Websites

Website looks good for a free site.

Off topic, but your pricing is pretty low in my opinion.

I know it all depends on your area, but I would rather pay you $75 to do a 3 stage on my car than do it myself.
 
Ummm...mmmmmm???? Ok what I see that I don't like... The whole link to the google doc page for prices.. You can obviously put text on the site. So do it that way. Don't make people link all over the place to figure out what they are going to be charged. 2nd.. The about us page... Either re-do the entire thing or get rid off it all together. You come across as very amaturish with you're statements of semi-pro results (if you're operating as a business you're a pro weather or not you have pro skills or not) Don't tell your customers you don't know what you're doing. It won't help your cause. Then having titles like "Senior Detailer" with all of you guys having a combined total of 6 years experience. So what you each have 6 months under you're belts? See where I'm getting at here. That whole page just makes you look bad.



I do like the scrolling photo-album on the front page. Get some better pics in there and it'll really stand out. The load times between pages seems aweful long though. Not sure if it's the site or something on my end. The rest of the site looks pretty clean and straight forward though. Not a bad start.
 
Jakerooni said:
Ummm...mmmmmm???? Ok what I see that I don't like... The whole link to the google doc page for prices.. You can obviously put text on the site. So do it that way. Don't make people link all over the place to figure out what they are going to be charged. 2nd.. The about us page... Either re-do the entire thing or get rid off it all together. You come across as very amaturish with you're statements of semi-pro results (if you're operating as a business you're a pro weather or not you have pro skills or not) Don't tell your customers you don't know what you're doing. It won't help your cause. Then having titles like "Senior Detailer" with all of you guys having a combined total of 6 years experience. So what you each have 6 months under you're belts? See where I'm getting at here. That whole page just makes you look bad.



I do like the scrolling photo-album on the front page. Get some better pics in there and it'll really stand out. The load times between pages seems aweful long though. Not sure if it's the site or something on my end. The rest of the site looks pretty clean and straight forward though. Not a bad start.
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Okay just updated the website no links haha still needs work, Im glad I have my own domain now though, and not googles. (Semi Pro) Thats what my cousin said, ill change the entire site when I get back from the cruise just brainstorming and getting advise now. I understand about the about us page, ill fix it Thanks for the advise!
 
qwkgtp said:
Website looks good for a free site.

Off topic, but your pricing is pretty low in my opinion.

I know it all depends on your area, but I would rather pay you $75 to do a 3 stage on my car than do it myself.
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Which one the first? the first is through godaddy because Im to lazy to make a site in dreamweaver or buy a web developers service. cost about 78 for a year and domain. Ill probably change my business name after next year



Pricing has to be pretty low because of my area I changed it a little now, If I go to high right now Ill drive my market away, when I move to a bigger city I can raise everything up a little more.
 
I do web design on the side, so some of the things I mention may be things that only I would notice or care about, but......



1 - I applaud you for using CSS and div tags to layout the site instead of using tables. Good job there.

2 - I don't see a need to have the name "Detailing By Justin" in the header area twice.

3 - Unless that Flash object on your homepage is reading from an XML file, that will be a pain to update. I would recommend using something like jQuery to create something like that. You could then couple it with a small PHP script that would loop through a particular folder on your server and cycle through the pics like that. To update the pics, simply add or remove pics from that folder on the server.

4- There are a few errors detected by the validator. (All dealing with that Flash movie).

5 - On your "Photos" page, having the fullsize images open in a new window is kinda annoying. Add a little coolness to the site by using something like Lytebox, Thickbox, or any of the other cool image viewers available.

6 - Speaking of the "Photos" page, I would personally rename that page to something like "Gallery".

7 - Your homepage needs to have a bit more on it that just an image cycler. Some text similar to what you have on the top of the "About Us" page would be nice.

8 - If you can ditch the logo and link to GoDaddy that appears at the bottom of every page, do it.

9 - Add some validation to your Contact form. Whether it be PHP, jQuery, etc, some form of validation needs to be applied.

10 - When someone clicks on the Submit button to submit their form, they need to be taken to a page that says "Thanks for contacting us, We will get back with your shortly" or something like that. At the very least, use a ********** alert box to state that the form was submitted successfully.

11 - Instead of a solid gray background, I may would change it to a gray-to-black gradient or something like that. Just to give it a bit more pop. But that is totally a personal preference.



Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or anything.
 
4fit? said:
I do web design on the side, so some of the things I mention may be things that only I would notice or care about, but......



1 - I applaud you for using CSS and div tags to layout the site instead of using tables. Good job there.

2 - I don't see a need to have the name "Detailing By Justin" in the header area twice.

3 - Unless that Flash object on your homepage is reading from an XML file, that will be a pain to update. I would recommend using something like jQuery to create something like that. You could then couple it with a small PHP script that would loop through a particular folder on your server and cycle through the pics like that. To update the pics, simply add or remove pics from that folder on the server.

4- There are a few errors detected by the validator. (All dealing with that Flash movie).

5 - On your "Photos" page, having the fullsize images open in a new window is kinda annoying. Add a little coolness to the site by using something like Lytebox, Thickbox, or any of the other cool image viewers available.

6 - Speaking of the "Photos" page, I would personally rename that page to something like "Gallery".

7 - Your homepage needs to have a bit more on it that just an image cycler. Some text similar to what you have on the top of the "About Us" page would be nice.

8 - If you can ditch the logo and link to GoDaddy that appears at the bottom of every page, do it.

9 - Add some validation to your Contact form. Whether it be PHP, jQuery, etc, some form of validation needs to be applied.

10 - When someone clicks on the Submit button to submit their form, they need to be taken to a page that says "Thanks for contacting us, We will get back with your shortly" or something like that. At the very least, use a ********** alert box to state that the form was submitted successfully.

11 - Instead of a solid gray background, I may would change it to a gray-to-black gradient or something like that. Just to give it a bit more pop. But that is totally a personal preference.



Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or anything.
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Okay hold up im a newbie when it comes to webdesign, I know the basics right now, I bought a tutuorial about dreamweaver but gave up after trying to make a drop down menu toke me four hours and it doesnt even work haha, I used a template maker on godaddys page to make this site, so did use the div tags even though they are very easy to make haha, Im not sure what the tems PHP and jQuery and things like that, Im pretty good in photoshop, can really get actionscript in flash files but working on it. O thanks for the input !
 
The main thing I noticed that I thought you might have issues with is your about us page.



On there you have listed your employees and how long they've worked for you. I'd leave some of that info out as I would not want a rookie detailer who's only been detailing for a month and has to be watch to be detailing my car.



Plus in 3-4 or 6 months from now he'll be a lot better and your website will still say he's only worked for you for a month still?



I also agree that your prices are way too low.... $125 for 7 hours of work is way cheap, not sure how you'll make a profit that way unless you do a very high quantity, but at 7 hours you can only do 1 car a day....



my 0.02 cents.



Josh
 
JoshVette said:
The main thing I noticed that I thought you might have issues with is your about us page.



On there you have listed your employees and how long they've worked for you. I'd leave some of that info out as I would not want a rookie detailer who's only been detailing for a month and has to be watch to be detailing my car.



Plus in 3-4 or 6 months from now he'll be a lot better and your website will still say he's only worked for you for a month still?



I also agree that your prices are way too low.... $125 for 7 hours of work is way cheap, not sure how you'll make a profit that way unless you do a very high quantity, but at 7 hours you can only do 1 car a day....



my 0.02 cents.



Josh
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I agree, Thanks for the input all change everything around again.



Apollo_Auto said:
Here's my web site



Apollo Auto - Professzioná¡lis autókozmetika az otthonában! Autómosó, autópolírozás, waxolás, ká¡rpit tisztítás, bÅ‘r ápolás, motorkozmetika
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Great looking website! I wish i could read it though haha



Jakerooni said:
I think you might have a couple spelling errors there :laugh: (can't read a thing on that page. :( )
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haha :)
 
Who's site are you talking about? Mine? or Apollos? I used godaddy.com something called night web or something along those lines its about $65 a year.
 
Dustin and 07e90



I know both of you have brand new sites, and are tweaking them to get them right and will be tweaking them even more in the future, but between both of the two sites I only saw the word "Detailing" twice. The times "Detailing" is mentioned it doesn't even say "Auto Detailing" or "Mobile Detailing". If you want anybody to find you, you need to have more keywords on the first page. Don't over do it, because Google will consider it spamming, but put words like your City,Cars, Mobile Detail, Auto Detail, etc, etc. When the Google robot spyders your site it looks for those keywords. Adding meta tags will be important too. You need to go to some Webmaster forums and learn all you can about SEO, because if you're not on that first page of Google your traffic will be minimal. Yahoo is basically dead, and MSN has changed to BING, which is popular for some searches, but Google makes up over 70% of all people searching for your business. The top 3 slots on Google make up about 85% of all traffic, so shoot for that. Many webmasters will offer to do freelance work if you post on Webmaster sites. Just a few ideas and critiques, hope this helps.



Oh, and the Godaddy site builder is Website Tonight, and they also have "Traffic Blazer' which can help you with SEO. It does take work but when you make it to the first page of Google you won't believe the amount of traffic you will get, and then you can pick and choose who you want as clients. Good Luck!
 
I was talking about your site Dustin, but I was able to figure out the centering by doing some searching and taking a look at the code.



bullitt21 said:
Dustin and 07e90



I know both of you have brand new sites, and are tweaking them to get them right and will be tweaking them even more in the future, but between both of the two sites I only saw the word "Detailing" twice. The times "Detailing" is mentioned it doesn't even say "Auto Detailing" or "Mobile Detailing". If you want anybody to find you, you need to have more keywords on the first page. Don't over do it, because Google will consider it spamming, but put words like your City,Cars, Mobile Detail, Auto Detail, etc, etc. When the Google robot spyders your site it looks for those keywords. Adding meta tags will be important too. You need to go to some Webmaster forums and learn all you can about SEO, because if you're not on that first page of Google your traffic will be minimal. Yahoo is basically dead, and MSN has changed to BING, which is popular for some searches, but Google makes up over 70% of all people searching for your business. The top 3 slots on Google make up about 85% of all traffic, so shoot for that. Many webmasters will offer to do freelance work if you post on Webmaster sites. Just a few ideas and critiques, hope this helps.



Oh, and the Godaddy site builder is Website Tonight, and they also have "Traffic Blazer' which can help you with SEO. It does take work but when you make it to the first page of Google you won't believe the amount of traffic you will get, and then you can pick and choose who you want as clients. Good Luck!
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Thank you very much for the helpful tips and pointers. I'm still working on the content of the site, but as soon as I finish that I will do my best to learn as much as I can about SEO and hopefully have my site come up as the first result. There is another detailer in my town, and while his site does come up first, content wise it looks very messy and incomplete, so I know if I can get my site right up there with his in the results, I should have no problems gaining some business. Do you happen to have any particular sites you could recommend to seek some help from webmasters?



Thanks in advance!



Pat
 
bullitt21 said:
Dustin and 07e90



I know both of you have brand new sites, and are tweaking them to get them right and will be tweaking them even more in the future, but between both of the two sites I only saw the word "Detailing" twice. The times "Detailing" is mentioned it doesn't even say "Auto Detailing" or "Mobile Detailing". If you want anybody to find you, you need to have more keywords on the first page. Don't over do it, because Google will consider it spamming, but put words like your City,Cars, Mobile Detail, Auto Detail, etc, etc. When the Google robot spyders your site it looks for those keywords. Adding meta tags will be important too. You need to go to some Webmaster forums and learn all you can about SEO, because if you're not on that first page of Google your traffic will be minimal. Yahoo is basically dead, and MSN has changed to BING, which is popular for some searches, but Google makes up over 70% of all people searching for your business. The top 3 slots on Google make up about 85% of all traffic, so shoot for that. Many webmasters will offer to do freelance work if you post on Webmaster sites. Just a few ideas and critiques, hope this helps.



Oh, and the Godaddy site builder is Website Tonight, and they also have "Traffic Blazer' which can help you with SEO. It does take work but when you make it to the first page of Google you won't believe the amount of traffic you will get, and then you can pick and choose who you want as clients. Good Luck!
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Thanks you! Great information Ill look into traffic blazer Thanks again!
 
Five_Star said:
Check out my website:



Long Island Detailing - Auto, Boat, RV



Also it helps if you have a blog. I suggest you tie a blog along to your website so former customers and new prospects can see your work.



Five Star Detailing Blog - Pictures, Reviews, and more.



Additionally, what is your goal for the website? To start getting business from the internet or for prospects can do their due diligence on you?
Click to expand...



Great website! :up



Godaddy offers a blog in my package I might start one, what all did you put on your products and resent jobs?



My goal is to attract new customers and teach customers why it is important to get their car detailed and show to them that it can also be affordable, while trying to keep them entertained with pictures our pictures of resent work we have done. Bottom line information
 
Update on my website!



Changed a few things around still got some work to do, added some info for my customers and added a forum so others can discuss recent detail projects also for the business, Need a good photo gallery for detailing pics, anything free and easy (simple html coding), right now basic with photobucket, ill change to slideshows on photobucket if no one knows of a good gallery. Im thinking of deleting about me section out.



Website: Home Page



Due to rules cant give you a link to my forum sorry pm me if you would like to know more.
 
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