Check out my website

Jean-Claude · 09-20-09, 07:58

I figured I would make use of this week of bad weather by rebuilding what was previously a terrible website(this might not be great either! haha).

If you get a few minutes please read through my site and tell me what you think. A gallery page and links page will be added over the next few weeks.

Thanks!
yourexecutivedetail.com

DetailnByDustn · 09-20-09, 10:27

Yeah def. need a gallery looks very professional, looks a little dark might want to add some div tags or something to break up the colors, other than that looks really good, love the descriptions for the service you offer, you may want to add a few more pictures in the services for things like claying and etc. I never was fond of just writing, I swear I have add, I tend to be more interested in things that break up the areas of writing with a pic here in there not only does it give something to look at it shows an example of one of the service you offer when detailing their vehicle, that's my honest opinion! Good luck with designing your website, that stuff is way over my head, are you designing it all by your self?

DetailnByDustn · 09-20-09, 10:31

Here is mine if you want an example, it helps

, mine is not perfect but it'll work:

Home Page

I tried making my own in dreamweaver. Lets just say ill be paying some one to develop my next one, flash is ridiculous, and I grew up on computers. This is a website I found on meguiarsonline, its amazing what this guy designed for a detailing website!

Detail 2 U - Mobile Auto Detailing

Jean-Claude · 09-20-09, 11:08

I built this in Dreamweaver as well. A crash course on Dreamweaver this last week!

Fortunately, I have meager experience with Photoshop to help out with the header and what I will eventually put at the bottom of the pages to break it up a bit(like you said).

Gallery is otw, but I didn't want that to hold me up. I lost A LOT of pictures a month ago when my computer got owned by about 5 different trojans and virus'. My selection of pictures to pull from is weak because of that.

I feel like I can sell myself if someone will read through it(to get by till I get a gallery up) if someone reads what I say. My big thing has been getting clients off of referrals. I always tell a person that they will be happy when I am done and they read the conviction in what I say and how I say it. They know I am shooting straight with them.

tenorplayer23 · 09-20-09, 11:46

Couple of pieces of input.

I see a lot of dark/black background pages all the time that use small white fonts for text, plus, as you have it, purple against black for links and a khaki green for your name/signature.

Just my opinion, but the font is hard to read against black/doesn't grab you plus the purple keeps the links from standing out. Your signature name is very muted and out to stand out, as well.

If you want to keep the color scheme, I change the font type/increase it's width (or size) plus jazz up the alternate colors so that things stand-out on the page.

I think just doing that would make it be a whole lot more user friendly!

See what you think. It's just my opinion, I could be wrong.............

See ya

Jean-Claude · 09-21-09, 09:11

50+ views and 2 guys speak up. Common fellas.

DetailnByDustn · 09-21-09, 11:46

It may be easier since your new in web design to get help from a professional web designer on the internet, I spoke with a web designer he said for a three page website, and photo gallery it would be around $250, that a pretty good deal, and these guys do excellent work, It all depends on the amount of money you want to invest, for $80 a year you could have a domain + web design tool that will allow you design your own site under template forms of course on godaddy (ex: my site), its a wonderful tool that allows you to do basically anything besides design structure. My site does the purpose of informing the customer and giving examples of my work, thats about it, nothing fancy. For the amount of hours you would invest in a website its better just to buy a program or get someone to do it, you could be detailing a vehicle and making money beside tweaking websites, If you truly enjoy working on website more power to you, build it from scratch, but the best bet is buying a program or hiring a pro, thats my 2 cent

gmblack3a · 09-21-09, 11:51

JC, I think you should switch and have the after pic first of the M6. Then let them roll over to see the before.

DetailnByDustn · 09-21-09, 11:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmblack3a

JC, I think you should switch and have the after pic first of the M6. Then let them roll over to see the before.

I agree +1 ^

Jean-Claude · 09-21-09, 05:38

I had godaddy's site builder and hated it. I use Dreamweaver now.

Doing details while streets are being closed around here due to flooding is not going to happen. Rebuilding my site helped me to use my time in a productive manner even tho I could not detail.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DetailnByDustn

It may be easier since your new in web design to get help from a professional web designer on the internet, I spoke with a web designer he said for a three page website, and photo gallery it would be around $250, that a pretty good deal, and these guys do excellent work, It all depends on the amount of money you want to invest, for $80 a year you could have a domain + web design tool that will allow you design your own site under template forms of course on godaddy (ex: my site), its a wonderful tool that allows you to do basically anything besides design structure. My site does the purpose of informing the customer and giving examples of my work, thats about it, nothing fancy. For the amount of hours you would invest in a website its better just to buy a program or get someone to do it, you could be detailing a vehicle and making money beside tweaking websites, If you truly enjoy working on website more power to you, build it from scratch, but the best bet is buying a program or hiring a pro, thats my 2 cent

MaksimumAuto · 09-21-09, 06:26

Add some more meat to your home page. You want to have a low "bounce rate". A bounce rate is how often a person visits your site and leaves instantly. You can reduce this rate by making it as interesting as possible. Such as a video that plays instantly....text about your business and your goal...pictures of customers and some "wow" cars....some crazy before and afters. You want to make your customers astonished within the first 3 seconds of them seeing your site. I accomplish this on my site by having a picture of a Lamborghini Countach being detailed. It's a wow factor. At the end of the day, it all comes down to numbers.

How many people saw your site?
How long did they stay?
Where did they find it?

Use google analytics. It's CRUCIAL to your success. It'll tell you where your hits are coming from and how often your being visited.

Spend as much time as possible researching Search Engine Optimization. It will pay dividends. No matter how good your site is nobody cares if they can't find it. Spend some time googling keywords you'd use to find your business. Some directory links will come up such as "rate it all" or something like that. Sign up on as many as possible. Add pictures and all the info you can to those accounts. When the keywords are googled...your website probably won't come up but those links will...and your business will be there. So basically....DO EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING POSSIBLE TO GET AS MANY PEOPLE TO SEE YOUR WEBSITE AS POSSIBLE.
You can't make any money hiding in a cave.

Rant....over....

Jean-Claude · 09-21-09, 07:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaksimumAuto

Add some more meat to your home page. You want to have a low "bounce rate". A bounce rate is how often a person visits your site and leaves instantly. You can reduce this rate by making it as interesting as possible. Such as a video that plays instantly....text about your business and your goal...pictures of customers and some "wow" cars....some crazy before and afters. You want to make your customers astonished within the first 3 seconds of them seeing your site. I accomplish this on my site by having a picture of a Lamborghini Countach being detailed. It's a wow factor. At the end of the day, it all comes down to numbers.

How many people saw your site?
How long did they stay?
Where did they find it?

Use google analytics. It's CRUCIAL to your success. It'll tell you where your hits are coming from and how often your being visited.

Spend as much time as possible researching Search Engine Optimization. It will pay dividends. No matter how good your site is nobody cares if they can't find it. Spend some time googling keywords you'd use to find your business. Some directory links will come up such as "rate it all" or something like that. Sign up on as many as possible. Add pictures and all the info you can to those accounts. When the keywords are googled...your website probably won't come up but those links will...and your business will be there. So basically....DO EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING POSSIBLE TO GET AS MANY PEOPLE TO SEE YOUR WEBSITE AS POSSIBLE.
You can't make any money hiding in a cave.

Rant....over....

That's not a rant. That's possibly the best post in the marketing forum I've read.

Thanks