Website Opinions please?

[Jim Williams]

Would you ladies and gentlemen be kind enough to take just a moment out of your day to click on the dubya dubya dubya at the bottom of this post and tell me what you think?

Does it look too high end for the middle market? Too cheap or homemade? Does it strike an emotion? Do I look good standing beside my van?

What would you add or change?

Any comments are appreciated. My website is my main form of picking up new customers besides referrals and I want it to be right. I may add a testimonials page and some other stuff.

Whatcha think?

 

[packfancjh]

I like the website. Not too extravagant and the pics add a nice touch. is the cheesecake good enough to warrant 30 bucks?

 

[SRI Cleaning]

Not bad!

 

[Noidios]

Looks clean and informative. LOTS of scrolling though. Looks like you optimized for 640x480 - Not even 5% of users have a resolution setting that low these days. I'd widen the pages out a few notches to take better advantage of the space.

 

[Jim Williams]

Thanks for the input. I haven't figured out yet how to widen the screen, but I'll look into it. I designed it myself and am not exactly a computer wiz, but still learning!

Oh, I might offer an online special to give some incentive to call too. The site comes up on the first page of a search in my area most of the time and has added alot of new customers to my base.

 

[boazcan]

Get some before/after pictures.

People want to see your work, as well testimonials.

Bryan

 

[KevinL]

Looks good. But remember, i before e.

When it comes to before and after shots, I agree with others that showing some nasty carpet shows you work for nasty customers as we all do but it may be a turn off for some people.

 

[DevilDog]

You simply cannot be serious with that assinine ignorant statement about showing nasty testimonials. Why in the hell would that turn off anyone? They know their carpets don't look like that!

It shows you can handle tough cleaning assignments and if their carpet is not bad they know you can most likely handle the job easily.

Some of you people are simply dumber than a box of rocks.

Now getting to the website. This site is very poorly laid out. No flow to it at all.

And get that pic of you and the van out of there. No one cares about that stuff. God.

Take a look at real good sites...they have a balance and flow to them. They don't have to be extravagant but they should look better than this one.

I would not go to that site and want to use your services.

DevilDog

 

[Steve in Omaha]

Assuming you are an owner Operator:

Disregard Devil Dog.

more photos and history of you personally on the job and at play. In this day of high tech, people want to establish relationships (low tech) with professionals that can be trusted in their homes. Show the photo w/you and your family or pet. Let the potential customer know you are the trusting and honest kind! Biz orgs, church, volunteer work, school degrees.

My .02 cents,
disclosure, I have no web site, and don't see one in the near future.

 

[DevilDog]

Go ahead and disregard me...I will, as usual, be proven right.

No one cares about your van. No one. I did not say you should not have a pic of yourself.

And one other point, I am assuming they will eventually see your face. You can put a pic of yourself on the site, that is fine.

But this site has NO flow whatsoever. Pics are not put in there proper place.

Take a look at some of the real good sites...this site is not close to them. It could be...but not there yet.

If you want a bunch of kiss ass yes men...fine.

And if you listen to guys that say nasty looking testimonials are bad you will be so far behind the curve you'll never catch up.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you want to get your car painted. And you are looking at before and afters from different companies. Are you going to tell me you are going to be impressed with pics that show almost no change from the before to the after? LMAO!

However, if you see a pic of a nasty rusted out car and then see the after and the car looks great....you are probably going to be really impressed.

Listen...most cleaners are barely brighter than the wand they hold all day. Look at some of these guys and the sites they have.

You can disregard anything I say. Or you can be a little smarter than the kiss ass followers on this board and take some good constructive advice. It amazes me how many guys bullshit people here.

Look at that crap Crowley postcard. Many said it was terrific. It was junk. But of course not many said that publicly...but they said it privately to me IN PERSON, instant messaging, and on the phone.

Plus in email.

Just listen.

As as far as you Stevey H...I am not putting up a site until it is EXACTLY what I want. But when I do I'll let your ass see it first ok. Bark up some other tree son, it ain't working with me.

DevilDog

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

I agree with Todd. Why do most carpet cleaning websites look like carpet cleaning websites? To understand what Todd is saying, check out a nice industry related web site: http://www.envirodri.com/corporate/index.html.

Remember if you want to market to mid-range or high-end residential, you need to market to women! Think "The Body Shop", if you have that chain in the US. Pictures of your tuck and truck mount is very blue collar and does not appeal to your target audience. Unless of course that is low end rentals, then you would want a site like that.

I do not have a web site yet for carpet cleaning, but do have an art website that I made for my wife: http://www.undergroundartproject.com. This is to imitate a high end gallery. Simple, clean and minimalistic.

The point is: The look of your web site should fit your target market. My advice is to not look at other Carpet Cleaners web sites to get ideas. Look at other sites to get a feel of what is current. The more white space the better. People associate that with something that is clean, organized, efficient and somewhat higher end. It does not have to be snobby, just nice and clean.

 

[Becker]

Equipment not so much..
But your van.. if it is a well lettered van looks nice then yes put it on the website.

Why?

Cuz someone will click on the site and go Hmmm. I have seen that van before and subconsciously reorganize you.

Pic of yourself as a owner operator. Hell yes. Unless you are real scary looking.

 

[breathe72]

Regarding showing pics of your van.....

When my wife used to call carpet cleaners and other services, out of the phone book, she realized she was drawn to ads that had a pic of a van or their service vehicles.

When I asked her what made her go with companies whos ads showed their vehicles, her reply was that subconsciously she felt like they would actually get there faster, or be more 'on-time'.

For whatever thats worth.

 

[Becker]

why cuz she knew they had a car, and was not coming via bus?

 

[Jim Williams]

Thanks again for all the honest opinions. I plan on doing some tweaking to the way the web site is laid out. I designed this thing last year at this time and had intentions of adding some pictures and testimonials but haven't had the time.

I always try to keep a simple clean look to all my marketing. I can't stand clutter. And I don't want it to look like all the other websites out there.

Any more ideas are appreciated. Any suggestions on how you would make it flow better Todd?

 

[alazo1]

I think it looks good. Simple and to the point. If you mentioned about testimonials in the near future, it's a good idea.

A couple of technical things you may want to fix.

The text within the white cells could have a little more spacing on the left margin of that cell. Html tag is called cellpadding if you want to look that up.
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/tables/ ... pp_29.html

Alignment on pages changes from one to another. You could see it when you click from one link to another. The logo and links to the left change. I don't know if it's easy to fix with sitebuilder. It's a pita with Dreamweaver though.

Albert

 

[alazo1]

check out a nice industry related web site: http://www.envirodri.com/corporate/index.html.

Great graphic ideas on that site but it's painfully slow and the navigation structure is confusing. Some things are cool but add confusion like the scrolling banner on the left and the pictures to the right. It's like someone threw in all their cool techniques but didn't think about how it flows. Jambalaya. Nevertheless I've bookmarked it for cool ideas.

Albert

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

Albert, you got to understand that this non-traditional layout and flow is is part of the philosophy they are selling. A non-traditional way of cleaning carpets. Blogs have changed the traditional web page flow. Three column designs are more popular. I was able to understand the navigation in the first 30 seconds which is a good test. Your business card, letterhead, invoicing, van lettering, what you wear, how you clean... should all fit your company profile. If one is out of place, people notice, if they don't notice, thats positive, you have done a good job and the customer will be more comfortable. I do agree that this site is slow, they need to optimize their graphics more. Show your wife or daughter the web site, and I bet she will say: "Oh, that's pretty"

 

[Mike H.]

Jim, your website looks great. Also I Googled "carpet cleaning pittsboro north carolina" and you were at the top of the list so you must be doing something right.

 

[Mikey P]

I have to be honest here.

Your text sounds like it was written by a 4th grader.

At this time the pre-conditioner is ready to be worked into the carpet with a
tool called a carpet rake which allows it to reach even the deepest soils.

With my powerful truck mounted carpet cleaning machine using a
special attachment on the end of my hoses I am able to clean tile
using a cleaning agent and a rotating tool called a turbo tool.

After the area is thoroughly cleaned we then pass the cleaning wand over
the area with a dry stroke to make sure the carpet dries quickly.

and so on...


Have someone with a little more finesse edit your comments.


And the blue frame is too close to the text.

 

[Jim Williams]

Mikey P, schools in the South only go to the fourth grade. Thanks for the observation though.

I thought all the gurus say that a picture of yourself is a good marketing tool to eliminate fear, so I figure they also don't want the fear that I'll be pulling up in a Ford Pinto with a rug Dr.

 

[Mikey P]

Fair enough.



How about a line stating that you're a Mobile Estate Specialist?

 

[steve frasier]

LMAO at that on Mike

 

[alazo1]

WTF, where do you get all your pictures Mike?

Albert

 

[alazo1]

William, I get your point about company image continuity. I still don't get the website though. I just took at the site you designed for your wife. I see you're doing the same type of layout on the gallery pages. Difference is yours is actually usable. The right column is clickable whereas there's is just a bunch of images that you can't make out. Don't get me wrong, if I could design like that I'd be stoked. What do I know?.

Are those your wife's paintings?, if yes she's very talented. Cool logo as well.

Albert

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

Your right Albert, that is a waste of space. Yes, those are my wife's paintings. I think the best thing we can do is get our wives to navigate through our sites and see if they like the experience and if it was easy for them. If it passes them, it will work. There are things I don't like on my site, but as of yet I don't have the skill to do what I really want.

 

[PCC]

Hi mate, As a Graphic designer, web designer and webmaster...

Change the blue. lighter or darker up to you but that current blue makes it look like a website from 1994

Also the text on the top right needs anti aliasing.

Other than that, Nice work mate

 

[Jim Williams]

Well I had to take the wheels off my house several years ago because my buddies would back their truck up to it in the middle of the night and give me a free relocation.

It's a funny feeling to look out the window in the morning and your not in the same trailer park.

I had some friends move here from Boston about 10 years ago who had never seen a trailer park, and all they did was complain about how mushy and vinegary the barbecue was. Now they're living in a trailer and eating the barbecue like it's going out of style.