The Letterville BullBoard: Website just a waste of $$$ ?

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Posted by Sean G. Starr (Member # 1549) on :

Curious to know how many of you have invested in a website, and if it's been worth the $$$ you've spent ? I had one for over a year, attached it to search engines, had the site address on all my cards, etc. and am of the opinion that the only people who checked it out were friends. I still have my domain name but I killed the site. Any thoughts?
Being in the Seattle area, it seems like every other day someone comes in my shop to try and talk me into a website.

Ideas??????/

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Sean Starr
highlandesign
253-435-4853
highlandesign@wa.freei.net

Posted by Bob Burns (Member # 268) on :

I'm thinking the same.....(!!)

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Bob Burns
Bob Burns Signs
LETTERCRAFT SIGN SYSTEMS
www.lettercraft.com
1619 Oregon Ave.
Prescott, Az 86305
1-877-778-5879

Posted by Dave Grundy (Member # 103) on :

I have had my site up for about 3 years + and although it isn't real fancy by today's standards it has brought me in excess of $6000 worth of work that I would otherwise not had. Certainly not enough money to live on but DEFINITLY enough to pay for my play time on the net and some left over for "toys". Of course I didn't pay any one to design it for me, and it doesn't cost anything to have it sitting there with my server.

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Dave Grundy shop#340
AKA "applicator" on mIRC
"stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!"
in Granton, Ontario, Canada
1-519-225-2634
dave.grundy@quadro.net
www.quadro.net/~shirley
"A PROUD $ supporter of the website"

Posted by Joe Rees (Member # 211) on :

Not five minutes ago I sent a caller to my web site to view samples of residential signs he was interested in. It saved me an unnecessary interruption and will help qualify him as a buyer instead of a deal shopper. If he calls back or emails me after seeing the site I will know he's serious.

This is a common experience for us. We have to send people there and use the site as our live portfolio. Some will find it on their own. Most will have to be directed there unless you plan to do some in-depth advertising of the site. The cost to agressively promote a web site is too high unless you have a commerce site taking credit card orders. I can't justify that, so I use it only as a promotional tool. The $30/month domain name hosting fee is small compared to its return for me. Like Dave, my site has brought in plenty of new quality leads that have become sales. Some of them far outside my local area.

Just make sure it looks good so people get the right impression. If you're not sure how to do that yourself, hire a professional. Between me being very particular and knowing I would want to make frequent updates, I chose to invest the money in a high end HTML program, and to invest the time in training to do my own web work. For me, it was time and money well spent. Here's a kicker though, it ain't easy! I don't recommend it unless you are committed to learning it and preferably have techie friends to guide you through.

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Joe Rees
Cape Craft Signs
(Cape Cod, MA)
http://www.capecraft.com
http://www.dave-joe-show.com
e-mail: joerees@capecraft.com

Posted by Kelli (Member # 248) on :

Websites are a great way to showcase your work. My first site I had my own domain name, paid $50 to register it and $50 per month for the site. I tried it for a year and then decided to cut expenses by using one of the free domains. I have to say that the response to the free site is about the same as before. I had to do all the work to get the url listed with the search engines, but it wasn't that big a deal. Primarily I want the site for portfolio purposes anyways. Some of the free domain sites like www.tripod.com let you use FrontPage to design and upload your webpages if you don't want to use their html editor. www.angelfire.com is another good free site, but doesn't support FrontPage. I recommend you check out this page on creating a free web site, it has good design advice and tells you where you can get free hosting: http://personalweb.about.com/internet/personalweb/msub21.htm

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Kelli Cajigas aka Janda
Dolphin deSigns & Banners
“A satisfied customer will tell two friends, a dissatisfied customer will tell ten.”

Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :

A website can help, or it can be a drain on your checkbook.

If you do it right, it will only help your business

Using it as a "live" portfolio is a great idea. You can snap digital pics of your work and have them online in a matter of minutes.. no more waiting to shoot a whole roll of film before you can get em developed and stick em in a book.

You can refer local customers to the site IF they have a computer. If they dont, invite them to your shop and use your computer to show them the site.

Out of state customers can stumble across your site and may bite.

Getting your site listed with search engines only takes a matter of minutes.
In my case, my web host registers with over 200 search engines. I didnt even know there were 200 search engines..

You have to register frequently.

Most importantly, you HAVE to learn how to use META tags on your web pages. Those are lines of HTML on a web page that are invisible to web surfers, but they are the ONLY way that a search engine will find your site. For example, my site used to be on the top of the list of some searches, but I have recently remodeled the site and havent put my META tags in. Now my site has fallen back in the ranks a little bit.

80% of my sales are online, then again I sell quickie-sticky and airbrushed vinyl and that stuff is easy to crank out and send away.

If I didnt have the website, I'd be out of business. The local market doesnt have enough money and everyone here is cheap. Everytime I deal with someone I get "Well, cant you cut me a deal?".. Going online allows me to charge what I want, and I dont have to worry about what the next guy's prices are like because now my customer base is in the billions.

I'm in Arizona, and I have sold goods to folks as far away as Germany and Malaysia!

The only downside is I'm not in a major market according to UPS, FedEX, and USPS so mailing/shipping takes a bit longer.
And occasionally something gets lost on the way, like a $100 package I sent to Canada 2 weeks ago that hasnt arrived. At least it only cost $5 in materials to produce it. =)

I dont even take credit cards, although I'll be getting setup for that soon hopefully.. as soon as I free up some other funds.. I know I'm losing customers cause I dont take plastic.

Basically, I have nothing negative to say about using a website for a sign shop.
It'll only hurt if you never make updates, leave "under construction" pages available, and have a poor layout to begin with. =)

Check out my site.. I do lack samples of my work though.. with 80% of my sales going out of town, it's impossible to make people send you pictures after they've installed their graphics. =)
http://www.stickerpimp.com

BTW, remember those META tags I mentioned? Since I havent put those tags on my new site, my "first-time customer" sales have dropped although my repeat business has gotten stronger since the update.

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Mike Pipes
Digital Illusion Custom Graphics
Lake Havasu City, AZ
http://www.stickerpimp.com

Posted by Douglas Worden (Member # 125) on :

Web sites are an in-expensive way to show your portfolio. I f your looking to retire on one ..dont think so......but its a good tool to have. And the same tool does different things for different users........Web sites and the internet will always be there ......so use it if you wish dont if you wish..........but in the end its just another tool...............besides where else can you show your work to millions of people 24/7 for the cost..........no-where.......................DocCyber

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http://www.doccyber.com/paintshop

Posted by John Fiorentino (Member # 1592) on :

I'm going to chime in with this.. a web site can be an asset if done correctly... And it doesn't have to have all the lastest bells and buzzers. Like some of the responses you've received have said, it's a great way to showcase your work to the world. I've sent my paint jobs as far as Japan to the west and to the U.A.E. to the east. And if nothing else, your spreading your name to the world.. I also use it as my on-line brochure..

That's my two cents... hope it helps..

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Painter John
painterj@mediaone.net
www.painterjohn.com

Posted by Brad Funk (Member # 1351) on :

Hey all, we have done pretty well with our site. It is homemade, and costs only $20 a month to keep it up. We just landed a $2500 sandblasted sign, that will be shipped to Texas. Would this guy in Texas know of our company, or the kind of work we do without our site? No way. I have never met the man, and have talked on the phone twice. Designs and quotes were all done through e-mail. One lady was planning a trip to our area and wanted a sign/gift for whoever she was visiting. All designs and quotes were emailed and the sign was ready when she came through town. Could we survive on the site alone, no, but any little bit helps. The only drawback is we spend alot of time quoting signs for people fishing for the lowest price. We might get 1 in 10 we quote, but if the one is a thousand $$ sign, its well worth it.

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Brad Funk
Artisan Signs
Phoenix, AZ
www.artisan-signs.com

We proudly support this site!

Posted by Dan Sawatzky (Member # 88) on :

Sean

We've had our site up for about a year and consider it well worth it. THe prestige and professionalism projected by a site of top caliber is worth every cent one might spend. As others have said before it should reflect the work you do. There are many bad sites out there with well done work that don't do justice to the owners at all.

I don't register my site with the search engines as I don't really care if I get the looky-loos, tire kickers or price shoppers. The customers I send there are the real ones we try to target our site to. And to these folks it works well- extremely well. Our site which i think reflects the work we do makes us look bigger and more impressive than we really are... hence we generally get the price we need for stuff without a big fight. The customer knows well what we do and how before I even get a chance to talk turkey and half our selling job is done before we even meet.

In this way it works over time for us/

Good luck in your decision.

-dan

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Dan Sawatzky
Sawatzky's Imagination Corporation
Cultus Lake , British Columbia
giggleridge@telus.net
www.imaginationcorporation.ca

"Isn't it great to do what you love and love what you do!"

Posted by Dave Draper (Member # 102) on :

Sean,

We Killed our web site after a year. It was a drain.

1. I did like the idea clients could look us over! Many did, but the jobs never came in.

2. It seems to me the internet is for "price shoppers"....thousands of sign shops offering rock bottom prices....I didn't want that association either.

3. My ISP lets us post pictures freely, and thats how I post pics on this board. I can
send clients to the URL if they want to view
pictures of my work.

Mr. (Dan the Man) Sawatzky's web site works because he has a business that only 2 other people on the planet earth can do. He is almost 1 of a kind. Each job he does lasts many many months....and of course its an extremely small market. However, most of us need 3 working jobs a day coming in. The majority is from repete markets and the rest is word of mouth contacts. The internet may give you 1 job a month....big deal.

I am now involved in a group that does historical renovations in cathedrals. Its our first. There will be a web site for this as we will again establish our "unique-ness". 1 job a year is all we will ever need! We hope to achieve what only a couple other companies in the world can do!

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Go Get 'Em..... :)
AKA Raptorman on #Letterheads mIRC Chat
Draper The Signmaker
Bloomington Illinois USA

Proud 2-yr. $upporter of this Web Site (May 1999-May 2001)

Posted by David Fisher (Member # 107) on :

I'm in the process of setting up a domain etc for the guy I contract to at the moment, I've been using the web for about 4 years now but have never really pushed it as a sales tool because I dont see it as being likely for me as a one man band, that out of the zillions of responses to a search a prospective will see me but perhaps that depends on the search keywords and a whole lot of other stuff I havent been bothered investigating but...
Having a domain means we have an ftp site and for the business I am working for this means a whole lot of responsibilty delegated, no more huge emails and crashes that go with big emails (for our software at least) now I can send the client an email with a link, designate a username and password and "viola".
Not to mention multiple addresses so emails dont have to pass through a multitude of hands to get to the right person.
And the fact that the Universities and oil companies that we work for can (well... will be able to) pay online as they prefer to.
And the ways it allows me to standardise a whole bunch of procedures so that 5 steps are replaced by one...
The site I'm talking about is still about 3 weeks away from even the draft version functional and we have customers queuing up for it.
This is a company with 2 fulltime employees and 2 contractors.
The crux is I spose, what your type of business is and how it runs, we're fortunate that a lot of the business can be conducted electronically and that the larger clients are heavily into online business.
Good luck,
David

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D.A. & P.M. Fisher Signwriting
Brisbane Australia
da_pmf@yahoo.com

Posted by Bruce Jackson (Member # 45) on :

I get around 300 people per month visiting my site. Most come across it because they are interested in the same things.

I have had a few leads and have exported some work to the USA although it hasn't really turned in any real dollars yet.

One thing I notice is the half-truths on optimizing and search engines.

Firstly, meta-tags are more relevant to databases than to SE's (search engines). YOur best method is to optimize your text with your keywords and make sure your page titles are keywords.

Secondly, SE submission. You don't need to do it regularly. Do it once (one page only) and only re-submit if your rank drops or you update it. If you over submit, you will be banned for spamming the SE. Let the spiders find your site which they do on a regular basis.

Also do it manually, not with an automated method or program.

Thirdly, don't try the tricks like hiding text, using same color text on backgrounds, overusing keywords by repetition, having cloaked doorway pages, etc, etc, etc.
These are all old tricks and search engines are up to speed. You will be banned.

Fourth and last, establish reciprocal links with other site and directories. This will increase your "link popularity" which is a method SE's use to determine the importance of a site.

Why am I telling you this?....this is my competitive edge. I get no. 1 positions with google and alta-vista for my keywords.

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Bruce Jackson
Melbourne, Australia
glassgilding.com

[This message has been edited by Bruce Jackson (edited June 30, 2000).]

Posted by Mick Samsel (Member # 311) on :

i jumped ahead and haven't read all of the above responses...but get the jest. Working on mine, and once again Kelli, thanks for the tip. I bookmarked the site you mentioned...looks good and will read/study the site as time? allows. And thanks again for your help with the Autostart worm killer...worked grat in a heartbeat. Mick Samsel. P.S.: as many have said...it is another tool...and for portfolio, it is a great one!

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