Check out my website

Jean-Claude

Jean-Claude

Keeper of the beautiful
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
 
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?
 
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
 
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.
 
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 :wavey
 
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
 
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 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.



DetailnByDustn said:
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
Click to expand...
 
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.... ;)
 
MaksimumAuto said:
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.... ;)
Click to expand...



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



Thanks
 
Maxsimum and Bryan, I took both suggestions and applied them.



After/Before fixed.



Google Analytics applied.



Thanks
 
i agree with the wow factor. i saw the before/after pic, awesome car but(no offense) the pics arent all that great on showing the hard work you pput into the vehicle. i would try to find a more "extreme" change in a vehicle. other than that i think the site looks put together well and professional :clap:
 
I have some correction images with 50/50's in them. Not many though. Of all the cars I've done work on, I only have images of my last 3 full correction jobs. I lost EVERYTHING on my hard drive. It makes for a very frustrating experience.



You think an image like this shows off attention to detail?

servicespagebottomcopy.jpg




I showed a car enthusiast this image and he said he could not tell what had been worked or not.



dsc0902d.jpg




I feel as though I am in a stuck position when it comes to a gallery right now.
 
MaksimumAuto said:
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.... ;)
Click to expand...



I would listen to Max he has a kick a site! You can add sport cars to draw attention to your work, I would feel at ease if I seen a vette, porsche, or in max's case lambo/ferrari :) the more the better! Not saying your bmw on the front page is not a sport car. Add a simple slide show or a flash gallery showing recent work to the home page you would be surprise the responses to your website.
 
Personally I would get a better before and after picture. While I was able to tell the differance at quick glance it doesnt look much differant. Get a nice reflection shot of a hood on a black car, that will really pull people in. Other than that the design of the site is nice, but perhaps on the services page you could make the serivices themselvs a bit easier to read, I think the centered text has something to do with it. Thats my advice take it or not.
 
Alright I'm ready for another rant.



This time it's about images on the site and how you should use them.



The only images you should have on your site are ones where there is no gray area. No "yea i see a difference"....instead get some "holy **** that looks like a new car" images. You want images to add CREDIBILITY to your name. Not filling for your website. Think of it this way. Pretend that you have a potential customer and before he lets you do his Ferrari Enzo he wants to see a before and after shot of your work. Only one picture. Make sure that you can randomly choose any picture from your website and it'll convince him. DON'T HALF ARSE YOUR IMAGES. I make this mistake sometimes because I've done 100% corrections and didn't take the pictures in the right lighting conditions. When you build a gallery of some fairly "ritzy" cars such as Jags, Porsches, and other impressive rides, start weeding out the sub-par cars you have in the gallery. I'm in the process of doing this. I'm hoping to get to the point where I don't need to have any car worth less than $40k on my site. I do this because I want to create an image of exclusiveness and of elegance. I want potential customers to see my detail operation as a luxury. Try to impress your visitors with your pictures. Attempt to raise the bar for your site constantly. The more expensive cars you can add, the more credible you appear IMHO. (Just make sure the work looks top notch).



People enjoy "splurging" sometimes and when they do, they want something that the people that make more money then them often have on a regular basis. If your site has great pictures of great cars, you appear as a detailer that has skill, experience, and the trust of the people who let you do these cars. Keep in mind this is how I run my business. I portray it as a luxury, I aim for the upper class and attempt to make the middle class wish they could afford me. I'm fairly cheap though. An average full detail runs around $250. Hence...the middle class can afford me...and the upper class can easily afford me and be confident in me because of the cars I've done, my references, and how I carry myself.



Summary: People want what they can't have. Make it appear as though your the "rich guys' detail guy" and at the same time make yourself affordable to the middle class.



(Oh here is my site: Home | Maksimum Auto Detailing - Professional Mobile Auto Detailing Serving the Baltimore Area )
 
I suppose repeating that I lost a hard drive full of images would do no good.



Even if I had not lost my HD I still could not use pictures of me working on a Ferrari, Lambo or a Bentley as I've never detailed one.



I've done lots of upper end Mercedes, Jags, Porsches, Range Rovers, BMWs out the wazoo, Lexus, Audi ect...plenty of paint correction....I had tons of images from my 3 press release events I worked for Volkswagen from Atlanta to SanFran to NC....In other words I had those great pictures that make people say "wow". But I don't anymore.



I only have 4 or 5 detail job image sets to work with right now. Which were the jobs that were still in my camera. So unless I plan on stealing someone elses pictures or I post up pictures of random cars that I've not done, I won't have those pictures to work with. I refuse to do that so it's a moot point.



It's part of growing as a business in my opinion. When the F-cars ask for details then I can proudly post that up. Till then I take what comes my way. The F-car details pay the same as the Lexus details pay. (I do understand the image of working on supercars but that's not an option for me for the stated reasons)



So really, can we get off the whole image thing? :ignore I said I was working on it. I don't know how to fix my predicament except with time. Unless you have a better idea?



**I do appreciate all suggestions and everyone has been swell about it. But the whole needing better images, having them a few weeks ago and losing them, explaining why I don't have them and how I intend on fixing it and having some not listen is frustrating.
 
These are the exact cars/jobs I have pics from TOTAL.



Hellrot z3 full correction.

Jetblack 335i full correction.

z4 m coupe full correction.

199x white 7-series 1-step.(interior was trashed and got cleaned up nice)



That's it. It's been raining/flooding here for 2 weeks and I've had no new pics. I have about 4 jobs lined up but no special cars that are noteworthy.



oh and a few low megapixel cell phone pictures of some cars that got washes.



2 years worth of details are lost due to losing my hard drive and not having a backup.
 
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