Local newpaper advertising

[DNgroundworks]

Ive had some great jobs in the past from a advertising in local newspapers, one company round here owns four newspapers and the add goes in all 4 covering (probably) hundreds of thousands of people.

But......i reckon ill only get 1 in 10 jobs priced out of there, alot arent worth bothering with anyway.

I tell them where on the page i want it, i dont want it next to his add or next to a huge add that draws the eye away from mine, bold writing and my old usp before i had to register was ****NO VAT****, which technically, thinking about it, wasnt true as id paid the VAT on the materials and passed that onto the customer.....still, it sold a few jobs :p

[digerjones]

was thinking the other day, with our work we are lucky as every thing you do is an advert. if say you are a trade that works inside most of the time then it is harder. with outside work it is all there for folk to view and jugde.

[London Stone Paving]

Thing is with knocking on doors Steve . "Hi I'm doing a job up the road " .ring any bells

True Chris, but if done professionally and politely there is nothing wrong with it

[enigmaenigma]

@lutonlagerlout


what on earth are you blathering on about enigma?


I’m blathering on about the fact that from a punters perspective Amber’s website claims to be a local paving contractor, but other elements scream otherwise and look like they should be at home on a government / large corporate website.

Then when you add a personal email address into the mix, an email that they have as a result of who they get their home internet from, it’s yet more trust eroded.

So you can call it blather if you want, but in regards authenticity & trust, they are factors that can create doubt in the mind of the visitor.

Is it really a small company, as supporting documents look like they fell off the shelf of a corporation that has dedicated departments & large budgets for clerical stuff…they seem contrary to what goes with the territory on this type of website.

Despite having such policy documents or content, they are using an @ntlworld.com email and not one that resolves at the domain name…they have suddenly gone from a website with policy documents which would be at home on the BBC website and changed into website that could be created in a teenagers bedroom.

Then there are the credit card icons & logos, but there isn’t an online shopping cart or anything to purchase online…why the need for such a thing, as it’s not what you would expect to find on this type of website, as its not really an online transaction and nor is it a distressed purchase like a plumber on call out.

At best it looks like a website template that’s been tinkered with and that has too many stock remnants that aren’t applicable to the end product…whilst at worst it looks like that but you can’t put your finger on the reason why and just don’t trust the product as a result.

Like it or not, the majority of those that will visit & browse your website are likely to be people that spend more time online than most…and whilst they might not be able to “blather� about what doesn’t look or smell right when browsing, they will get a feeling that something doesn’t sit right.

As for the cheap jibe with the link to a similar named company using the .co.uk domain, well, it really is cheap…and you miss the whole point.

Because if I wanted to look at the actual content and be hyper critical, then along with the odd usage / inclusion of credit card logos, as mentioned above….well, here are a few examples. (Apologies to Amber as this isn’t a nit picking exercise about your website, but an attempt at showing LLL that it’s more than just putting a shiny thing here or there and thinking that viewers will see a modern website)

There’s the use of stock images and not just generic images, but ones that have a direct association with the type of work involved. As used by the drive way company midlands


The trusted trade and FMB logos are low quality and you can see the grey artefacts around the text, and this is probably as a result of them being .png transparencies that have now been merged into the combined header / background image.

That merging or creating an entire background image that has header, sidebars, footers etc combined into a single item has sent the company logo askew, and the A of Amber is cut off when displayed at 1024 x 768…encasing the actual content so the external border is the body would solve that. This IMAGE shows that, as the white content area is set at a pixel width that allows for screen resolutions, and the outer dark border of the body will adjust to fill…as opposed to the entire website stretching to and beyond the edge of certain monitors.

(I’m actually unsure if they have tried that, as this is classed as the background image but is obscured by the blue block with headers, sidebar and footers)


The colours in regards text, backgrounds and mouse over, and whether they compliment each other or not …Color Wizard

Ditto the fonts used and whether they are easy to read or standard fonts, and if not standard what’s used to ensure they display correctly…such as Cufon or other JavaScript options to replace / use the fonts.


Low quality small gallery images on a website in which you would expect them to appear as a slideshow…they looked like thumbnails, but after enabling JavaScript they aren’t thumbnails but the actual images.


In fact, and another thing that’s noticeable now that JavaScript has been enabled, is the Social Media icons are much too small & lost in the bottom left…as much as I hate social media, they do provide decent quality icons or placeholder that can be incorporated into a website.

And keeping with JavaScript, I hadn’t noticed the absence of any no-script / enable JavaScript message until I had done that…although, and even though the navigation bar uses JavaScript, lack of JavaScript doesn’t seem to effect content that much as there’s no slideshow of work done.

Last but not least, left hand side vertical navigation bars…there’s more than enough stuff about vertical versus horizontal navigation on the internet.


So taking a dated website and suggesting that’s what I’m advocating LLL is very wide of the mark and misses the point completely…it’s akin to saying all you need is a bucket of virtual paint, and overlooks a whole host of things that can make a nice shiny new website still look lacking or feel a bit uncomfortable when browsing.


/me asks if that is enough new blather for you LLL or do I have to get my running shoes on again :p

And at the risk of teaching LLL to such eggs

/me

The /me is an action message.

Type /me 'does anything'

Example: /me blathers, and blathers, and blathers to annoy LLL

What it looks like:

* enigma blathers, and blathers, and blathers to annoy LLL

[lutonlagerlout]

to the spider a fly.........

see these little emoticons :;):

they mean i am joshing wit' ya

you have to remember enigma that most builders are not internet savvy,I know of some quite big firms that still have no internet presence 15 years after it really got going

maybe you could take a look at my site
www.tdf-builders.co.uk

and tell me where that went wrong
no disrespect, I know you are hard wired on these things

and maybe I am just biased because I see amber paving in merchants on a weekly basis so know they are a small paving firm
all the best
LLL

[Dave_L]

I too share enigma's hate of the use of a second-tier email domain when used with a company website; there is no excuse for it these days - tying the company email into your actual domain is so easy and looks so much more professional!

[TheRockConcreting]

Is anyone actively looking for a new website?

I'm not in the business of web design, but i know how to code, should you be interested have a look at my personal website, that is a example of what i can do.

[Dave_L]

I really could do with revamping ours Jay.......I like the look and feel of that site - any ideas of cost??

[DNgroundworks]

Me too Jay, i need mine tweaking, photos of jobs putting in the gallery, in their own little folder etc, also id want some SEO work doing

[TheRockConcreting]

any ideas of cost??

£300 for a 0-9 page site

Please PM me if your interested.

[lutonlagerlout]

your site looks sweet jay
if you can do that as well fair play
back to the OP
a NEW member
shall we break a butterfly on a wheel?
I bet amber paving feel about as welcome as a sausage at a barmitzvah
LLL :;):

[RAPressureWashing]

Only adverting we do these days is , our web-site, being members of Check-a-trade, and then word of mouth.
People seeing us working sometimes gets interest and can usually turn those quotes into booked work.

Over the years we have tried the local papers, Yellow pages, Thompson's etc but waste of time and money if being honest.

As a few people have said, web presence is a must these days.

[enigmaenigma]

Sorry for the late reply and the thread necro, but I’m just about on the right side of a week from hell…after coming down with one of those many winter lurgies and other things that added to the nightmare of it all


And I agree about the butterfly & Wheel, and extend my apologies to Amber Paving for dragging their thread off topic in the way I did…we are a friendly bunch, so don’t let it put you off


That said and with this comment in mind

maybe you could take a look at my site
www.tdf-builders.co.uk

and tell me where that went wrong
no disrespect, I know you are hard wired on these things

Amber can take pleasure in watching LLL squirm :p


In regards your website LLL, I wont waffle about the things I like…and there is a bit that I do like, and don’t take this an insult, but a basic website is better than a complicated one done bad (if that makes sense)

Things I would look at: let the waffle begin hehehehe

The website or parts of it are using tables, in the form of <td> and <tr> tags, and as for the where’s & whys…this should help Don't Use Tables for Layout

I would clear those mutual links of the homepage and create a new page for them entitled links or associates…various reasons such as it being cluttered e.g. would Travis Perkins have a their shop window full of posters to the other shops up the road etc, etc

As you are using tabs, and they want to look like tabs / create an index card tab feel, they are probably better off on the left hand side and not the right…we read a page left to right, so to have the tabs over on the right sort of goes contrary to how you would naturally read the page

I would stick the contact phone number onto a dedicated contact page…I appreciate you aren’t an interactive website for people to waste the afternoon, but once you have a visitor / potential customer you want them to look / navigate the website and not just load homepage & grab phone number

I would look at grouping the gallery images, so they are in collections and more manageable…I appreciate by clicking an image with JavaScript enabled you can slide show all the images, but they are taking up a lot of screen space by them all having individual thumbnails

Look at the fonts you are using, as the CSS file seems to suggest that you are using or want viewers to use ‘Comic Sans MS’ and you can see the difference on the gallery page where thumbnails aren’t using that font…leaving aside the whole anti comic sans stuff and snobbery, there are other ways of getting a hand written look or pleasing font

In regards fonts & colour schemes, they need looking at…compare the bottom red in the footer where it says © TDF Building Contractors 2010 and the other red dividers, predominately size of the footer versus size of those gradients, where they look less realistic / gradient and more dark / dirty or forbidding as opposed to creating the 3D effect you were probably after


There are a few layout issues, such as spacing on certain text and contact / email form a bit askew, but this could be specific to browsers / screen resolutions…and whilst annoying, it’s hardly the end of the world

Ditto the dead link in the footer that’s meant to point towards who ever created the webpage

Where & when I could, over the past week, I cobbled together a few different elements that I already had…as a picture speaks a thousand words, and it will hopefully demonstrate what I am waffling on about above

Click for rough & ready sample

A word of warning though, it’s very much a foundation / just at first fix stage…I have done a quick check in IE but it was made whilst using Firefox and 1024 x 768 screen resolution, so I wont be loosing any sleep or bothered if it renders badly on a massive monitor the size of a barn door

There is lot’s wrong with the sample and not just image / looks wise…like border on top of tabs being to narrow, the issue with active tab and bottom margin needing to match active page colour to create proper tab illusion

There are other issues in regards lack of conditional sheets, so that it’s cross compatible with lesser / older browsers whilst being able to use quality .png transparencies instead of gif’s…a way of serving good quality images with see through background to browsers that can handle them and lower quality versions to those that can’t (along with similar issues like serving non CSS 3 content or specific browser rules)

plus a whole load more stuff that needs doing but don't need waffling about hehe

However, and those issues aside, that to be honest most people might not be as OCD about…If you want to have a mess about with it, use it as a skeleton to add / alter, then please feel free to use & abuse it however you want

You can downloaded it from the link below, but you need to have WinRar installed to extract it…if you haven’t got WinRar Google it and grab the free version

Click for sample in downloadable form


In addition, if you grab hold of and install Notepad++ Don’t worry its free hehe

And open up the HTML and CCS sheets in the downloadable sample, it will help you appreciate the different elements…where on div starts and ends etc, and you can see / easily recognise some of the stream comments I put in there as they are green


/me thinks this might be the longest waffle / post in the Craic ever :p

[GB_Groundworks]

As mentioned by ls we work for a builder who does those bni breakfasts he gets lots of work but its all won on price and well I'll leave the 6am funny handshakes to him we get the work if he gets te work.

I need to update my site not done it in two years, with working and photography and mrs and kid not got the inclination to sit down and upload 50 odd projects but I should.

I'll add it to the todo list

[bodgeitandscarper]

My partner works for a company called namesco they offer a service called site builder and it's very easy to use might be worth you guys having a look.

The thing is with all singing and dancing websites is that it doesn't mean a damn thing these days and any cowboy can make one. People just want to see previous work and contact details, lll's website ain't brilliant, but it's simple, straight talking and honest.

found it: http://www.names.co.uk/create-a-website/sitemaker