggestions not criticism...

...As for hiring a pro, I"m going to remain stuborn there and keep at it myself

Speaking as a professional web developer (not necessarily a designer) I see no reason why you need to "hire a pro"...but you can avoid many amateur mistakes with some guidance and research...

For those of you who want to see what I have so far, go to Home Page

As an example of one of the three main items I cited in post #32 (this thread) please take note of the page 'Title'...open the page in a browser and look at the very top bar of the browser window (blue line)...it says "Home Page"...in my opinion the 'Title' of this page should be something like..."Eddie Walker Building Contractor-Construction Specialist"
To see the why/how of the page title view the source code (click "view" from the tool bar and select "source or page source" depending on what browser you use)...look at the 5th line of code for the page:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />    <title>Home Page</title>

scroll to the far right to see the <Title></Title> tags

This is by far one of the most important factors for search engines to find your page once it is indexed...for instance, if your business was named "home page" or you were selling "home page" then that would be a good title for the page but obviously it is not...It is paramount to title each page with something that is relevant to the content and more importantly it should contain a keyword or two that you think will be used when a possible future client is searching with Google, Yahoo, Bing etc...for a contractor etc...

A second example:

General Contractor - Remodeler - Home Repairs - Handy Man

The line of text above is a perfect example of what (for this page) should be bracketed in <h1></h1> tags (I would add "building specialist" to the list or amend the above suggested page title)

Then put them onto a word document to get the spelling right

please note that editing, then copy and pasting text from MS Word into an HTML document often adds (unwanted) markup that will often cause problems when viewed as a web page..i.e. when you "copy" the edited text there will be unseen symbols etc. that can/will cause display problems...

another suggestion
It appears you are using something called "WebSite Tonight v4.8.3" to create your pages...there are some very good WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web page editors available for free...these are basically drag and drop page constructors...they will make image placement very easy...You do not need to know or understand how HTML markup works to end up with quality web pages...

a few free worthy WYSIWYG editors are:
Nvu Web Authoring Software

Amaya Home Page

HTML Kit for more than editing HTML