new website for peer review

[Markus Keller]

After not caring, not worrying about it and procrastinating for years, I've finally gotten around to getting a website up. Just posted yesterday.
As others have done in the past, I'm posting it for peer review. So have at it guys. Likes, dislikes, slams, etc.
I'm meeting with my guy next week to finish up final tweaks. I know there are a few things missing still. He put it up the test it, make sure everything works, etc.
One of the tabs is empty, need to upload sample reports, set-up the new Contact email and a couple misc.
I didn't come up with the 'Trusted real estate professionals' tab. I don't really like it either. I'm thinking something more like 'professional property consultants' tab. Not sure though, any suggestions welcome.
Have fun, Markus
AIC - Home (http://www.aic-chicago.com)

[John Kogel]

It looks good to me. It is plain and simple.
I suspect it is a simple format to allow fast loading on slow machines? We expect to see pictures on the home page nowadays. A nice home with a happy family is pretty standard.
But that is irrelevant. The main reason I think for a website is contact info and demonstrating that you are established in the biz, enough to have a website at least.

A guy that works in the website biz told me that client testimonials are good, so I've put some right on my home page.
I think you should scrap the real estate reference. Those contacts could simply be put on a links page. Anyway, welcome to the cyberworld! I know it helps.

[Bob Knauff]

I agree with John. Nice clean look and relatively easy to get around on. Why navigation buttons on the side bar AS WELL AS tabs too? Too many places to have to look for stuff and the clients will pass on the page.

Pictures are good but notice that well over 2/3 of the page is non-text (this includes white space between sentences and words). Search engine crawlers cannot read images (including text on images), only text. The amount of text and therefore information on the first, or Index, page is where your chances of search engines finding and ranking your site higher are the greatest. You need LOTS AND LOTS of relevant text on that page.

It's sad but true that in today's market place more than ever, one must educate themselves or be at the mercy of others be it web page development and optimization or car repair!

That being said, I highly recommend picking up and reading a copy of "Search Engine Optimization For Dummy's". Easy to read and understand, even for non-techies, and right off the bat you will see how your site is in need of some radical changes to be able to place higher in search engine rankings so clients will find you first before your competition! You DO want your web site to be on the first page of Google don't ya?!

Good luck!

[Dominic Maricic]

Hi Markus,

Looking at it from an SEO point of view (your layout looks great). 3 of our users are on page 1 of Google for Chicago Home Inspector by following the tips I've given out and they've implemented on their own. Many own #1 for surrounding cities (schaumburgh, vernon hills, etc). Here's a few things to take to your guy.

1. You don't mention a single city on your home page. Google will not list your site for a phrase without you including it on your site. Chicago Home Inspector should be on every page. So should around 5 other cities you want to target.

2. You have WAY too many keywords, you should have 5 phrases at most and they need to target cities and home inspector/inspection. Don't list words that people won't search for. Right now you have:

<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Homeinspector,homeinspection,REO,vacantproperty,bu ildingassessment,troubledbuildings,expertwitness,a stm2018,housingcourt,codecompliance,home,condo,con dominium,condoinspection,condominiuminspection,pro jectconsulting,homeownerservices,investorservices, commercialservices,constructioninspections,capital improvements,pre-saleevaluations,attorneyassistance,Daleycenter,cit yinspections,NSP,NHS,licensed,insured,buildingcode ,municipalcode">

About half of those words will never be searched for. Then you're running words together without any spaces. Change this up with city1 home inspector, home inspections in city 2, etc. 5 phrases max or you're diluting your keyword efficiency.

3. Your page title is: <title>AIC - Home</title> . This is one of THE most important places that Google looks for Keywords. This needs to be something along the lines of Home Inspections in city1, 2, 3, 4 & surrounding areas. This is also what shows on the first line on a Google search result.

4. Missing a page description meta tag. Extremely important and is the additional lines that appear on Google below the title above.

5. None of your photos in your photo galleries have descriptions. This is the perfect place to mention cities and keywords like home inspector. Write up a sentence on each photo. "While performing a home inspection in Naperville ...."

6. After helping several thousand inspectors with their sites, I can definitely say that unless your business is booming and you don't care, leave prices off your site. Sell your services over the phone, then let them know what it'll cost. You're turning away people before they get to talk to you and hear why you're worth it.

7. Your photos are all missing alt tags.

8. No dynamic content. Get news feeds or a blog going so Google sees new content when it searches.

There's a lot of great website designers out there that have no idea how to optimize. Check out Home Inspection Software - Home Inspector Pro - Website Optimization Tips (http://www.homeinspectorpro.com/Table/Search-Engine-Optimization-For-Home-Inspectors/) where I've written a dozen or so articles over the past few years to get a better idea of what you should be doing. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here.

[Gunnar Alquist]

Listen to Dominic. He knows what he is talking about when it comes to optimizing a web site. Still working on mine.

[Dominic Maricic]

Thanks Gunnar. Will I be seeing you in Vegas in October at the COA/CREIA/ASHI School Conference? I'll be giving an 8 hour talk on Sunday the 10th from 8am-5pm.

[Mitchell Toelle]

Dominic is da bomb!!!! For all Inspectors who have a site, whether you manage/ designed it yourself or hired it out, if you ever get an opportunity to attend one of Dominics seminars you will find the investment of time and money worth it.

[Philippe Heller]

Dominic has provided you with valuable information.

Just have a website now is pretty useless unless it provides something of interest. Then you have to be sure people can find it. That is why Dominic's SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tips are essential.

If a potential client is looking for an inspector, they will compare several companies. You need to give them some compelling reason to choose you over the other companies in your area. Remember that people will spend only a few seconds on your page before moving on.

If you have special knowledge, certifications, tools, great report... that places you in a category above the rest, say it prominently on your website.

One thing I can never understand is why people don't use their domain name in their e-mail. Why use a yahoo account when you almost certainly can have inspectormk@aic-chicago.com? It looks way more professional.

Otherwise your website is really good so far. I like the links and resources. Keep working on it and you'll end up with a really great site.

[Nick J. Alati]

I think your new site looks clean and easy to read, good luck with it and all the phone calls your going to get!

I'm undergoing a Web Site Face lift as we speak.

Good Luck!

Arizona Phoenix Home Inspector (http://www.AzHomeInspectorOnLine.com)

[Markus Keller]

Wow, lots of great suggestions. I must admit I didn't know a lot of what you guys are mentioning even existed. I'll have to do some reading and research. I'll ask my guy about this stuff also.
I thought about not putting prices on the site. I'd rather have base prices up there to weed out the low ball clients. As you may have noticed, I'm pretty diversified on inspections. When one area is slow, other areas are usually providing sufficient work. If someone is looking for a $150 HI, I'm ok with them looking elsewhere.
I thought about the ceiling/foundation or foundation/roof combo for my slogan but ended up really liking the ceiling/floor word play best.
I'll send you a PM Dominic
Thanks so far guys, Markus

[Dominic Maricic]

Wow, lots of great suggestions. I must admit I didn't know a lot of what you guys are mentioning even existed. I'll have to do some reading and research. I'll ask my guy about this stuff also.
I thought about not putting prices on the site. I'd rather have base prices up there to weed out the low ball clients. As you may have noticed, I'm pretty diversified on inspections. When one area is slow, other areas are usually providing sufficient work. If someone is looking for a $150 HI, I'm ok with them looking elsewhere.
I thought about the ceiling/foundation or foundation/roof combo for my slogan but ended up really liking the ceiling/floor word play best.
I'll send you a PM Dominic
Thanks so far guys, Markus

If you're busy, you can definitely leave a starting price on there at the least (most guys will have a starting price). Otherwise get them to call you. If you handle the calls right even some of the low ballers can have their minds changed when you explain why you're the right inspector.

[Brenda Ledbetter]

It looks great and gives good information. I have been working on getting my website together and have a list of likes/dislikes from various sites. Yours looks classy; no spinning or blinking garbage. Thank you Dominic for being so generous with your information. I've learned much more than I expected.

Brenda Ledbetter
Objective Home Inspections
TREC #10619

[Dominic Maricic]

Hi Brenda,

No problem. I taught for about 10 years and enjoy passing information on when I have time. I don't have as much as I used to so from time to time I'll take a break from programming and answer questions on the boards. Read over some of the articles I wrote for more info.

[Trent Tarter]

I would get rid of the flashlight logo. Looks like some free clip art that you found online. Site lacks a professional logo and needs more personalized to get rid of the pre-made diy look. You should have some personal photos of you, you and client, inspection photos of you in action etc. The basic layout is nice and simple.

[Markus Keller]

That's a rough, funny, and insightful review Trent.
A friend who owns an ad design agency actually made that flashlight for me when he designed my business card. I've always liked the flashlight and I get a lot of positive feedback from clients on it. They seem to like it on the card.
I can agree with your impersonal feel thought. I even told my guy to see if he can add some touchy, feely, feel good, personal stuff. I'm no good at that stuff. My guy is thinking about it. Our 'final' meeting got pushed into next week instead of this week so he could implement other suggestions from here.
Once again, Thanks everyone.
Another inspector who posts on IN from time to time, and that I've traded jobs with, has a really nice elaborate site. Lots of logo's and pics of people, the kind of feel good stuff you would probably like. Even I like the site, it isn't my sort of thing. Even he thinks his sight has gone over the top a bit. I'll be sticking with the straight on look.
Thanks, Markus

[Scott Patterson]

I would get rid of the flashlight logo. Looks like some free clip art that you found online. Site lacks a professional logo and needs more personalized to get rid of the pre-made diy look. You should have some personal photos of you, you and client, inspection photos of you in action etc. The basic layout is nice and simple.

Hey Trent, what is your website address? I would like to see what you are talking about..

I have a very DIY website but it pulls up very very well in the areas I work in. It is on my bucket list to get a professional site one of these days... ;)

[Ricky Wells]

Markus,

I think you are off to a good start and you will find that you will be constantly adding to that site with new ideas as time passes.

I have been working with wordpress based sites now and I prefer them over the template style most hosting sites use. With the number of wordpress themes out there that are available, one can change the appearance of their website with a few clicks of the mouse. There are thousands of themes that are free and there are some really good SEO enriched themes that are fairly cheap. By using word press themes one can get away from the common look of most Home Inspection Web Sites.

I would like to hear Dominic's thoughts on word press themes and I, like many other Home Inspectors can use all the help all I can get on keeping a website running and to get it listed above the fold on page one of Google for selected keywords.

I launched my new site about month ago and I am putting in the time now with SEO to make that slow progression to page 1. Sometimes you really wonder if your efforts are worth it but if you do the time now it really does pay off in the end.

I love hearing about good SEO tips and being fairly new to this side of it, I can use all the help I can get as well and places like this forum where we can all share our ideas is just fantastic.

[Nick Ostrowski]

Ricky, a couple things on your site:

- as long as you have prices listed, buyers have one less reason to call you
- the Google ads you have showing on your site advertise other inspection companies (do you really want to promote other inspection outfits on your own site?)

[Ricky Wells]

Hey Nick

I look at things a little different as far as publishing prices on my website. As I am creating my site, I ask myself over and over again the same question.

If I were looking for a Home Inspector, what would I want to know as I educate myself about a Home Inspection?

Let me ask you, has this ever happened to you? You are researching some topic on the internet and you really want to know what something is going cost you. You spend several minutes reading a few things on someone's site, click through several other pages trying to find a price and then.......it asks you for your email address or contact information so they can send you pricing. That happens to me often when I want to know pricing on whatever the topic may be and it really irritates me so I close the page and move on.

I dont want that to happen to people that visit my site. I know that is only one way to look at it but that is the reasoning behind why I do it and I am finding more and more that people do not want to talk on the phone much any more. Take a look around and just take note of how many people would rather text for hours rather than talk on the phone for a few minutes.

On the second topic about advertising on my site with google ads, this may sound strange and I took this advice from a business guy I played golf with one day. We were on the subject of websites, marketing, business models, and investments, and he just asked me a question about the home inspection business. He asked " Do you feel comfortable with how competitive you are as compared to other Home Inspectors in the area?" I told him that most definetely, I felt I was very competitive with most Home Inspectors in the area. He said well then why dont you make money from them. I asked HOW? His answer was google ads.

He explained it like this and it made perfect sense.

People search google for Home Inspectors using certain keywords
Google replies with pages and pages of Home Inspection Companies
People start clicking on them one at a time
If they like the website and there is some interest they will write down the phone number to call later
They will then continue to click around and take down a few more numbers if they are like most people looking for a service
Then they stop looking and they start making their calls searching for that right InspectorYou see a smart consumer will not just look at one inspection site and decide on an inspector. They will continue to click anyway so if I give them a way to click on other Home Inspectors from my site using ad sense which they are going to do anyway, guess what.

They just left me a tip for visiting my site and im hoping they wrote my number down as one to contact anyway. The size of the tip depends on what the Home Inspection company that they clicked on is paying for their adwords accounts. Most probably average $1.75 to $2.50 is what drops in my tip bucket on a visitors way out of my site.

Besides that if they dont like what they see on your site, all they do is hit the back button which returns them to google that has all of the competition listed anyway which leaves you no tip.

So by me placing google ads on my site, my competition is actually paying me as well. There is nothing sweeter than to have your competition paying you to be in the game.

Let me know your thoughts now Nick after reading this response. I would like to know how you feel about it after hearing the reasons that I do it and if it makes sense to you now.

[Nick Ostrowski]

Interesting stuff Ricky.

I understand what you're saying about consumers and how many people would rather text than talk. And these consumer tendencies do vary by area. Consumers in some areas still rely heavily on the Yellow Pages (not around here). In any event, something to consider is that while listing your fee makes things easier for the buyer to do their shopping, they may never get a chance to speak with you and you never get a chance to sell your service. The way I look at it is you need to put something on your site that is going to make yourself stand out......something that makes your site different from any other companies'.........something that is going to resonate with a buyer. I have seen many sites that all look the same and say the same things. "A house is the biggest investment you'll ever make, etc etc". Many of these sites look great......but they all look and sound the same. Like you said, buyers will click on many sites. But think about this.....what does your site say that is going to make a buyer remember you? Ease of navigation and getting answers to all their questions is great but buyers are not hiring a website.....they are hiring a home inspector. And you need to get them on the phone or get them to send you an e-mail so you can sell yourself in a one-on-one manner. Buyers can sometimes be swayed in your direction but you often times need to get them on the phone to do so. Think about what it is you can say on your site that will make you stand out from your local competition. If you were a buyer, what would you want to hear? Here is my site Strong Foundations Home Inspections - PA Home Inspection, Philadelphia Home Inspection, Pennsylvania Home Inspector, PA Home Inspector, Philadelphia Home Inspector, Collegeville, King of Prussia, Pottstown, Phoenixville, Royersford, Limerick (http://www.strongfoundations.com). Take a look at it and see what I mean.

As for the Google ads, I'm not sure I understand this correctly. Are you getting paid by Google to put their pay-per-click ads to your site?

[Markus Keller]

Very nice site Ricky. When I read Nick's post I thought the ads on your site might be those horrible flashing ones or something. Not bad though. I'm guessing fairly technical/targeted stuff on the google end since the listed ads were either national or chicagoland services. Not sure that it is something I'm willing to do though.
Nick, the zipcode/weather channel link is awesome. I would never have thought of that. I just think that is totally cool. Probably actually fairly helpful for some clients. Did you come up with that or copy it?

[Ricky Wells]

Hey Nick and Markus,

I took a look at your website Nick and it does have alot of good info and it seems to be well placed especially the INTERNET DISCOUNT SPECIAL.

I have designed a starburst type logo with a internet discount on it and have it uploaded and could launch it at any time. I just have not published it yet but probably will for the month of October and November. I also have more that I throw out once in awhile like No Fee for Pool Inspection during the month of XXXXX.

These hooks as I call them I use from time to time so you will see them from time to time. I dont know if you seen it or not but I offer viewers a free e-book and if they request it they have to fill out a little information form where I get their contact information. Thats one way I get visitors information from which I can make contact.

Thanks Markus for the compliment on the site and I try very hard to keep my site looking completely different than the normal template style sites. The look of the website is one thing I hope that appeals to people and will generate a call.

Its kind of like a termite inspector. I will only recommend those companies that have nice clean trucks and the people are dressed in uniforms and are clean cut. I see many that drive up in an old rust bucket of a truck full of old buckets and hoses all thrown about and then the guy gets out of the truck with shorts on, a ball cap turned around backwards, and shirt hanging out. Those guys will never get a referral from me.

Nick - believe it or not google does pay you for allowing ads to be placed on your site. Check it out, it is called ad sense. You can read all about it just by googling it. I thought that would catch your attention, and it is one of the smartest things I think I was ever told. Thats why I can not take the credit for the idea because I am not that smart but I am smart enough to understand the idea. I would think differently if when some one searched for Home Inspector and my site was the only one that came up, but being all the Inspection Companies come up any way I really dont see any difference whether they click on the competition from my site or google.

FYI Nick - Dallas Fan here......Good Luck with those young eagles this year .......just thought I would mention that :eek:

[Dominic Maricic]

Ricky,

Wordpress themes themselves only lend a little to optimization, most are fine. It's really what you do with the site and it's content that matters. The problem some guys get stuck into is having the same keywords, description & page title on every page when they're using themes. Make sure you're not doing that.

As far as Google ads, I always tell guys to keep them off their site. The general consumer is going to see the ads and think that you can't afford to pay your bills as an inspector and so you're trying to make a few dollars off putting ads on your site. It cheapens the overall site, and you.

[Nick Ostrowski]

Nick, the zipcode/weather channel link is awesome. I would never have thought of that. I just think that is totally cool. Probably actually fairly helpful for some clients. Did you come up with that or copy it?

Markus, that's nothing more than a copy and paste of the zipcode search field from weather.com. I'm not savvy to come up with that on my own. ;)

[Nick Ostrowski]

I'm not a fan of the internet discount Ricky but unfortunately, it works too well to get rid of it and gets people to call or send an e-mail which is more than half of the battle.

Interesting that Google will pay you to advertise their ads. They do know how to get their name out there.

And yep, it will probably be a meager year for the Eagles with Kolb at QB now. But they are a very young team now and hopefully will be able to develop that talent.......and hopefully take the Cowboys at least one time this year. ;)

[Hollis Brown]

Marcus:

It looks like you're getting a lot of good advice about the site itself: aesthetics, functionality and onsite SEO. Offsite SEO is important as well. There are a lot of places to go to increase your visibility across the net. Facebook (http://www.facebook.com), LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com) and YadZooks (http://www.yadzooks.com) come to mind. Integrate the three, then feed all that into Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) and you'll have something going on.

I see that you're already on YadZooks (http://www.yadzooks.com/home_inspectors/illinois_il/inspector/Markus_Keller). Play around with it awhile; you'll find there is a lot of functionality in there. For example: tinyurl.com/SafeHomeInspections (http://tinyurl.com/safehomeinspections)

Hollis

[Tim Allison]

Hi Markus,

There is a lot of good info so far and just wanted to add my 2 cents in my first post here! I am on my third website for my business now and have a new marketer working for me. Something I learned from him is the importance of people feeling like they know you through your site. I used several videos on my site to introduce myself to potential customers like I'm on one of those Discovery Channel shows. That sets me apart from everyone else in the area.

Another thing that is super effective for getting found and is really easy is getting yourself listed on Google Maps through Google Local at https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=lbc&passive=1209600&continue=http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl%3Den%26gl%3Dus&followup=http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl%3Den%26gl%3Dus&hl=en.

It is free to do and will put you in the "7 box" that Google puts at the top of local searches. I have seen people charge $295/month to get listed there but my new guy does it for free. Call me or contact me through my site with any questions as I may not be able to check here very often. LosAngelesHome-Inspection.com (http://losangeleshome-inspection.com)

Best of luck.

[Dominic Maricic]

Yup, great tip. I wrote an article for a few inspection magazines you can read here: Home Inspection Software - Home Inspector Pro - Google, Yahoo & MSN Business Listings (http://www.homeinspectorpro.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-For-Home-Inspectors/Google-Yahoo-&-MSN-Business-Listings.html) on how to add yourself to Google, Yahoo & MSN Maps for free. Also Google has a new feature where for $25 a month you can add a tag under your map listing to make you stand out (make sure you're one of the ones on the first page first though).

[Markus Keller]

Thanks for the additional tips. I've been working on some of the stuff Dominic mentioned before. Since I'm not a rocket scientist it's taking some learnin :confused:

[Tim Allison]

No problem. I thought of two more things we are doing. I ask my guy a lot of questions so I understand what he is doing. ;)

2 recent things are that once we had some videos put together he made a Youtube channel for me that matches the look of my website. Check it out here. (http://www.youtube.com/user/losangeleshomeinspec) With that I can send people there to get to know me better and having the custom layout makes me look very professional.

The other thing is adding links to my site from sites like this. It seems that Google finds them and counts them as a "vote" for my site in the rankings. But one thing that most people miss is they just put a link that uses their company name or the site address as the link. That is not very helpful as someone that is searching for you directly will already know your business name or web address and would just use it.

He said to do it like this. It's called using Anchor Text. If you want to be found for the search term Riverside Home Inspection, then you should type Riverside Home Inspection. Then highlight it with your mouse. Then click the little globe icon above the editor (that creates links) and enter the web address (url), you want people to go to and be popular, in the space provided. My marketer set up a page just for Riverside Home Inspection on my site. So, in this example I would put the address for that page in the link. The address is http:// losangeleshome-inspection.com/riverside-home-inspection/ (http://losangeleshome-inspection.com/riverside-home-inspection/). So that is exactly what I put. It would look like this.

Riverside Home Inspection (http://losangeleshome-inspection.com/riverside-home-inspection/)

Don't forget the http:// as it is important. It is more effective this way than just putting your web site name since most people are going to search for what they want and not your name anyway.

I almost forgot. Someone had asked about did Google need the advertising. They make many millions of dollars and the main way they do it is through these ads called Adwords. People want to have their stuff advertised in Google search results on the top and right side of the page. The sponsored links areas. They also want to put ads on other peoples websites. People pay Google to put these ads up for them just like they pay anyone else that puts up ads in other places. The term "Los Angeles Home Inspection" costs the company listing the ad over $5 every time someone clicks on it. That is paid to Google. When the click happens on a search results page Google keeps all the money. As a website owner you can choose to have these ads appear on your site. Like you were a newspaper or tv program. In that case Google shares a percentage of the money that was paid for the ad to you for allowing it to be shown on your site. That is how they make most of their money.

If you ever consider using Google for your advertising you should consider using Facebook instead. They are a lot cheaper and much more targeted. Also, they now have more page views than Google.