# Tear our site apart too please!



## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

OK. Not only has Humble been working on a web site, (NICE job Humble) but I have as well. Seeing as I've had so much free time on my hands while this leg heals (which is going SLOWLY) I have spent many hours working on this out of shear boredome! I had to use frontpage because it's all that I have to put it simply. I made one website before a few years ago, so I know almost nothing, lol. I have gotten pretty good at making frontpage do what I want, but my wants are simple, heh. 

I am using hostgator to host the site because they were cheap and offered a lot for the money. Including only having to pay for one month first. That's working out great because I love all the tools. It has made getting things done soooo simple. I'm a novice, and everything I wanted works ok! 

Here is the link to the site http://www.aaqualitypainting.com Please do check it out and give me all your comments! I could use any help you guys can offer with getting listed and optimizing the site. Remember, I'm completely green at this!  

Oh, I was able to make a form and get it working. It has an auto-responder that sends a thank you e-mail to the address the customer inputs immediately thanking them for inquiring. At the same time, I have the form set to email ME directly the results of the customer's input! Feel free to actually USE the form and you can receive our auto-response and have a look at that as well! IF you do this, put the word TEST in the "Project Details" box. 

Ok, hit me with the comments! :Thumbs:


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## Glasshousebltr (Feb 9, 2004)

The pics need work AA. Maybe somebody cooking on a grill, or drinking beer. Or how about some porn, naked chics everywhere, with body paints........yea, perfect! 

Pics of naked girls everywhere and the caption reads:
_*AA Paints *_
_*The paints not the only job well done*_

:cheesygri 
Bob


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

You have should follow everything I posted in Humble's thread. Nice work

Now I am thinking that I should be charging for my service's. :cheesygri


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

I will follow your advice, thank you. I'm still working on the site...please consider it under construction. I have worked for weeks on this thing, and this is it's first showing. There are a couple little things that are broken, not included, etc that will come as I can get to them all. Those tags you talk about are something I've gotta do soon! :Thumbs:


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

Very Nice. How long did it take you to get that form going? I threw my chair while I was working on mine... and I'm not known for my temper. It took me four days to get it working.

Sorry I can't offer you any advice, I'm in the same boat you are.

There are a number of sites that allow you to upload your URL to the various search engines. I think I found all or most of them by following the links that were posted in the other thread. That info is priceless and most of it is free. Follow those links and read everything.

Those tools hostgator offers are very cool. They are well suited to a novice like me


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

JustaFramer said:


> You have should follow everything I posted in Humble's thread. Nice work
> 
> Now I am thinking that I should be charging for my service's. :cheesygri



You should! BTW if I didn't say it already Thank you!


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

The form, hehe. That one took me more than a few days itself. I am still editing it! There are a ton of little things that I can't just say DO THIS and it does it, ugh! Now I think I could do another one in frontpage no problem....that is, if all you want is what's on mine, lol. I keep fiddlin with the buttons, boxes, etc trying to figure out how to get them working like every other web site I've seen. Not easy at all my friend! 

.....must submit site to links, gotcha! :Thumbs:


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

AAPaint said:


> The form, hehe. That one took me more than a few days itself. I am still editing it! There are a ton of little things that I can't just say DO THIS and it does it, ugh! Now I think I could do another one in frontpage no problem....that is, if all you want is what's on mine, lol. I keep fiddlin with the buttons, boxes, etc trying to figure out how to get them working like every other web site I've seen. Not easy at all my friend!
> 
> .....must submit site to links, gotcha! :Thumbs:


I used the php FormGenerater created by sourceforge.net for mine. It's one of those handy programs that comes with your hostgator subscription. It was a bear trying to get it to do what I wanted it to though. The only "generator" I've tried so far that didn't include banner adds or adds for the makers, which, obviously I can't have on my site or I would have went with geocities or something.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

I have been rapidly updating the site today....I'm still building. I'm finding it easier to tweak a page immediately on the server and viewing it on the browser now that I have a host. I dang sure missed the part where you said you were using hostgator. I'm quite the observant one some times...  

Hey!! I just looked at your form, that's dang nice! I need to ask questions like yours does.....you've added some that I didn't even think of that are EXTREMELY important info to gather from a customer! 

Were you able to set up your autoresponder and have the form emailed to you? The autoresponder is so easy to setup with hostgator...I'm going to find more than one use for that nifty little feature!


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

AAPaint said:


> I have been rapidly updating the site today....I'm still building. I'm finding it easier to tweak a page immediately on the server and viewing it on the browser now that I have a host. I dang sure missed the part where you said you were using hostgator. I'm quite the observant one some times...
> 
> Hey!! I just looked at your form, that's dang nice! I need to ask questions like yours does.....you've added some that I didn't even think of that are EXTREMELY important info to gather from a customer!
> 
> Were you able to set up your autoresponder and have the form emailed to you? The autoresponder is so easy to setup with hostgator...I'm going to find more than one use for that nifty little feature!


Yea I actually ripped most of that form from someone elses site so I can't take any of the credit. It is very nice.

The phpformgen has a built in auto responder. It doesn't send a e-mail to the person who filled out the form but it does send one to me instantly and it shows a pregenerated Thank You page with all of the info that they put in the form for proofreading. 

I think I will monkey around with the auto responder though, I like the idea of having a thank you e-mail sent to the prospective. One more chance for them to see and remember your name.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Don't feel bad, I've gotten most of my ideas by searching the web myself. I wouldn't have known where to start with a layout or anything without looking for something to go on.......for the rest, I just wing it. :cheesygri


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

Humble Abode said:


> You should! BTW if I didn't say it already Thank you!


Your welcome. :Thumbs:


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

AAPaint said:


> Don't feel bad, I've gotten most of my ideas by searching the web myself. I wouldn't have known where to start with a layout or anything without looking for something to go on.......for the rest, I just wing it. :cheesygri



Myself I am just a template hack. But I usually do a radical overhaul to make it my own. Now if I had a good graphic design program I could pretty much do it all myself.


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## JustaFramer (Jan 21, 2005)

You still a robots meta tag if you want to ever be indexed. And a Robots.txt wouldn't hurt.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

I have both of those things, I think!! I tested them with the tools from scrubtheweb and got good results. Also, since I'm using frames, I made sure to include the meta tags for each frame as well, and I'm working on setting up some no-frames content, allthough, I don't know exactly how much need there is for that these days....my luck, my customer's are connecting on 14.4k modems with windows 3.1!!

....and my thanks to you as well Justaframer! :Thumbs:


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## ProWallGuy (Oct 17, 2003)

AAPaint said:


> Ok, hit me with the comments! :Thumbs:


Just got off a plane, and dead tired, so I didn't look in depth. First impression, horrible choice for the photo on opening page. The chandelier throws off all kinds of shadows, and shows no real paint job/skill/WOWfactor whatsoever. Sorry, not trying to be be brutul, but you did ask, right?  More to come later.


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## 747 (Jan 21, 2005)

I would post some pics of warm soft colors with like white trim or white crowns. When you watch home improvement shows its seems like soft warm colors with white trim is in at the moment. Just a thought.


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## 747 (Jan 21, 2005)

ProWallGuy said:


> Just got off a plane, and dead tired, so I didn't look in depth. First impression, horrible choice for the photo on opening page. The chandelier throws off all kinds of shadows, and shows no real paint job/skill/WOWfactor whatsoever. Sorry, not trying to be be brutul, but you did ask, right?  More to come later.


Did you finally make it up to the east coast. If i remember correctly somewhere in maine you ask me about a while back. Or maybe my memory is incorrectly. It wasn't maine.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Unfortunately, the only other pics I still have that I could use are in the gallery. Let me know if any of those fit what you're talking about..


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

AAPaint said:


> Unfortunately, the only other pics I still have that I could use are in the gallery. Let me know if any of those fit what you're talking about..


You don't have to use your own pictures for the home page.
You only have to use your own in your gallery.
It's ok to use images from the web (with permission if you have to) 
for promotional purposes.
So many postcards and brochures are being done with stock images.


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## Teetorbilt (Feb 12, 2004)

George and AA, Pic swapping goes back a long way before the web. Did you know that 80% of the fall leaves pics are shot in Valle Cruces, NC? The postcard may say VT but the pic is from NC.

Other swapping; There is an area on the west coast of FL that ships 8 RR cars of blue crabs to the NE every week. Nothing beats those Chesapeake blue claws. LOL


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

GOOD NEWS! I saw that Yahoo's web crawler went by my site...I'm listed THIRD for "jacksonville paint contractor" and SEVENTH for "jacksonville painting contractor".........now to get some rank with the word "painters". I can't believe I did that all on my own, woot! 

Thanks for the advice about the pics...I have thought about that before, but wasn't sure. I changed the front page to have a before and after pic instead...I think it fits with the text better?? Any more comments, please, keep em coming! :Thumbs:


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## Humble Abode (Mar 19, 2005)

AAPaint said:


> GOOD NEWS! I saw that Yahoo's web crawler went by my site...I'm listed THIRD for "jacksonville paint contractor" and SEVENTH for "jacksonville painting contractor".........now to get some rank with the word "painters". I can't believe I did that all on my own, woot!



Awesome! Last I checked I was only being listed on MSN (from what I hear it is way more content based) No Yahoo or Google yet. Last time I checked was a few days ago though...

Nice work man!


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## Teetorbilt (Feb 12, 2004)

I think that your gallery should go to a new page, I have to scroll w/a 17" monitor, both directions. I find this aggravating. When I go to a gallery I want pics., front and center. You asked.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

OK! Fix gallery........Roger!


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

AAPaint said:


> GOOD NEWS! I saw that Yahoo's web crawler went by my site...I'm listed THIRD for "jacksonville paint contractor" and SEVENTH for "jacksonville painting contractor".........now to get some rank with the word "painters". I can't believe I did that all on my own, woot!
> 
> Thanks for the advice about the pics...I have thought about that before, but wasn't sure. I changed the front page to have a before and after pic instead...I think it fits with the text better?? Any more comments, please, keep em coming! :Thumbs:


Great. keep up the good work!
For what it's worth, the following are some of the impressions
in order, as they are reported in our google adwords summary (3 months).
I realize it only shows the hits of our chosen keywords and geography 
plays a part, but these numbers tell a story.
Paint contractors and painting contractors are not as popular a search 
term as painters "your city", painting, "your city" painting etc.
Not even close. Paint contractors does not even make the top 18!

Painters Toronto 2,624 
painting 2,012 
Toronto painting 1,665 
Toronto Painter 902 
house painting 795 
Decorating Toronto 687 
painter 639 
House Painting Toronto 578 
Toronto Painters 500 
House Painters Toronto 407 
painters 404 
Painting contractors toronto 390 
venetian plaster 365 
interior painting 264 
Painter Toronto 173 
faux painting 169 
deck staining 158 
painting companies 149


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Thank you George, I really appreciate that. I have learned the same in my research into meta tags and keyword popularity etc. but I couldn't find a proper breakdown like you've given me. I suspected more people searched for "painters" and "painting" than "contractor", but I figured I would continue on and see at least how good I could do on those keywords. I have found this to be quite the task optimizing the content to even show up in the first 50! 

Now, if I can even get listed on google.....and at the same time, start shooting for those keywords as well. Whew...lotta work! Thank you again! :Thumbs:


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## WallyP (Sep 21, 2005)

The home page is too cluttered, put all that stuff in a separate section like 'Service Details'.

Also all the blue font highlights should be made links.


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## ProWallGuy (Oct 17, 2003)

AA, very nice pic on the front page. :thumbup:


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

ProWallGuy said:


> AA, very nice pic on the front page. :thumbup:


Agreed!
The website is looking nice.
I like all the content in it.
I suppose it's still work in progress.


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## AAPaint (Apr 18, 2005)

Yes, I am still tweaking a lot. Thanks to all of your input so far, I think it's come along pretty decent so far. I didn't even notice anyone had replied recently. I found that picture on a place that gives away royalty free photos for advertising. 

I do have ideas for a TON more content, just need the time to put it together. I'm going to try to work more visuals into each page, and expand the services section to include a breakdown of our processes for each service we offer. 

Also, I'm still shooting for somthing a tad better in the design area. The site still looks a little amatuerish, and I want to step it up a notch, but not knowing how to make things look the way you imagine is difficult, heh!


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