Trouble with web developer

[draelectricals]

Hello, I am looking for a web developer to give me some advice

I am having bother with my existing web developer and am looking to make some changes as a result. My website is not what I would call good, I'm not happy wit#h it and the SEO on it is worse than useless. It was set up as a brochure without content management, I have no way of editing it.

Would you be able to have a quick look at it for me and tell me if there is any way I can take over managing it, and edit it? Change the content, make it cleaner and more appealing on the eye, manage fonts, galleries, video etc.

I would appreciate some support, and you never know, it may lead to work

If you would like to do this, inbox me for my website details

 

[QVA - Emma]

You could put it into a Wordpress site for CMS purposes which would make it easier to manage but from experience (I run two PAT/Electrical testing sites for a client in Essex) these sites don't have a lot of updating at all, they sit in the SERPS and bring in enquiries, which ideally is what you need.

You should be *ideally IMO* looking at Geo Location results in the SERPS rather than going for Pat Tester, Pat Testing although I do understand a lot of testers do travel up and down the country.

Pat Testing Durham for instance doens't return your site.

Just my tuppence

Kind Regards

Emma

 

[MASSEY]

Yeah emma's rite you need to pick the city you live in.


Emma you don't know any electricians sites that will be up for linking do you?

I can offer links from an electric themed pr4 in return for a link to
my bham electricians site, just throwing it out there.

 

[Astaroth]

I do wonder what on their site's package detail made you select them as your designers? [URLNO="http://www.dh1design.co.uk/smallmedium.php"]dh1design[/URLNO]

Ultimately you will need to check your agreement with them in terms of "taking it over". In all honest though, other than the copy, I would seriously question on if you want to try and evolve the site into where it should be or simply start again with a new design.

 

[cookieonline]

Hi draelectricals,

QVA-Emma is spot on, Content Management Systems are the way to go in that you can add news and articles, which keeps the site fresh and higher in search engines in fact. As is the advice in having the area you are in as a keyword. A user can subsequently find your business by look for "pat testing durham", which means more business for you.

Your website is indeed "not good" using old practices as I'm sure you are aware, with no effort towards SEO. You could say that with a bit of work the existing colour scheme of yellow red and grey could be used in a new version, with some tweaking, to at least keep some brand identity - unless these are colours your business has no connection with!

Your website domain is held by your website provider (PM Sent with details), but you can reclaim that to point to a new server (which I would recommend if you are having issues with them, to be safe) relatively easily.

If you would like a detailed overview of what I can provide, private message me your budget and I'll let you know what I can do.

Kind regards,

Miles

 

[Esk247]

yeah it doesn't look that great even with good SEO added you'll have trouble gaining online customers with a website that doesn't look finished..and has the wrong colour scheme.

lots of options for you to pick someone new on here, many come with a good portfolio of work behind them.

if your budget is too tight to stretch to a new designer for a new website you can always do as suggested and look at having a CMS installed so that you can update pages as and when you wish based around a nice template created on all pages, you can add your text and images when you feel the need.

 

[mysterons]

Following on from whats already been posted - I'd strongly recommend you reclaim ownership/administrative control of your domain name - no matter what you decide to do moving forward!

Cheers

Ewan

 

[mit74]

I don't think CMS should be so expensive. I can code a log in script with mysql and page that reads news from that database in 1 hour. Then a simple script to upload photos or show the user how to FTP. This is generally what most customers want when they ask for CMS.

 

[ServWise]

If high ranking is more important than image then you can probably get a very cheap website using a cms such as joomla or wordpress and a pre-made template that looks okay which you just have your logo added too for less the £500, however you would need to understand how SEO works to some extent to realise the best results in google and you might not give the best impression to your visitors..

As I often say when clients ask me what they can have, I reply you can pick two of the following.

1. Fast
2. Low Cost
3. High Quality

 

[draelectricals]

You could put it into a Wordpress site for CMS purposes which would make it easier to manage but from experience (I run two PAT/Electrical testing sites for a client in Essex) these sites don't have a lot of updating at all, they sit in the SERPS and bring in enquiries, which ideally is what you need.

You should be *ideally IMO* looking at Geo Location results in the SERPS rather than going for Pat Tester, Pat Testing although I do understand a lot of testers do travel up and down the country.

Pat Testing Durham for instance doens't return your site.

Just my tuppence

Kind Regards

Emma

Hello Emma - most of what you said went straight over my head! What is wordpress, and CMS? I want a site I can reguarly update

 

[draelectricals]

Yeah emma's rite you need to pick the city you live in.


Emma you don't know any electricians sites that will be up for linking do you?

I can offer links from an electric themed pr4 in return for a link to
my bham electricians site, just throwing it out there.

Do you do PAT Testing Massey, or not?

 

[Faevilangel]

Hello Emma - most of what you said went straight over my head! What is wordpress, and CMS? I want a site I can reguarly update

CMS = Content management system = system you can edit the website from with no coding knowledge
wordpress = open source (free) cms, probably the easiest to use but also the easiest to make almost any website site.

 

[MASSEY]

Do you do PAT Testing Massey, or not?

I don't, but the company we work in conjunction with do some.

I'm only really interested in house rewires , fitting kitchens and bathroom
s etc.

The smaller jobs are too time consuming with testing and paperwork

 

[snapwebsolutions]

clearly, your current web developer gave you empty promises. you have been scammed. [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]HTML code should be clean and well organized. You can check this by looking at the HTML source code of sample URLs. [/FONT]

 

[AndrewUK]

Hi,

Domain ownership is important. Mysterons is right and you should have the ownership details changed to yourself and your address.

A 'CMS', aka content management system enables you to log into your site via your web browser to make changes. These range from the complex systems like Joomla, Wordpress to lighter versions such as Website Baker and even more basic nanoCMS.

Don't allow anyone to build you a bespoke cms system, utterly pointless as you will end up reliant on them for creating modules to extend functionality, update security etc. Joomla and Wordpress for instance have huge communities and there are a ton of free templates, modules etc you can use. Friendly communities for support etc.

Though your website is quite small and no shopping carts etc. So if your plan on keeping it small, then a smaller system such as nanoCMS or website baker might be more to your liking, rather than a complex system such as joomla. They are smaller, less modules and small communities. However less complex and easier to use.

A new template is recommended. As well as SEO, speak to a developer about a larger campaign to market your online presence.

I'm not sure galleries and videos are required for your business or perhaps you should put in place at a later date if you want. The steps I've previously mentioned are a good start. If you do use a video or two, make sure their quality don't let the site or your image down.

Also don't forget backup, far too many do. You want to have a system in place that enables you to either make backups when you want or is automated. Also a service provider that makes a backup or you having the ability to download a backup is important. All that hard work or money and you want to make sure you have a offline copy available of your site.

Happy to chat here or feel free to click on my website link in my signature or phone me.

Best Regards

Andrew

 

[mike1337]

Did you buy cheap? (buy twice!)

 

[Bri]

did you go back to the BNI meeting this week, theyre usually full of web developers, there were two at the one I subbed for today.

 

[QVA - Emma]

CMS = Content management system = system you can edit the website from with no coding knowledge
wordpress = open source (free) cms, probably the easiest to use but also the easiest to make almost any website site.

Apolgies to OP for late reply

As Faevilnangel says it is an easy to use website system that you can change content of as and when you need to. Many businesses use it these days to not only host their website but for blogging too.

Set up is generally not too expensive, adding SEO and copy can be depending on what you are targeting, size of website etc.

Kind Regards

Emma