Building a new website...Market Hardware

[Craig Owen]

I wanted pass along a good experience I had with Market Hardware. I own a newer home inspection business and I needed a website. Writing is not a talent of mine. I went with Market Hardware to design our website. I absolutely love what the did! They we able to design and write up a wonderful website that sells us with out much to go on since we are new to the business. I probably could of figured out how to put it together myself but I had no idea what to say and write for content. That is where they came in. They were amazing! They made us look good and really sold us. I highly recommend them to anyone looking to build a new website. I have already received business from our website just by being online and our affiliation with Nachi. I figure it will pay for itself. I just wanted to pass this along in case anyone was interested.Their website is www.markethardware.com .
Kristine Owen
www.owenandassociatesllc.com

[cradan]

Craig & Kristine, very nice website. I saw it several days ago, referred by a marketing flyer from another inspection Association. We have been thinking about switching hosts and providers, but I've noticed that your site (and most of the other 15 or so sites provided as examples in the flyer) is only registering about 8 references across the major search engines. (http://www.marketleap.com/services/f...ls/default.htm)

If the site is very new, that's no surprise. What we've found, however, from first-hand experience, is that you've got to have a combination of strong content, well-researched tags and keywords, valid and relevant inter-site links, targeted submission (sometimes free, sometimes paid), etc. to get the phone ringing at a pleasing pace (at least as a result of your web marketing efforts alone). 200+ references, spread among Google, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Hotbot, etc., seems to do the trick. 150 references brings calls, but less of them. Less than 100 references brings the occasional call, only. Less than 50 references, definitely don't sit by the phone waiting.

What has M.H. said they'll do, beyond an initial submit to the search engines, in terms of optimization and ongoing promotion of your site, if you wouldn't mind sharing?

Regards,

[Craig Owen]

Chris,
Thanks,yes, the website is new. All we have done so far is get the initial version, so to speak, up on the web. We still have to fine tune it and get our Logo done. We have been busy and I have been a little slow to pursue it until now.
We Hired Market hardware to with the purpose of building the website mainly because they would write all the content for us. The others I checked into would not. We had to come up with what to say. The others would just provide stock articles for fillers and a stock format. That is what sold us on Market hardware. If I wrote it, I knew it would not have that professional look and feel I wanted to convey.
It is my understanding that Market Hardware doesn't promote our website past getting us listed with the search engines. To be honest, I thought that was my responsibility. It never entered my mind to ask. Our business so far has been a result of calling on real estate agents. We were focusing on building a website where we could upload our reports to for our clients. I am just in the process of exploring how to now market us further. I am very interested in understanding more about how to promote our website. Could you explain further about references, inter-site links and targeted submissions?
Kristine
Owen and Associates LLC

[Roberta Dulay]

Hi Craig & Kris,

You might want to check out the free search engine optimization services we offer to all NACHI members (regardless of who built your web site). You can sign up for this online at www.homeinspectionwebsite.com/seo.php.

We will review your web site and metatags and make additional recommendations for you regarding how you can make your site search-engine-friendly. We also will recommend that you link with other home inspection web sites in order to improve your Google PageRank, and we facilitate this with a free link exchange list which you can join online.

You also might want to add your site to the real estate directory on realtysites.info - that is also a free listing and does not require a reciprocal link. http://www.realtysites.info/directory/listing.php


Best of luck with your new web site!

Regards,

Roberta