Advice on Creating Website for Small Biz

Making my website was quite the learning process for me. The first website I tried to make for my business, I had to completely take down. The program I was attempting to use didn't work at all with firefox and it shifted things around when I posted it. It was very frustrating, because I wasted all this time on something that didn't work. So I learned from that to check your work as you go, not to post it all at once. I use dreamweaver now, which I had to learn, but it works great for me.

Something that was very helpful for me was getting my friends and family to critique my site after I finished it and put it up. I emailed everyone I could think of and asked them to peruse it. I even asked a few of my regular clients to look at it for me. I asked for honest feelings about things I needed to change and for someone to double check my spelling. :) It was the best thing I could have done. There were things I didn't even think about, like that colors look differently on other computers, so some font colors I chose looked great on my computer, but were hard for friends to see on theirs. GL!

Look around at other electrical business Web sites. See what you like & don't like about them. Have your husband ask some of his current clients their opinions on what to have/not have on the site. Just keep the customer in mind. What will they be looking for & want to do when they come to your site?

As far as search engine rankings, you do NOT have to pay to get a top spot. your site just needs to be well written to get your keywords on there, but don't over do the keywords. Also, it helps to have other sites link to your site. Especially if the other site is already high-ranking on Google. SEO is a very tricky subject and there are people whose whole career is about helping companies with this.

Feel free to ask me any other Web site questions. I am a Web programmer and work with Web savvy people (including our company's SEO guy). I'd build the site for you if I had the time! But I'll be happy to answer questions and offer advice. :)

I own an insurance agency (http://www.AgentLady.com) and my experience is word of mouth works MUCH better. Although insurance agents are a dime a dozen, electrical still may not be a website to get a bunch of activity if someone just googles "electric business san jose". And my understanding is its very costly to have your website be one of the first ones come up when searched, but I sell insurance, not websites, so maybe someone else can help better! Not sure if he can join a networking group but check out www.meetup.com, it's free. There are "networking" groups in your area that he can join and hand out his biz card. These groups are specifically set up to help each other get business. Not sure if this helps or not. Good luck!

Hi,
I did mine with tripod.com. It is free! Check it out: http://cindyflesher.tripod.com. Very easy too ;)

Is he doing this website himself?
If not, I would use someone locally.... so that you can easily change/update/add/remove things from it.
Maybe using a college kid even, for reduced fees. And they can use it as perhaps, toward school credit or even on their resume.

It can take a lot of work and a LOT of time, do to a website and then get it up to the ideal way. Website development and maintenance is work.
AND, then there is the issue of getting your site seen and marketed too. Advertising. Leaving a website just up in cyber space, does not guarantee hits. You also have to "advertise" the website, in other words. Marketing both.
Perhaps in local "penny saver" magazines, free bulletin boards, supermarkets or inserts, fliers, discounts for enticing clients, etc.

It all takes research and time.

What works for one business would not for another. Take a look at other same industry websites.... too. To see what works or does not.

all the best,
Susan

Hi there! I recently started my own firm and created what I think is a pretty good website. Someone else mentioned this but I found it very helpful to review 12 other websites from companies simliar to mine and make a list of what I liked and didn't like. This actually made it very easy for me to quickly determine what elements I wanted in my website. You want to make sure that your fonts match, are easy to read (both the style and the size), and match the overall "feel" and theme that you are going for. Trust me - fonts can make a big difference. I personally found that less is more. If you cram too much information onto one page the reader will loose interest. Make sure that your contact information is prominent and easy to find. Make sure that you are consistant with the style of each page (i.e. justification, line spacing, paragraph breaks, etc...). Proof carefully! I used Go Daddy and bought their web design package as well. They had a lot of great templates and stock art and it was really easy to use. I'm not sure what program your husband is using but I really liked Go Daddy's product which is run through WebSiteTonight. Good luck to your hubby. If he would like to view my website it is www.jnsfirst.com. Also, my husband is an electrician and we completely understand about the sudden need to market. Word of mouth is a whole lot tough these days. Have you thought about starting an incentive program for clients who provide referrals? You might also look into posting an ad on Craigslist. Good luck!

I own a small business and use Yahoo! for my web hosting. I used their Site Solution to easily create my website (http://www.haoaboutfitness.com/). Although there are templates you have to choose from, I found that a lot easier that trying to create something from scratch. What I like most about it is that it is easy for me to make updates myself. That way, I don't have to wait for someone else to do it, or pay someone else to do it.

There are certain limitations. You cannot open up the HTML code and easily insert code. I wanted to do this to add a badge from Facebook and also one from the company I use for e-marketing. I don't know DreamWeaver or any of the other web publishing software, so I couldn't do it. There's no way to do it with Site Solution. However, for me, this was a minor issue compared to the overall ease of use and cost.

There's also reporting/metrics that you can view, which is nice to see what kind of traffic I am getting.

Hope that helps!