# My first website



## Constructive Coating (Dec 19, 2010)

As I am always on the "trailing edge" of technology, any suggestions on how to improve my first website are welcome. I specialize in small commercial painting and wanted to target property managers. Thanks in advance for your input.

www.marylandofficepainting.com


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

Nice site.


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## bikerboy (Sep 16, 2007)

That is one clean site. Easy to use. Very nice.


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## ttd (Sep 30, 2010)

like it!


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## George Z (Apr 15, 2007)

This is nice.
Free fandeck for Property Managers?
That may actually catch some contacts. Good idea.


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## johnpaint (Sep 20, 2008)

I think it looks good, now comes the hard part.


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## Constructive Coating (Dec 19, 2010)

*Re:*

John -

I assume when you say "hard part", you refer to getting traffic to the site. I am signed up with google and am paying $3.50 per click, with keywords only geared to commercial work. After one month..... about 100 clicks, and two good leads, one looks like it may turn into good job.

I am about to start working with a "web-guy", any advice as I heard in the world of SEO they prey on "numbies" such as myself.

Thanks!


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## johnpaint (Sep 20, 2008)

Constructive Coating said:


> John -
> 
> I assume when you say "hard part", you refer to getting traffic to the site. I am signed up with google and am paying $3.50 per click, with keywords only geared to commercial work. After one month..... about 100 clicks, and two good leads, one looks like it may turn into good job.
> 
> ...


Do some study on seo for optimizing your site and it will pay off, be careful with ppc, read and learn it will save you money in the long run.


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## johnpaint (Sep 20, 2008)

When I got my sight going I paid a guy 350 to optimize it and show me some good stuff, you might want to do that. It helps, I had a pr3 in 6 months.


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## DarrenSlaughter (Jul 16, 2010)

Site is clean and looks good. As others have said, a site without traffic is like a billboard in the woods. Right now, many contractors are getting a lot of love from Google Places, so you want to make sure you are listed there. 

Be careful of guaranteed click prices as they are most certainly getting you clicks at a lower price then making money on the spread. You don't need to spend $350 to have someone work on your site, you can do it yourself, check out Google's Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization. It will tell you everything you need to get started, and you just saved yourself $350!

Hope that helps.


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## jack pauhl (Nov 10, 2008)

I like how clean it is and feels but would like it alot more if that background paint can image was white. The black seems all up in my face. just sayin Im no expert on this sort of thing. Feel free to comment on mine. I rarely listen to anyone.  ha ha


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## RGordon (Mar 22, 2010)

The site looks very nice. I see you used wordpress. I am a big fan of wordpress. Did you install it yourself, or did someone else do it?

Here is some feedback on how to tweak your installation a bit to make it better. If you didn't do it, pass this info on to the person who did:

1. You installed the sited in the /wordpress directory. What this means is that when I go to www.marylandofficepainting.com it will redirect to www.marylandofficepainting.com/wordpress, which is not what you want (after you go to your site, look at the URL in your browser, you'll see what i mean). You want to move the entire site to the "root directory" which basically means that your site is at "www.marylandofficepainting.com" with no "/wordpress" in the url. You want to do this fast before the search engines start indexing (basically means bookmarking) your site with that URL.

2. You want to change your "permalink" structure in wordpress so you have "user friendly" urls. For example, if i click the "services" link on top, it takes me to this page: "http://marylandofficepainting.com/wordpress/?page_id=8" Once you move the site to the root directory it will be "http://marylandofficepainting.com/?page_id=8" But the problem is that the url is not user, or search engine friendly. Let's say you want to tell a friend to check out your services page. You woual have to say "Go to marylandofficepainting.com/?page_id=8" but wouldn't it be easier if you could say "go to marylandofficepainting.com/services" ? Also, search engines like to see real words in URLs instead of numbers and stuff.

If you or the guy who installed the site don't know how to do it, PM me and I'll walk you through changing it so you can get that fixed.

3. Start learning about "wordpress plugins." Plugins are free adons for wordpress that allow it to do extra stuff that's not "out of the box" with wordpress. There are thousands of plugins out there, but there are some what every site should have. Spend some time researching "best wordpress plugins" and you should be able to add a few good ones, especially to help SEO and get traffic to the site.

Great design though and and awesome start. way better than many other I have seen.


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