New Website coming

anxiously waiting

Getting closer....have a VERY basic beta site up right now. I will be adding graphical content and cleaning up some layout errors today and tomorrow with the video shoot on Saturday.

I will post the site this weekend when the final edits are done. Well, not really the "final" edit as there are many other links that I want to add, but for a functional showcase, it will be done this weekend.

This Roller Coaster just never ends!

My Spielberg would not shoot the short video this weekend. He wants a better storyboard and then wants to scout the location to set up the best lighting angles. It all seems way over the top to me, but he is the pro and that is what I wanted. I just didn't expect it to be this way.

The real problem is that this website development is doing absolutely nothing for me and I need to get some traction soon if this venture is going to be sustainable past August.

The basic site is up and we are still adding content and cleaning up some issues, but it does not show up in the search engines unless you type the actual URL for it. I know that it can take some time for the robots to locate it, but I am losing out on a lot of potential business waiting for this crap to kick in.

I voiced my concerns to the web designer who told me to be patient as it can take up to a month sometimes.....if that happens, I might as well start looking for work delivering pizza.

All that I am doing is sucking up sewer backflows to pay the bills right now....not exactly the target customers that I envisioned.

Just venting......but it is pathetic how long this is taking to get a simple website up and be functional. It has been 3-weeks and it is still useless.

Dial in your Facebook page your Google + page and an Angies list freebie page along with yelp....make sure they all have identical names numbers and addresses with no errors....this may speed it up a bit.

Thanks, started on that tonight after web guy made same suggestion.

Maybe things have changed more than I thought as my old website was 4 pages and it indexed in 3 days about 8 years ago.

milspec6 wrote:This Roller Coaster just never ends!

My Spielberg would not shoot the short video this weekend.  He wants a better storyboard and then wants to scout the location to set up the best lighting angles.  It all seems way over the top to me, but he is the pro and that is what I wanted.  I just didn't expect it to be this way.

The real problem is that this website development is doing absolutely nothing for me and I need to get some traction soon if this venture is going to be sustainable past August.

The basic site is up and we are still adding content and cleaning up some issues, but it does not show up in the search engines unless you type the actual URL for it.  I know that it can take some time for the robots to locate it, but I am losing out on a lot of potential business waiting for this crap to kick in.

I voiced my concerns to the web designer who told me to be patient as it can take up to a month sometimes.....if that happens, I might as well start looking for work delivering pizza.

All that I am doing is sucking up sewer backflows to pay the bills right now....not exactly the target customers that I envisioned.

Just venting......but it is pathetic how long this is taking to get a simple website up and be functional.  It has been 3-weeks and it is still useless.

Here is my personal thoughts...

It's been three weeks. In that time, you should have a functional website AND the video should have been shot by now.
It will take some time to get organic rankings, and it will take time to build SEO juice. It should be up and running NOW, or you'll never get ranked on page one until the snow flies.

I built my first site in under a week. I already had my copy laid out in my mind. I sources photos in that same week. It took me a week of working on SEO, over the first year. Little time here and there. If these guys can't get your site and video done in under a month, I wouldn't pay. They are yanking your chain. I am 4 times faster, doing it for myself having no experience.

If it were me, I would tell them the job is over in a week. One way or the other. Either they get the job done, or they are fired. No customer would put up with that, with us. Nor would we have a good reputation treating paying clients like that.

But that me. I'm a hot head when someone screws with my money. They are taking money from your wallet. Both in performance of duties and overcharging for subpar performance.

My little voice agrees all the way with you Freemind. I only went done this road of hiring this company, because I didn't want to make mistakes that would slow the success of the finished project. Instead, it has become a sloth paced project with little results.

At each meeting, they talk a good game and have a great portfolio, but I think that what I wanted out of this was not a good fit for what they do...at least pace-wise.

We meet again on Wed. to go over the final story-board and script. I will at least be able to see what they have planned and go from there.

Between getting blown off by the vehicle graphics shop and now this project, I am losing my patience with so-called "professionals" out there.

I will give them until Wed. to impress me with their efforts.

My only saving point is that I don't need a high ranking to be successful. The markets that I am targeting only have 4-6 cleaners in each city and maybe half have a website. I just need to show up in a search.

The last couple of jobs have come from referrals off Facebook, but they almost didn't call me since they couldn't find any presence on the net at all and thought that I was no longer cleaning. Luckily, they still had my fridge magnet business card or else they would never have been able to find me.

The commercial work is picking up and should become very busy over the next 10 days, but without that searchable presence, the residential side is going to be difficult to generate.

I understand why you are so patient, though admittingly, I couldn't be.

If you have little competition, landing on the first three slots should be a breeze. Getting people active with your Facebook, defiantly will launch you to the top. That is, whenever they decide to work on your SEO.

I may end up busier than I can handle very soon.....the localized flooding within my service area has just brought every carpet / flood company into the area.....I have 5 houses to pump out today alone and 2 have requested full house cleanings as well.

What would happen if the website was indexed already???

Anyway, have to run....lots to do today.

Looks like High Esteam is the one at the whole first page of a organic Google search. They don't even have a website, from the looks of it, and the have backlinks and SEO out the wazoo. Their facebook is ranking them well too.

Overtaking your area over net presence should be a cinch.

Are you going to be breaking your site into pages, or just the one?

Bruce at High Esteam has been doing this for a very long time, but he doesn't do any commercial and really only likes to work in a rather small area....sort of semi-retired. Beyond him, there are only a handful of guys in my service area.

I wanted multiple pages, but the designer convinced me to go with just one. It is re-sized to fit mobile devices, but I don't know if that was the actual reason or not.

Well, we are supposed to shoot the video in the morning, but I am thinking about calling it off. I am looking over the story board and script for narration and I just don't like it.

It is very professional, linear message, very corporate, and on message....that is the problem with it. I am afraid that I would be making the same mistake that I made 8 years ago of coming across more like a franchise rather than just old Bob the cleaner.

All my competition with websites present a good, clean, professional, and very corporate sterile feeling sites. Sort of a generic "built from templates" sort of a thing. It must be working, but I think that I am better served showcasing me instead of templates.

I would rather have a video showing the little things / processes that I offer which few of my competition show. The use of the door seal, wearing booties, corner guards, yard sticks, DFE chemical usage, etc.

Everyone is already booked to show up at the house over an hour away in the morning and it would probably be in very poor taste to show up and say that it isn't going to happen.

I'm not sure what I am going to do here. I guess I could produce my kind of video later on youtube and post it to the Facebook page while still doing this corporate approached version for the website. I could do that.

I just don't know.

Oh great, now there is severe storms in the forecast as well for overnight and afternoon. I guess I wasted my time waxing the trucks earlier.

I guess I should not have replied to the "activated God" text.

It's your money, your video, and your company.

Don't let these guys push you into something that you do not feel, represents YOUR company.

They may be "experts" in shooting/editing video, and making one page websites, but they are not the ones that have to worry about what they do, making you money. You do. They are getting paid a flat fee, not pay on returns.

You are uneasy for a reason. You've been here before, and know the results.

I am leaning your way on this one. It is too late to cancel out-right, but maybe I just take everyone out to lunch instead.

I am just not feeling like it reflects me and my approach, instead I am trying to fit the "expected" mold of the others. That isn't to say they aren't right,

I have made many mistakes over the years with equipment and vehicles that were not the norm and in the end I discovered why they weren't the norm Just look at that ambulance that I used to run for the company truck as an example. Seemed like a great idea to me, but when I discovered that its cargo capacity was terrible, I understood why nobody else was liking my choice.

I don't know, I hired them because they were the experts at this stuff, but I just don't think it is working out. I may have to cut my loses at the website.

Bottom line, its the message that counts not the fancy lighting, You and I  know how important it is to stand out from the competition and to show what makes you different. If the website isn't doing that for you than your just wasting your money

I'm sure they will be there soon. Hopefully this situation works out in favor of both of you.

I think if you could find common ground between what you want, and what they envision, I think you both will be happy.

These guys need to get on board with what you want. It's your money, and your company. If they won't get on board, then they are not the experts they claim to be.

Every company can't be cookie cut out, and be different.

Well, we ended up shooting the video this morning. Not because I really wanted to nor did I change my initial opinion, but because they made me a deal....they will finish the video and if I give it a thumbs down, no charge.

Nothing worked from the start. There was a HS graduation next door so they would not let me start up the TNT. So, we stunted the wand scenes with hoses connected but TM not running. I can't wait to see how stupid that ended up looking despite their claims of it not showing from their angles. Hell, it was so weird that I started triggering the valve at the wrong part of the stroke!

Then it started pouring outside with enough rolling thunder that we had to attempt about a dozen re-takes just to get a scene without the loud thunder. The thunder was shaking the windows and the hanging pans were flying around. In the end we decided to use background music in the video to cover up the weather.

To add to the trouble, we used my 2 neices and nephew (triplets), but the nephew just didn't want to calm down and got cut from the scene. It is rough being fired by the studio at only 8 years old.

Anyway, it is "in the can" minus some small narration parts and now it will go into editing. I felt like an idiot and probably sounded like one as well, but I am only being charged if I approve the final results.

Besides, my Mother came down (struggling after having my Dad placed in a nursing home) and was really enjoying the whole process and getting away from the house. How do you say No at that point?

Well I guess overall, it kinda sucks. It's great that you have the option to say no though.

We go to editing this weekend with a possible finished product by Sunday night. I will see the initial cut Saturday and then we will do any edits on Sunday.

It will be very tough to remain objective as I hate to see or hear myself on tape, film, or even photos. I know that I will recoil from that aspect of the video right off the bat, but hopefully it will be okay.

Still not sure about the vision this guy had, but since it is only a minute long, I would not have been able to capture what I had in mind anyway.

Maybe we just shoot it and then run it in fast motion like a Benny Hill sketch along with some Yakety Sax in the background?

Well, I just left the screening of the short video......mixed emotions.

We had to edit it way down to meet the time restriction that we set aside for it, so it is real basic at this point....yet does what it needed to do in presenting the concept of the 3 cleaning goals. Future videos will be aimed at fleshing them out in greater detail.

I looked like a dork and my inflections were very unnatural. Being an East Coast guy originally, I tend to talk fast, so they kept telling me to slow down. I did and the results sound pretty robotic to me, but the 6 people that we showed it to didn't object to it.

We showed it to a room full of people at a local diner to get some feedback. Surprisingly, they all gave a thumbs up and thought that it came across rather professional. More importantly, when quizzed after showing it, they all got the point of the 3 Goal Cleaning and could name most of my service areas, so I guess it worked even at being so short.

I still really hate my part of it....voice is robotic, head bobbing, fake wave, everything really, but it seems to have accomplished the goal. So, I am going to post it.

I will be posting it onto my company youtube channel and linking it to the website and to my company Facebook page. I also linked the other domain names to my site, so I think I am finally getting this all fleshed out.

I will be cleaning 10,000 sqft of commercial later today and then another 8,000 sqft (solo!) tomorrow afternoon, so I might not get it done until tomorrow evening. I will have it done at some point by then and will update you all when it is done.

Geez do I hate the way I looked in that video.........

You crack me up Rob. I would have come across the same way

Benny hill music... Go for it.
Customer feed back..… priceless.
10,000 sf.... How the hell do!you do,it?

That was the hardest 10,000 sf I have done in a long while. Gum everywhere, popcorn scattered all over the place, and even came across a few half-eaten sandwiches.....molded so they were there for some time.

My green cleaners were getting laughed at so I had to go back to the rough stuff. All I had left on the truck was Redline, which is not the strongest brew on the block so we boosted with citri-solve. It did okay, but I am itching already.

In a few hours, I will be back for the second building. At least this one is normally pretty clean and I can start on it during the late morning. My body still hates me, but I have to make the money.

I also have another flood job scheduled for Tuesday....they just keep on coming.