Your website?

[speedmedia]

Building a website is nothing like building a house, so bad analogy. Building a website is well up the alley of a graphic designer like many of us here. I think it was a bit of an inappropriate thing to say, IMHO.

Well, I can learn to fix my car because I know how to use a ratchet but I would rather go ahead and let the mechanic do it right? Is that better?

It is actually a great analogy, either you know how to do it or you don't. Go back to GoDaddy website in a day and "design" them till your eyeballs fall out...lol

Thanks,
Kurt

 

[Dan Antonelli]

I think it was a bit of an inappropriate thing to say, IMHO.

Hence the problem with me saying anything. Either it's perceived to be self serving or like I have some type of hidden agenda, when I'm merely trying to point out what 14 years of experience, and nearly 400 web sites built have taught me about marketing, design, and strategy. Not to mention my experience in marketing and advertising hundreds of other small businesses, sign related or not.

But no worries - it's all good. I can just keep that info to myself, because if you know about me and my contributions here and to the craft, that's apparently how you must think I roll....

 

[iSign]

Thanks for your input Dan... the cranky ones can push away value, while those that appreciate often stay silent (while taking notes)... so I'll step out of my uncharacteristic silence & thank you for your posts, books, seminars... and the killer logo design work I invested in having you do for me!!

As for analogy's... sign or graphic design work is to website building as driving is to engine building


Here's my website, if we're still talking about that...

www.islandsign.com

(my design concept, consulting assistance by Jon Aston, Site built by Joe Diaz)

 

[astro8]

A signdesigner designing a website is the same thing as a webdesigner designing a sign...sure they can both do it, but it usually shows.

SEO is another story, anyone can study up if they have, or make enough time. Implementing it into your site effectively and maintaining it is another story.

The hardest part is to create a site that is both visually pleasing and ranks really, really well... everything is a compromise. You change and tweak chasing rank until your site may end up looking nothing like you had intended.

This is where someone like Dan excels...he can take your vision or ideas, implement an SEO strategy from scratch, design a beautiful site, make it rank and make it pay.

I've looked through thousands of sign related websites and 98% of them are hopelessly SEO under optimised.

Go to alexa.com and check the rank of your site...what's yours? How can you improve it?

How many hits a day are you getting?

What's your bounce rate? How can you improve it?

What's the most popular pages and exit pages?

What keywords/phrases are driving traffic?

Are people landing on the pages you want? Are they exiting through the 'contact us' page? If not, why?

How many pages are people viewing, how do they navigate through your site?

How many enquiries and phone calls are you getting per day via your site?

These are the questions you should be asking yourself.

A nice site is just that...a nice site.

A great site is one that makes you money.

just my thoughts...

 

[Sign Up Graphics]

Sign Up Graphics

Here's my website www.rightanglesigns.com

 

[noregrets]

Well put astro and dan

Sure it can be learned, but years of experience in a rapidly changing industry is earned!

There is so much technology out there that can either make or break a website, and when you hire a reputable professional you are getting the experience behind what works and what doesn't.

It is the same thing as a client saying, "well my uncle has a cutter that he bought on Ebay and he can do it much cheaper" when someone wants their vehicle wrapped!

Yes I was a professional website developer before getting into this, and I can tell you now that they are two very different industries. You can be the best designer in the world and still not get a website that hits the mark.

In the company that I worked for we had three areas..... the designers that did the pretty stuff, the coders that did the geeky stuff, and then people in the middle that tied both together.

There were often huge frustrations between the designers and the coders because 'they just didnt understand each others areas!'

and vice versa!

Sure, make your own website for fun for personal stuff - but if your business depends on it, getting a decent professional involved will pay dividends

 

[Wheeler]

Here is my try.. http://www.wheelerdecals.com

I used to be Sport-decals.com and did well, but got a letter from attorney saying I was taking someone else business.

I changed names and don't do very well anymore. A lot of SEO has to do with the name..
Cheap home built site with paypal for checkout.

 

[iSign]

wow... that sucks... so did they tell you you had to give up the Sport-decals.com domain too? ...or did you just decide to?

The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU domains and
Registrars.Registration Service Provided By: ABOVE.COM, INC.
Contact: +613.95897946

Domain Name: SPORT-DECALS.COM

Registrant:
Above.com Domain Privacy
8 East concourse
Beaumaris
VIC
3193
AU
sport-decals.com@privacy.above.com
Tel. +61.395897946
Fax.

Creation date: 2009-05-27
Expiration Date: 2011-05-27

Domain servers in listed order:
ns3.above.com
ns4.above.com

 

[FrankenSigns.biz]

Sorry about that. Dan, as a merchant member certainly has the right to chime in about his services. But in this thread, members are posting links to their very own websites, real examples of what Dan stated was a seeming impossibility in his opinion. It just seemed overtly pretentious to me. My apologies if I offended anyone.

 

[SightLine]

Recenty totally redesigned ours using Dreamweaver. Started off with a base template and heavily modified it. Added a new gallery, favicon, meta tags, etc. Far from perfect and not nearly as nice as some I've seen on here but I think it's a big improvent over our prior site and good start.

http://www.sl-digital.com

 

[HulkSmash]

www.coloradosigns.com.au

www.sydneysignworks.com.au

Have fun

PS. Happy to have either website "rated"

Cheers - G

thanks for stealing my website?
www.coloradosigns.com

 

[signmeup]

www.showpiecesigns.com

 

[Patrick46]

This is my weird, trashy website...that hasn't been updated in like...Ohhhhhhhhhh 6 years!!!!!!

www.artworks-unlimited.com


btw...I LOVE Coloradosigns shoptruck!!!! That thing rocks!!!

 

[Bigdawg]

For all you SEO gurus... and I play in it myself... we are used to the evolving game of being ahead of google's methodology for website relativity and placement

good chance the rules are gonna change again. Blekko looks to be a serious challenge to Google and it doesn't operate the same way... I've heard rumours that google is working on the same type of filtering...

Blekko’s search engine scours three billion Web pages that it considers worthwhile, but it shows only the top results on any given topic. It calls its edited lists of Web sites slashtags. The engine also tries to weed out Web pages created by so-called content farms like Demand Media that determine popular Web search topics and then hire people at low pay to write articles on those topics for sites like eHow.com.

 

[Wheeler]

Yeah, I just gave it up..Funny thing is go daddy offered the name to me. Better do you research before buying a domain name and make sure it doesn't infringe on someone else.

They say it your job to research it, Doesn't make sense to me how they can sell you a name you cannot use..

 

[mikey-Oh]

just bought my .com... hopefully this freelance venture will supplement the incomes

 

[iSign]

Yeah, I just gave it up..Funny thing is go daddy offered the name to me. Better do you research before buying a domain name and make sure it doesn't infringe on someone else.

They say it your job to research it, Doesn't make sense to me how they can sell you a name you cannot use..

doesn't make sense to me that someone tells you "you can't use it" ...and you believe 'em & just roll over & give it up.... I woulda said gimmee ten grand, and maybe I'll quit using MY name... other wise, pound sand!

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

Yeah, I just gave it up..Funny thing is go daddy offered the name to me. Better do you research before buying a domain name and make sure it doesn't infringe on someone else.

They say it your job to research it, Doesn't make sense to me how they can sell you a name you cannot use..

You got screwed (turned over). ANY lawyer or less would of beat that. no biggie though.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Yeah, I just gave it up..Funny thing is go daddy offered the name to me. Better do you research before buying a domain name and make sure it doesn't infringe on someone else.

They say it your job to research it, Doesn't make sense to me how they can sell you a name you cannot use..

What did your attorney say? Seems to me that if ICANN allowed you to register the name ... it's yours.

It doesn't matter if someone else has established the name. If you own the domain then it's yours to use. You should see the email I get that's intended for Signs101.ca from their customers who think it must be .com instead of .ca. Or the people that type in Signs101.net and end up at SignIndustry.com because they bought that domain and then forward it to their site.

 

[Wheeler]

Yes I rolled, I was doing okay but not enough to justify buying a lawyer and fighting them.
Lawyer said I could not even use the words Sport Decals together in the same sentence on my new website, I thought that was reaching out there a little. I just put sport vinyl decals on most of my items now.
I recieved a letter from lawyer on internet and certified mail..

http://www.wheelerdecals.com/wheeler.pdf