Company Websites

George_10

I have spent three years designing and building web sites and believe in them 100%. Our web site www.rhomarwater.com
is well thought out and very friendly to the user. This is a critical element in any web site decision. You should also have your web address on every thing you hand out from business cards to proposals.
Any paper document with your company name on it should include your web address.

Brian

Company Websites

I'm at the stage where I'm looking at getting a website for my company.What I would like to know from you guys that already have one is...
-are you glad you did it
-have you received business from it
-what would you do different.

Thanks for the input,could you also send me a link to your site.

Brian

Bill_14

Travel

Does your company ever travel as far as Tulsa, OK to do work?

Mark J Strawcutter

from the user perspective

In addition to being "user friendly" - and there are lots of opinions what that means - be sure that every piece of printed material your company has available is there, in PDF if not html.

Tech documents, Installation and Operation manuals, cut sheets, everything. Much as I like Danfoss products, they really need to work on this area.

Also provide complete "how to contact us" info - postal address, email address, phone number(s).

Lastly, it's never done. Don't let it get stale. Plan to spend time keeping things up to date.

Mark

George_10

Site freshness is imperative

Continuely updating your site is what makes people return.
A bi-monthly newsletter or even quarterly is a good place to start. Contact Phone numbers on the front page are critical. Often that is only thing the user is looking for.

A site map or legend is also a button that should be on the front page. Our web site follows most of these rules and is a good example of what I am discussing.

Shelby

Website

My personal view is that they give your company a broader advertising market. If a customer is looking for a product or service, a web search engine can be a great help. A website gives a potential customer a chance to get a better look at the products and services that you have. At this point you are no longer just a name in the local yellow pages. Here is our web site. www.customtee.com

jerry scharf

my thoughts on web sites

Brian,

There are lots of dos and don't about web sites, but there are a few questions to answer first. No one else can answer these questions, and they are the basis of the whole process. Is the primary purpose of the web site marketing? If so, how much time and money do you currently spend on marketing. How much more are you going to spend by adding the web site? What information are you going to put up on your web site to meet your goals? How important is repeat visits?

The difference between a good web site and a bad web site is rarely cost, it's the clarity of the customer and the designer on how to attain the desired goals. There is rarely a need for complex programming on a site like yours. so if people start asking if you want this or that feature always ask yourself and them "Will this bring me more customers."

Next is how are people going to find this web site? Is this a follow on to an ad or flyer? Are you expecting people to find it by search engines? Getting a link from a high traffic site like this can really help the search engines.

Finally, start looking at other web sites and see what you like and don't like, especially simple ones. Look at any web site linked off find a contractor as a start.

Start simple and know this will take more maintenance than the yearly boiler inspections you ask your customers to do. If all you need and can afford at this point is a few pages on static content, spend your time and energy making sure those are done well and meet the goals. If it brings you customers, then you can justify more effort.

I hope this helped,
jerry

Dave DeFord

Web site...

K.I.S.S. (Keep Is Simple Stupid)- in spades. I've been around the Internet since before it existed as we know it today (i.e. the world wide web) - I had a T-1 connection in I believe 1993. Any way, so much for by credentials. I have seen fads come and go. My take on this is that most folks are coming to your web site for information - about you and about your products and services. I don't know if your customer base it retail or wholesale. If it is retail I would inlcude a lot of pictures, if it is wholesale you can probably get away with fewer pictures but a lot of people know what something looks like but not what its part number is. Also don't rely on search features as the only way let folks find something. Many times I have gone to a web site to try and find something and have been frustrated that I couldn't find it bacause I couldn't see a list of things. I had to try and figure out how it was captioned in their inventoty list - got frustrated and bought from their competitor. Forget about the latest and greatest like flash frames and so forth. If you are marketing to the artsy fartsy types it may be OK, but most folks just want their information and then go away. Answer your email - every day, maybe every hour. Like the other post said, put your phone number out there. If at all possible get you proper company (.com version) name as a domain name - no matter how long. You can also have other domain names pointing to the same site. For instance I have had up to 14 domain names (xx.com, xx.net, xx.org, x-x.com etc.)pointing to the same site to keep the competition or some other company from getting them. Buy your domain names for 10 years and NEVER let them expire - it can be impossible to get them back. Make sure that your domain name is registered in your company name not the name of your web developer or hosting company -they can and will hold it hostage if you become unhappy with them. Learn how to do a "whois" lookup so you can check on this when it is registered. Find a hosting company that runs their own tech support desk and does not farm it out to India or some outside company. Outside companies get paid by the call - their job is to get you off of the phone as soon as possible whether the problem is solved or not. Get their support number and call it several times to see how long the wait times are. Don't buy hosting on price alone, it should cost about $20 per month at the least. MAKE A BACK-UP OF YOUR SITE EVERY TIME IT CHANGES. Do this even if the hosting company backs it up for you - tapes go bad and the like. Look at your web site every day (I would make it the home page for everyone in my company by policy) you want to know if it is down. Make sure that your site makes sense to your wife, mother, and some good customers. Keep the site fresh but don't change the navigation very often. The streets to your shop don't change, the navigation on your web site is similar - people get frustrated with too much change - remember you are in the world of instant gratification and 30 seconds is forever when you are on the Internet. Otherwise find 3 sites that you like and what you like about them and 3 site that you don't like and what you don't like about them and give them to your web developer. Best of luck.

Brian

Thanks

Thank You Very Much
You have given me alot to think about.I'm a small plumbing and heating shop with the majority of my business being radiant.I have allways tried to present my company as being bigger than it is.eg. logo design, business card quality ect...I hope to create a web site with that same attitude.

Brian