[mick hay]

Those of you that have websites, can you give your honest opinion..do you get much work of them? Not only window cleaning, but other services that you offer, cons cleaning etc.

Would like an unbiased view, so those of you who design and host them.....i know your views already....lol   

[LWC]

i dont get any work through my site...but...i get a lot of hits and i think they just look and call. i get called everyday for new customers. which is good

i just think it "looks" good on the van

[WCE]

I set my simple site up and got my first response within  24 hrs of putting it up. i think that the way to get results is not only to have a good listing on google for your site but for the other sites as well ie directories type in wce window cleaning on google and see that I mean I am listed in all those directories for free and along with my own site i know that I have good coverage on google and that someone can type in different key words and still get yoiu through the directories. Since I did this I have had a steady stream of enquiries.

[ronnie paton]

I think it takes time to get reconized and to come up near the top of the google search but i can say after two years mine is doing very well and not just for window cleaning.

But i would say mick dont expcet it to happen other night!!

[WCE]

Interesting point I have a friend who recently started a buidling company and he set up his own website and the company he used offered him a package that if he subscribed to they would guarentee the top listing on google. Needless to say, if you look him up he is on about page 10!  However I just did what I did said in my previous post and got where i am since september so I dont quite know how it works but i know i did add metatags and sent a request to google to send thre robots to track my site. 

[WCE]

True window but my web address is www.findawindowcleaner.co.uk which I thought was a good name as people would be more likely to type something along those lines On when i did my site with site builder there is a option to list search engine keywords so I tried to put in as many as possible. I agree its easy to get your company name high up but how many people looking for a window cleaner will put a particular company name in not many. If you type in find a window cleaner the last time i checked I was on the first page 1 place below window washers!

[ronnie paton]

for me you got to be searching for a window cleaner in the area you work to find how easy you would be to find

[supernova77]

Window Washers,

Do you have any links of other window cleaning sites you have setup at all?

Andy

[nat]

WCE. ive just looked at your site and that will not be found easily by engines, there is not enough content for it to be picked up in the relevant places, just a friendly nudge in the right direction. your keywords are to broad you need to narrow it down among adding a lot more content in your description

[Kev R]

From one hit on our website we secured a £12,000 per year contract. I asked the client where he found us, he replied google. We are listed on several free sites. One particular brings me regular work, none as good as the job I mentioned admittedly. 
Consequently I have just invested in a new website that is being professionally designed and will be ready in the next week or so. We will continue with our free advertising but we are also paying to have professional search engine optimization.  In previous years we have done well from yellow pages but mostly our leads come via the web nowadays.

I hope this helps

Kev

[Stevie G]

Window Washers,

Do you have any links of other window cleaning sites you have setup at all?

Andy
[/quote

good idea come on ian show us what you've built. im need of one.

[trevor perry]

ian windowwashers
 have you recieved the stuff i put together to go in my website yet i posted it on friday and havnt heard from you yet  just wondered if it had reached you.
 trevor perry
 

[WCE]

Thans for the advice nat. I am still learning about websites and this site is my first ever attempt which deffo needs more work done to it (pictures, Better content etc) and I also understand the point about keywords your making. Ronnie makes a good point

for me you got to be searching for a window cleaner in the area you work to find how easy you would be to find.

  I had a company contact me called market street whose selling point was that they would ensure that if someone typed in "window cleaner in tewkesbury you would get me top. For this they wanted £300ish. for the listing. I said no because I then found out that they run a free version Freeindex.co.uk and so went with that. ok i am not top of the list but i am 5th on the first page and the first listed actual window cleaner in tewkesbury.  The good thing about freeindex is though they only accept 1 business per area i.e 1 window cleaner  just like window washers. If i was starting again I would use professional webdesign to save the hassle. but I think I haven't done to bad with my very first attempt

[*Chris Browne]

They certainly do,   80% of my enquiries come from my site....and yes its not the best designed, but i can get three or four mentions on the first page of google...


Chris

[WCE]

Just been thinking about this (day off today to much time on my hands!) and I suppose the answer is does anyone know how many hits per job ( i dont i have no counter but i bet someone here will) and what the value of the jobs are. I know that my site costs were the domain name only so one 3 bed semi and the cost was covered. You cant even advertise in a parish mag for that and you get a national presence on the web with far higher readership (millions vs couple of thousand). If there are 1 million people on the net and just 1% look you up then thats 1000 hits and if 1% become customers then thats 10 new customers. If these customers are worth £10 each then thats £100 p.m or £1200 p.a. That works out at £23.00 per week extra which is less than i paid out to set the whole thing up There are millions of people using the internet these days and the truth is you are not looking for a huge amount of the market share.  I am advertising in the yellow pages next year and have an advert in two areas as I am on the boarder of two directories and thats coming in at just under £350 to advertise and the circulation rate is far lower than the net. I think that both yp directories   i am going to be in have a combined circulation of around just under 500000. Even if the rate is 500000 my advert would have to pull in double the response of the    website just to match the results and thats before you consider the fact the website cost under 10% of the yp advert. The site I have is simple and there is much room for improvement but just think if your site was professionally designed and getting listed in the right places then you might get better responses than the above example and even after you have paid the pros you are quids in  as  looking around the prices for a good web design company are around the same if not cheaper than say yp. A good website has the potential to reach millions. Where else can you potentially reach such a large audience T.V, national papers , radio etc and how much would that cost? I have been very happy with the response i got since starting my website which i did purely to test the market as i really didn't think that people would look on the net for a window cleaner and was proved wrong by the response. If you go down  my route and do it cheaply or if you  use a web design company you cant go wrong I.M.O whichever route you take i think you will find that no other form of advertising has the potential to reach so many customers for so little cost and if you are sceptical like i was then set one up cheaply like I did and prove yourself wrong! my site costs less than a pint of beer a week to run so you wont lose large amounts of money by trying if it goes wrong and you get nothing but if you dont try you will get nothing if you see what i mean. To date it has been the one of my better moves.   

[Jon-scwindows]

i just got my second customer from my website, in two months of having it - that £35 of work so far monthly. All done through email.

[jampot]

hi jonrob whats your web adress
mate

[supernova77]

i just got my second customer from my website, in two months of having it - that £35 of work so far monthly. All done through email.

You clean their windows using email? 

 

Andy

[newpy]

you might want to check how to spell "pIEce" on the bottom of your insurance page Jonrob!, correct grammer "peace" 

[Kev R]

you might want to check how to spell "pIEce" on the bottom of your insurance page Jonrob!, correct grammer "peace" 

Blue blooded murder of the English tongue.Newpy please use a spell checker!!!!!!!  ..LOL  (grammer is grammar)