Website

[JC Lawnscape]

Hey everyone. So the time has come to build a website. I had a guy offer free website building for lawn care. After several emails he just fell off the face of the earth. So here I am trying to figure out what to do. More of less how to make one. I have no clue where to start and people and client alike are inquiring if I had one. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

[xandrew245x]

Lawn care business tips

I use intuit, I had a year for free. Its pretty easy to use, but pretty limited with its content. I used photoshop to make most of my stuff on it.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

There are many things that people like to do in life and believe me FREE website building is not one of them. You would have paid for it in the back end of the deal.

You have to make a decision because I do not know if you have a family or not but there are 3 things that every business person needs, run the business, spend time with family or build and rank their website.

I find that there really is only room for 2 of those, unless you do not want to sleep. When I started I picked to run the business and build my site. It cost me my family. There is not enough time in the day to do everything, pick up on one thing and another drops.

One of those 3 things are going to suffer so it would be best to hire out the web site building.

[xandrew245x]

Originally Posted by The Cleaning Doctor

There are many things that people like to do in life and believe me FREE website building is not one of them. You would have paid for it in the back end of the deal.

You have to make a decision because I do not know if you have a family or not but there are 3 things that every business person needs, run the business, spend time with family or build and rank their website.

I find that there really is only room for 2 of those, unless you do not want to sleep. When I started I picked to run the business and build my site. It cost me my family. There is not enough time in the day to do everything, pick up on one thing and another drops.

One of those 3 things are going to suffer so it would be best to hire out the web site building.

I can't say thats is very true. I work a full time job, run my lawn care business part time, spend time with my fiancé and manage my website, and I still have downtime.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

If you are in a competitive area it is going to take a lot of work to keep the rankings up there.

This was a professionally designed site... http://www.gumguys.biz/ Take a look at it and see if FREE was worth the price.

Here is a home made site buy the end user... http://roofcleaningking.com/ and here is one that someone paid to have done.... http://superiorpowerwashing.com/

There is a big difference in skill level. For the first one, I wanted to hit the back button it was so ugly. The colors are all of from the logo.

The second one says I can't afford a good site.

If you are going to walk the walk and talk the talk you have to dress the part and your web site may just be your first impression. Your site can rank well but if it does not look good too then you will probably lose a lot of work.

You are also different from someone that is doing lawn care full time and has to hustle to make the truck payment. You have the security of a full time job so it is not as imperative to you whether you realize that or not.

[ringahding1]

Before I had signs on my trucks, I built our company website....two years later it is the foundation of how we are found along with word of mouth. Of course we handed out flyers in the beginning to get rolling(we still hand out flyers)...but the website has been the universe of our growth...Season ten...we have grown 80% in just the last year alone....(yes I said 80)

SO no PHONE BOOK will have the Ring Lawn Care name in it(because the phone book is dead) Essentially there are 4 ways we are getting business, well actually 5(our partners) now that is easy to track....

I do build business websites using the WordPress platform. Awesome...Here is what you can investigate yourself....

WordPress is FREE...but you need a quality template/theme(if you have a DESIGNER build you a theme....dig deep into your pockets)

Plus you need a host...to host your website...I use Bluehost

Good content about your services will be required to help set you apart from your competition. I like to get at least 200 words per page or post.... I prefer 300 or more and the search engines love content that will help their clients find you(people who perform web searches...like you and me)

I would highly recommend you invest in a company website...FREE ones will not get you found....

[xandrew245x]

Not trying to be rude here or anything but why are you do quick to judge that my business is not important to me because I have a full time job?

My business is very important to me, and is what I plan on doing full time once I can. Without a full time job my business wouldn't even exist.

[willshome]

I would look at what others in your area look like you may not need that nice of a site if theirs is trash. I didn't want to nice of a site because no one in my area has a great site, I didn't want them to think I cost to much. I wanted the best site but not by to much.

[xandrew245x]

I did a search for all the cities I plan on doing business in and only one person actually has a website.

[The Cleaning Doctor]

Originally Posted by xandrew245x

Not trying to be rude here or anything but why are you do quick to judge that my business is not important to me because I have a full time job?

My business is very important to me, and is what I plan on doing full time once I can. Without a full time job my business wouldn't even exist.

I understand that it is important to you. I never said it was not important to you. But, you have another thread where you have done no work yet so no photos for your website. Hence you are not doing work so you have the time to do the web site. If you were working then you would not have time to do the web site.

Your concerns at this moment are different from someone that is operating full time is all I am saying. It helps to have a full time job because you have a safety net. If you think that these guys are only working 8 hours a day you are mistaken. Take me for instance, I normally get up around 6 am and work at least until midnight 7 days a week building sites. This is my ONLY job and I have other worries than you do because if I do not sell, I do not eat.

This is not saying that you do not work these kinds of hours, but if you do not sell you still get to eat so your concerns are different than mine. Plus for 5 days a week 9-10 (depending on travel time) hours of your day are taken up with your full time job.