# Website Redeveloped - Any Suggestions?



## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

Hey guys, I just refinished my website using Joomla... what do you guys think? What do you think of the SEO? Thanks

www.TailoredPainting.net


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## George Z (Apr 15, 2007)

This is one very nice (attractive website).
Being Joomla, I am sure it will be work in progres for a while.
Took a quick look and it seems it is well optimized. 
With more scrutiny you will get more suggestions.
Let me pre-qualify the following. You sound like someone who is so eager 
to please the customer. Keep that enthusiasm by all means but:

Your warranty has too much fluff and it shows. It is only a satisfaction guarantee 
and satisfaction is not clearly defined.
If you guarantee perfection some customer will bite you hard.
The customer is not always right.
Most customers are great, some are vultures.

Also, take the "I" and "me" out and replace it with "we".
It's ok to be a one man show, just look out for the vultures.

Closing with a positive:
this is a nice website that will be getting better.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

I was at Joomlashack this morning looking for templates and almost picked that one! I like the overall look. Yaros (among some others) is probably the best one with SEO. Only thing I see is it seems the title pages are too long.

I am redoing my site in Joomla now, and these are only my opinions, I am no expert!
PDF link on front page 404 error
Too small and varied font
Maybe add some bullet points
So many cities listed in text I tend to scan and not read 
The call me under your double garuntee goes to a photographer
Not enough pictures of your work

I do like the template and look!

You may also want to get some reviews and photos in your Google Local Ad.


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## Rcon (Nov 19, 2009)

Its a nice website, but there is one red flag there you might want to reconsider - your "100% money back guarantee". 

Customers are a funny thing; if they can get someting for free, they will. 

It's great that you're so confident in your work that you offer such a thing, but i'm worried that you're setting yourself up for trouble. Offering a guarantee like that makes you a target for customers who are going to be the 'pickiest of the pickiest' and also the 'cheapest of the cheapest'. I imagine that you'll get a lot of customers who will set out to get you to paint everything they own, complain about all of it, and hold you to your money back promise. I, for one, would never offer any such guarantee. If you stay with it, you're going to have to write out _extremely_ detailed contracts for each job, just to protect yourself. 

JMO, but i'd be wary of that!!


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## deach (May 11, 2008)

Unfortunately.....There are people that will take advantage of that. And the first time you don't back your guarantee, they'll be heck to pay. (along with cash)... 
Old Quote "You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but, you'll never please all of the people all of the time.". Now then that might not even be anything you did. It might be just them. At any rate, good luck to you. Site is off to a wonderful start.


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## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

Thanks guys for all of the wonderful comments. I definitely understand all that you guys are saying. I think though, that its a good idea to have a guarantee for the customers to see... so that they have that security feeling of a company that's doing it for the all right reasons. You see, the wonderful thing about painting is that you can always touch up something until it's perfect.. Painting isn't rocket science and it's not hard to get a painting project to look perfect.


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## Workaholic (Apr 17, 2007)

Nice looking site. I would have to agree with the others about the 100% money back guarantee.
"If FOR ANY REASON you feel that the painting job I create for you are anything less than perfect - if you don't honestly feel that it looks better than it's ever looked before, you don't pay me for it. It's that simple."

The word perfect is imo a bad word to hang this guarantee on. So many people might get a very good paint job but might try and take advantage of you to get a free paint job because they do not see it as "perfect". Honestly I would scrap the free part and emphasize how you stand behind your work with a slightly different guarantee.


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## capitalcity painting (Apr 28, 2008)

Besides the guarantee I see a few things I would change. I would have alot more pics. Also if your going with the smaller pics allow them to be clicked and blown up. The big wording right in the middle may throw customers off. I know your trying to get higher on the search engines but a bunch of random words in the middle of your site doesnt look good in my opinion. Overall I think the site looks good especially for being built by yourself, I built my own and can not get it where I want it so I'm just going to hire it out. Good Luck


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## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

Thanks for the complements and insight!


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

well, since you asked what we thought, and I expect you'd like HONEST opinions, the first thing that struck me from a DESIGN aspect was the size of the title bar, or whatever you call it. you know, THIS thing:










IMO, it is too high. People are lazy. They do not want to scroll down too far to see the meat of the site. And now we must be aware of hand held devices that surf the web.

Again, this is just my opinion and it is the first thing that struck me. I did not read or contemplate any other content, so I will not comment.


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## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

i completely agree with that... I'll try to make a way for the top section to be reduced a little bit. Thanks!


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

> Well, since you asked what we thought, and I expect you'd like HONEST opinions.


 Here are some things that struck me the first time I visited your site (which was a while back, from your CT signature).

1. *Your page title is too long*. The recommended length is ~70 characters. 
Yours is 448. Also, you have stuffed it with keywords to oblivion. 
Google is/will be penalizing you for title keyword stuffing. 
Do a google search for any of the keywords in your title + 
your city, and you are nowhere to be found in the first 5+ 
pages of search results, coming up after sites that aren't even related to painting services. Your site may be simply sandboxed because it's new,
or google may be devaluing all those stuffed keywords for your site. 

Here are a good (non-scientific) guideline to follow for keyword saturation on a website for best SEO practices.

2. *Bill is right on the money about the huge header*. The first thing that strikes the eye is the house/clouds/pavement in the picture. 
While it's an attractive design, it doesn't really tell me anything that I need to know as a customer, but instead distracts me away from other info and possibly, confuses me (are you a house builder, do you do paving?) I have to look lower to see.

One easy way to fix this, I think, is to make your company logo bigger in comparison to the rest of the header, 
so that the fact that you're a painting company stands out better from the decorative stuff.

3. *Text in the header is misaligned for me in FF on a Mac.* See my attachment for detail.

4. *Member login bar is distracting and uses up useful space*. Unless this is a feature that you use extensively/provide special private viewing areas for your customers, I would move the link to the footer or tuck it away somewhere on an inside page. ie unless this is something that you are making prominent use out of, it shouldn't be eating so much prominent real estate. Getting rid of that bar will allow you to make your logo bigger and not scrunch the "100% guarantee" text.

5. *Provide some sort of bullet/numbered system for the main text on the front page*. I see a block of text like that and automatically scan instead of reading.

6. *Put your address/phone in the footer*. This helps you rank in google local search.

7. *Lastly, I find the "we'll call back" thing a bit insulting from a customers point of view.* As a customer, I assume that any respectable company will call me back. If you have to go out of the way to tell me that you'll call back, I'm starting to think something is messed up. I know, I know, many painters don't call back and you are trying to differentiate yourself, but it comes off sounding like as if Waste Management put on their site "We'll pick up your garbage, every time" - No sh1t you will, you better. I pay you to do it.


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## deach (May 11, 2008)

In Safari the member thing didn't scrunch it it cut part of it out.
Edit: Actually on my MacBook it did the same thing in Firefox also.


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## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

I love everybody's honest opinion. I can see that I'll have a lot to work on here in the next couple of weeks. My website has only been live for about a month now, so the search engine placement & incoming links isn't the highest yet, but I can now see what the differences are between a top 5 site and one that's not on the first page. Thanks a lot for your opinions!


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## PressurePros (May 6, 2007)

The keyword stuffing is something I noticed when reading your page copy. Most SEO experts will tell you.. write good selling copy first, then go back and fine tune your keyword density. 

I don't know your first name but let's say its John. Here is what your pages sound like to me. "Hi John, I'm Ken. Here to do your painting estimate, John. John, if I could ask you something.. what would you like to see in your paint job, John? Have you ever used a professional paint service, John? If there is one thing I have learned, John it is that by repeating your name a million times, you are going to one to buy from me. I read that somewhere John."

You see what I mean. You use every variation of painting/contractor/painter almost ad nauseum in some spots. I agree with what others have already pointed out. A good rule of thumb for title tags is 7-8 words. That is all Google is going to look at anyway.


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## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

Thanks for all of your thoughts and ideas. Since my last post & using your ideas, I have revamped my site layout and functionality to better serve my clients and for Seo purposes. Check out the new thread (Click Here). 
Thanks again!


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