Web sites

superbike

Hi All,

I'm currently in the process of setting up working for myself, a tradesman in a market town and would like to get a web site built for advertising.

What I would like to know is:

1. How successful is advertising on the web to get the phone ringing or email enquires?
2. How much is a fair price to have a profesional site built?

All advice and answers will be gratefully recieved, Thanks.

Gizmodo

How long is a piece of string?

Web advertising is just like any other form of Marketing - if you put a Plumber as the final entry in the Yellow Pages they are unlikely to get any calls. If you have a crap web presense then you are unlikely to get any business. But the likes of Amazon prove that Internet advertising can work, it's just a case of the right advertising for the right product.

As far as cost is concerned it depends on how you do it. You can create Facebook and Twitter accounts for free, get all of your mates to follow you and you've got an effective advertising solution. Same with YouTube - a free account, upload some really funny home made videos and you've got Viral Advertising gone mad. Then put links to your free accounts on all of your BR posts and again, more exposure (I recommend some of the Girls in .... threads for plenty of exposure).

If you want a more traditional web site, glossy brochure on the net kind of thing, then prices go from, £20 a year for a DIY kind of thing (like that being advertised by 1and1.co.uk on TV at the moment) to tens of thousands of pounds for a customer designed, interactive all singing all dancing web site.

skyd0g

Any website is better than none - however basic. A simple site with your contact details (email address & mobile number minimum), what types of work you undertake and possibly a few pics of work done will help.

However, even if you have the best all-singing, all-dancing website that no-one visits is simply, money wasted.

What IS important is the 'meta tags' - these are the details under which people search for you: ie 'Plumber, Epsom' 'Your Business Name' etc.

From the sounds of your business 'Tradesman' - I'd go for the simple DIY / 1&1 thing, but make sure the 'meta' info is good and as Gizmodo says, link it to a FB/Twitter acct. It will do more for your business than traditional paper advertising.

dr11

What IS important is the 'meta tags' - these are the details under which people search for you: ie 'Plumber, Epsom' 'Your Business Name' etc.

This is actually incorrect unless you are posting from about 10 years ago. Meta tags are in fact irrelevant as they are ignored by search engines nowadays due to their susceptibility to being spammed.

Search rankings nowadays are made up of a combination of factors but in the main content is king - it has to be keyword rich but not repetitive, relevant to your audience and regularly updated which is a challenge for a brochure type website hence why so many people add a blog discussing the industry they are in to keep information 'fresh'.

Also highly important are the number of links to your website from elsewhere and different link sources carry different weightings depending on the authority of the site so if its a well known busy website in the same industry it will carry a higher weighting than from a smaller site.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a big business now and the success of a website can live or die by it and in the case of a tradesman type you will probably be wanting to appear when someone types "plumber in...." its highly important.

skinnypunter

dr11 wrote:

What IS important is the 'meta tags' - these are the details under which people search for you: ie 'Plumber, Epsom' 'Your Business Name' etc.

This is actually incorrect unless you are posting from about 10 years ago. Meta tags are in fact irrelevant as they are ignored by search engines nowadays due to their susceptibility to being spammed.

I disagree - Meta tags ARE important. You are correct that content is critical, as is the link profile of your site.

I run SEO for some big sites, and by manioulating the meta tags, we can affect what shows on the Google results page and as a result influence the click through rate rather than the position on the page.