"Made" my own website

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OWNER AND FLEET OPERATORS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

Spent last night putting this together using weebly.

goatytrucking.com

Feedback welcome!

puts tin hat on :open_mouth:

2

look to be fair paul i mean this the best way possibleā€¦

when you do a website on a free site make 3, that way you will be able to see and blend the best bits into one really good one, and i bet you wont choose your first one. thats what happened to me.

get rid of the links page it serves no purpose what so ever, ask gbs to put you on their website. mmmmmmmm

on services the words need to be bigger and take up more space, there is to much empty space.

gallery page is very good.

contact pages is ok as well.

my website took me about 3 weeks to do.

i dont mean to be negative i just want to try and me better than the next driver or firm in every way.

3

Looks a good job to me, spellingā€™s all fine which is the main thing on a public interface, i wouldnt mind the tractor unit :sunglasses:

4

i thought you would have polished the trucks before taking the promo pics :stuck_out_tongue: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

5

JD, none taken mate, that was the whole point of the post.
As i said, i spent a few hours last night ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  about doing it, so by no means a finished article.
The links page is purely selfish, as the more work those 2 firms receive, the more lands on the back of my motors.
Any pointers in making it more visible to search engines?

Shuttle, ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– .

6

Doesnā€™t look too bad.

Mobile site works too.

I am viewing both versions on iPhone.

7

Goaty:
Any pointers in making it more visible to search engines?

put the link in your signture on here, get a twitter account and link it on there, facebook as well there are a few other ways ive forgotten as well.

with mine if anyone types in alex broadley in google my website is the first to appear.

8

free index

linkedin

manta

everytime your website is mentioned on a website it moves up google rankings.

9

jessicas dad:

Goaty:
Any pointers in making it more visible to search engines?

put the link in your signture on here, get a twitter account and link it on there, facebook as well there are a few other ways ive forgotten as well.

with mine if anyone types in alex broadley in google my website is the first to appear.

That only works if they know you though, you need some metatags and keywords so others can find you.

I put in freelance driver and got so many websites offering the same service, some from the South, Midlands, Scotland, etc. although it did work when I put Leeds in.

With Firefox, your email address is obscured in the banner, move it into the centre a little more. Oh and check your i and Iā€™s

Sorry for being critical, but I have built about 20 and people are very critical of mine :stuck_out_tongue:

Goaty, yours is clear and simple, maybe make your pictures resize when you click on them as they are a bit small

10

shown the mrs your site and she says your trying to be to clever simplify some of the words ditch some of the unnecessary long explanations of what you do to make it a faster read she does alot of my ringing round looking for work etc etc may be a pointer may not from what could be an inexperienced person offering work personally top job its a step in the right direction

11

In all honesty, rather than spending weeks or even days perfecting your design and probably still not being happy with it, have you thought about just employing a freelance web designer?

Find a local guy, it will cost no more than 2-300 quid for a few pages but is money well spent. It will look good and he will be able to proof-read and fine-tune the content to make it consistent, and will tune it to make sure the search engines pick it up on the correct relevant keywords. If you really want a website, itā€™s the best money you will ever spend.

It might seem like you can save money by doing it yourself, but in reality it will always look like you have knocked it together yourself and as a businessman Iā€™m quite sure you have better things to be doing.

12

kin alrite I reckon Mr Goat, saw it on fb tooā€¦

13

Thanks for the input chaps, plenty to keep me busy this weekend! Keep em coming. :sunglasses:

14

Just tweeked the Gallery Malcā€¦ :wink:

15

I like it Goaty, gives a very good and informative description of what work you can cover to potential customers!

Aaron

16

Goaty:
Just tweeked the Gallery Malcā€¦ :wink:

Great job, although you might now get Bewick picking fault with your Sittingbourne load :laughing: :laughing:

17

I know. My sheets werenā€™t big enough. :blush:

18

gallery is loads better now. :wink:

19

Gogan:
In all honesty, rather than spending weeks or even days perfecting your design and probably still not being happy with it, have you thought about just employing a freelance web designer?

Find a local guy, it will cost no more than 2-300 quid for a few pages but is money well spent. It will look good and he will be able to proof-read and fine-tune the content to make it consistent, and will tune it to make sure the search engines pick it up on the correct relevant keywords. If you really want a website, itā€™s the best money you will ever spend.

It might seem like you can save money by doing it yourself, but in reality it will always look like you have knocked it together yourself and as a businessman Iā€™m quite sure you have better things to be doing.

This.

20

Iā€™ll be critical, :frowning: sorry, but hopefully only to be constructive and not to knock you as itā€™s not a bad website, but it looks what it is, one that been done by somebody having a go at websites, but far better than my first attempt many years ago. :laughing:

Iā€™d change the font, You donā€™t see many company websites with big bold writing.
and move the home page to an ā€œabout usā€ page where you could expand on company history and acheivements.
Quite nice personal touch signing off at the end though.

Make the home page a bit more snappy, keep it brief. if they want to know more then link them to the services pages.
As far as I understand search engines donā€™t just look at meta tags but also general text, they look at the prominance of certain words. If you keep the home page brief then youā€™ll have more prominant haulage related words for the search engine to index.

Using Columns, like newspapers, does make a site look more balanced and professional.

If you enjoy doing the website, then keep going, research on the internet about web development and keep improving the site, itā€™s always work in progress anyway. :laughing:

If you donā€™t enjoy it and think it you could justify it as a business tool, then get a web site developer to make one for you.