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Hello, has anyone or does anyone use anything like WIX for their websites? Or any recommendations on where to get a site set up with roof cleaning in mind?

WIX is pretty much a drag and drop and seems user friendly but...what am I missing if anything.

I've been doing some work but don't have a website yet but need one for sure.

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A pretty website is worthless if nobody see's it...make sure this is part of the vetting process. Claiming their design is "optimized for Google" doesn't make it so....all of them make that claim. Another thing to be on the guard for is people that claim to be web designers when all they really do is toggle some options on a store bought theme.

 

Pre made themes (free or paid) are limited in customization...sometimes so structured that they hurt SEO. These types of themes are often expensive to customize due to their hard coded nature. Personally, I would not pay someone a thousand plus dollars for a $50 theme even if they are writing content. You can easily install the theme yourself and hire a freelance content writer for less than half the price.

 

Another pitfall to avoid is companies that charge monthly for a site that they own the domain and design...paying monthly seems like a great deal until you hit about the 12th month. After that point, all the money you spend on leasing a website could have been invested in SEO. 18 months of payments would get you a pretty bad ass custom website, hosting, webmaster as well as some on and off page SEO.

 

As for SEO...never hire someone that insists on being unhinged to the results. You should also expect a reasonably detailed explanation report or statement of what you are being billed for. I've had people come to me that were paying as much as $175 a month for "SEO" and I showed them that their site was unchanged and no new backlinks for months....in one case, a year plus. SEO is not invisable witchcraft....their are footprints left if someone is optimizing a website.

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it also helps to use a webpage builder that is familiar with the industry in our case roof cleaning.

 

90%+ of web content is scraped from the internet or previous work and reworded....our industry is no different. Just how many ways do you suppose there are to explain roof cleaning? Personally...I feel content is the one part of a website you don't want sourced entirely to a web designer. The owner should be heavily involved in drafting content. Even a poorly designed website will rank well with properly optimized unique content.

 

But I agree in general...I'm only aware of one person that builds custom roof cleaning sites, writes custom CSS and cleans a roof themselves the same day.

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90%+ of web content is scraped from the internet or previous work and reworded....our industry is no different. Just how many ways do you suppose there are to explain roof cleaning? Personally...I feel content is the one part of a website you don't want sourced entirely to a web designer. The owner should be heavily involved in drafting content. Even a poorly designed website will rank well with properly optimized unique content.

 

But I agree in general...I'm only aware of one person that builds custom roof cleaning sites, writes custom CSS and cleans a roof themselves the same day.

That sounds like my friend Barry, up in Ohio :)

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Adding content to my website each week to keep the Google spiders coming back used to be a dread for me. Now what I do is post a weekly "customer story" to my blog. I will give a brief story of the job and include before and after photos. It's an easy way to keep the content fresh.

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Adding content to my website each week to keep the Google spiders coming back used to be a dread for me. Now what I do is post a weekly "customer story" to my blog. I will give a brief story of the job and include before and after photos. It's an easy way to keep the content fresh.

That's a great idea, because all things being equal on a website, Fresh Content RULES !

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I built my web site today and its live now. Its not the greatest but it should work. I have to spend a little $ for SEO though

www.streakyroof.com

 

 

This is how it usually starts....and it's painful for me to watch it repeat over and over.

 

Off site SEO for your website would be like pushing a bulldozer up a hill. 90% of the SEO providers will probably gladly take your money and in the end....after wasting much $ you'll finally run into someone that will explain the root problems. Unfortunatly, by then people have hired clueless link marketers posing as SEO experts and their site now carries the additional baggage of a bad link profile.

 

Your site has issues that you can remedy yourself....and should before you even think of spending any money offpage.

 

Home page:

only 154 words....add more content.

your best 2 & 3 keyword phrases are nonsensical ("your roof" & "exterior cleaning llc") you need a target keyword plan for the page and then optimize for it.

no mention of where you are...crawlers need to see words on a page. Since we are geography limited, we need to let the crawlers know where we are.

images missing alt text....crawlers need to know what an image is about.

meta title bad

meta description bad

H1 tag is "Our Services" bad

 

Last....cheap is not always inexpensive...http://optilocal.org/godaddy-website-builder-and-seo-dont-even-bother/

 

Godaddy and all the "free sitebuilder" hosts (yahoo included) should face a class action suit for malpractice....imho.

 

I've seen guys spend $20k+ on truck, trailer, skids, pumps, etc....then build a Yahoo free website builder then turn around and spend 2x the cost of a good website trying to get it to rank. The thing that feeds the overhead monster is marketing and internet marketing is the best ROI.

 

Gene,....my advice, if you don't want to hire a web designer is to flip your site over to WordPress anyway....there are several guys on here that have built and manage their own WordPress site and I'm sure they'd help you.

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Ya, I know my web site needs a lot of work and I plan on working on that. I hear different things from different people as always. Some say WordPress is great and some say WordPress sucks, don't waste ur time.. What's a guy to do?

Listen to the voices of experience here, and get Wordpress.

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Ya, I know my web site needs a lot of work and I plan on working on that. I hear different things from different people as always. Some say WordPress is great and some say WordPress sucks, don't waste ur time.. What's a guy to do?

 

Listen to the voices of experience here, and get Wordpress.

 

Anyone that says it sucks most likely bases that on having spent a good deal of time learning something else and are resistant to change.

 

Not just here Chris.....The world has spoken....and it's not even close!

 

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I set up an account with WordPress this past weekend and will be working on my web site in the near future. Im definitely not opposed to change, change is good.

Good change is good but not all change is good. The current transformation of America is an example of bad change. I'm just having fun with you Gene and I know what you meant. If you're not changing and trying new things you are likely not growing and being successful!

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So how does one get a hold of this Barry in Ohio. My other site needs help bigtime. Its all pretty and everything, but nobody is seeing it unless they type the company name. Family Painters.net

 

I remember the simpler days when who ever paid the yellow pages the most got the most calls. Blogging,content, crap, I already have a job!

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