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