web page/internet

[merit]

posting messages on this forum is like buses
havnt done one for ages and then i bang three off in a row ha ha
iv e always thought of getting a web page together and step into the www, but because work has only been ticking over after the new year, i thought it would be the perfect time
problem i got is, the photos ive taken, may contrevene image rights, who owns them?
i do alot of sub contract work and these photos show bathrooms with the main companys
products in them,
all customers have given permision,but i need to tread carefully,
ive looked on some tilers sites and they have just copied and pasted ctd catalouge
by the looks of things
could be a costly experience

cheers merit

[johnryan]

i could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure that if you took the pictures, you own the rights, regardless of what you've photographed. if it's tiles you've installed, i can't see there'd be any problem. i always ask customers if i can put the work i do for them on my website, but i don't think you're even obliged to do that legally. it's just polite to ask really.

[Sir Ramic]

As above, my photos are just what I tend to snap on my phone. Most clients dont mind. It is polite though not to show windows and doors for secuity reasons although how anyone seeing a photo could tell where that job is in the country is beyond me unless you give the name and address.
I usually ask at the end of a job anyway and I cant remember anyone refusing me a photo, some are even thrilled by it.

[Dave]

I have seen a few with Catalogue shots.. instead of their own work... Beware!! if a tiler is not able to show his own work on his website then there is a good reason.. and it ain't coz he has not got a camera.

[Dan]

Websites are the future! (or now?)

Do it. And take lots of nice pictures off all your work. And I personally like to see the odd picture that doesn't look too professional which proves they've been taken on the job.

If somebody stole a single picture of my own and used it and claimed it was theirs I'd sue their ass for more than they're worth. I'd want his tools, his van, the lot. I hate that.

But newer tilers taking general shots of tilers and sticking it on their website is okay, border line, but they need to say they're "examples of what can be done" or whatever.

But yeah, an optimised website (so one that ranks well in the search engines) can pay for itself in one job. And you should expect to get calls within weeks of it ranking well. And eventually quite a few jobs per month off it providing there are not dozens of tilers with all smart high ranking websites competing for the traffic with you.

And if you're the first tiler to rank well in your area, you're hard to knock down the search engine positions. So it's important to claim that no1 spot as soon as you can afford the investment.

[merit]

cheers all
looks like a web site then,any reccommendations of designers used

[johnryan]

bit off subject here, but on the subject of websites, i read here somewhere someone mentioning that paid websites were better than ones hosted for free. is there any posts on why that is, as i have a free site, and wondering what the advantages are to paying for one.

[biffa]

I started a website just after xmas, i have a cousin who does that sort of thing. Seems the way forward because more and more people are looking online for things rather than using phone books and papers etc. Had a few inquiries but its early days yet. I paid for the domain which is about £30 a year, then its just a matter of building it yourself or getting someone to do it for you. Mine is www.sjbyford-tiling .co.uk. google rang me and wanted £99 a month to put me on the first page but my cousin knew how to get me up the rankings naturally and now i'm on the first page, so dont fall for anyone offering to raise your ranking for cash. If you need advice my cousin has a link on my site.

[Dan]

cheers all
looks like a web site then,any reccommendations of designers used

If you can wait a few weeks I'll recommend one to you, but for the moment we're a bit stuck, our guy sadly passed away a week or so ago.

bit off subject here, but on the subject of websites, i read here somewhere someon
e mentioning that paid websites were better than ones hosted for free. is there any posts on why that is, as i have a free site, and wondering what the advantages are to paying for one.

I said and say that. I'd recommend getting all the free directory listings you can get your hands on. But expect cold callers trying to get you to upgrade for some fee, often claiming they have customers waiting to call you but don't have a tiler in your area, so don't listen to 'em. But the right ones can get you a bit of business (Contractor Forum | Builders Forum | Building Forum for Professional Contractors and Tradesmen has an article on that website listing some decent free ones) over the year.

But a free website, hosted free, often on a sub-domain name (so www.something.TheirWebName.com[ instead of ww.YourWebName.com), often with advertisements (which again you don't want) generally don't rank that well in the search engines. Partly because if they did they could dominate and they'd be worth billions and not just millions, but partly because they have to make their customers user interface easy which limits customisation options, often the exact ones you need to optimise a website.
s
You can get a complete website built yourself, by yourself, hosted, with a domain name, and you'd be able to edit the pages if you can work this forum, for around £50 - £100 per year. It'd work okay, you'd need to keep on top of optimising it, though easy, you'd still probably be checking things often with me and whoever else helps you (which i'd be happy to do by the way) which takes time up. But you'd get there and can add photo's and whatnot.

Or, you pay about £500 for the first year (that's a price we managed to agree with a firm due to the amount of work we could pass them, otherwise expect to pay £750 - £1000+ - I've heard of people being quoted £3000+ even in this economy when designers are plentiful - but the right ones still have to reduce their prices to match the industry, as in tiling I suppose), then about £50 - £100 thereafter and it's professionally designed initially (hence the fee) and then still the same as the first case every year thereafter. You can add things, change things, no cost at all, support comes with it FOC and often what you want done or changed gets done for you. Dave does his now (David Howe Tiling | Tiler in Durham | North East Tilers) and that's the sort of thing you'd expect. But what you don't see by looking at the website is this tiler in durham - Google Search - click all those links in the natural listing section (so the listing in white on the left - not the adverts) and see how many out of the 10 listing either ends up on Dave's website, or has a link to Dave's website on the very page you're on. I'd say 6 to 8 out of 10 and it's been like that for a few years now.

That's the difference between a free website, done yourself, or even a paid for one which gets you lots of benefits and control but costs you time optimising it, or even a fully paid for one that is managed mostly for you, but still lets you change text yourself, add pictures yourself, and everything you want to do EXCEPT optimise it.

I think of it like this. In your books over 12 months you'll have all your incomings and all your outgoings. Whilst a website is an outgoing, it's also part of, and it'd be a big part of my own, advertising budget which is offset against your tax bill and even if it wasn't, it'd pay it's £500 on the first couple of crappy jobs, let alone the type of jobs you'd be aiming for with a website such as UFH, stone work, commercial kitchens, wetrooms, etc etc - very little push on "we do kitchen splashbacks" will prevent you getting them. And when you do you're lucky enough to price them out if you're busy.
Get yourself with TilersForums Arms access as I explain quite a bit more in there.
Always feel free to PM me.

[Diamond Pool Finishers]

what happend to mi-store then Dan ? im still with them and my site ranks very-well so they must still be around ?

[johnryan]

well what you say definitely makes sense, and i shall be looking into getting that done as soon as possible. i'll check out a few more of your posts in the tilers arms too. i think i'd prefer to build it myself though, as i know how to use dreamweaver, and my eldest son is pretty good on it too and can use html and css, though i know very little about hosting. i do know however that if you do a search for a tiler in kent, that i've never seen my site come up in a search. thanks for taking the time to get me up to speed a bit more, i look forward to reading more on the subject. i know absolutely nothing about advertising, so a good website should be a good place to start i think. again thanks for the post, it's much appreciated. cheers.

john

[Dan]

well what you say definitely makes sense, and i shall be looking into getting that done as soon as possible. i'll check out a few more of your posts in the tilers arms too. i think i'd prefer to build it myself though, as i know how to use dreamweaver, and my eldest son is pretty good on it too and can use html and css, though i know very little about hosting. i do know however that if you do a search for a tiler in kent, that i've never seen my site come up in a search. thanks for taking the time to get me up to speed a bit more, i look forward to reading more on the subject. i know absolutely nothing about advertising, so a good website should be a good place to start i think. again thanks for the post, it's much appreciated. cheers.

john

If that's the case, I can host you for £30 a year (cost price). And you can build it yourself or whatever, I use dreamweaver also, but I'd strongly recommend using wordpress and installing a mint theme with a smart gallery, and a decent seo plugin (pm me for the name of it). You buy your domain name though and you keep that in your name, that way, you have a copy of the website at all times, and you have control of your domain name so you can take it elsewhere at any time at no cost to yourself. However the hosting comes with some pretty decent features such a cPanel control panel's built in software installer, a spam email prevention system that I pay a lot extra for each month, 3 types of web stats, unlimited email addresses etc, along with one-click wordpress installation.

If you can beat that I'll take out a large hosting account out with the provider myself, too.

[johnryan]

ok, that sounds like an excellent offer. not sure how to register a domain name though, i'm sure i can figure that out though. maybe it'd be better to continue with this using pms'? i'm definitely interested, and would like to go ahead, just may need a little help with a few pointers on the procedure. also, i haven't heard of wordpress. is that on linux or something?

[Dave]

ok, that sounds like an excellent offer. not sure how to register a domain name though, i'm sure i can figure that out though. maybe it'd be better to continue with this using pms'? i'm definitely interested, and would like to go ahead, just may need a little help with a few pointers on the procedure. also, i haven't heard of wordpress. is that on linux or something?

My site is done with wordpress... Google luvs wordpress for ranking..

[johnryan]

just downloading it now. seems very small, only 4 mb. still, with 34 million dls', it must be pretty good.

[Dan]

ok, that sounds like an excellent offer. not sure how to register a domain name though, i'm sure i can figure that out though. maybe it'd be better to continue with this using pms'? i'm definitely interested, and would like to go ahead, just may need a little help with a few pointers on the procedure. also, i haven't heard of wordpress. is that on linux or something?

Sure, continue via PM but for the sake of others wondering how to register a domain, use Domain registration - Domain registration company UK - UKreg or ww.123reg.co.uk or somebody similar (I avoid 1&1 despite their low cost price, their service and terms can often be laughable). Register the domain name you want. And you want .co.uk AND .com at least, and don't worry about what to do next. Your web host will tell you how to point that domain to the hosting space with your website on it when you get one.

[merit]

thanks for the detailed reply
ive been quoted stupid money as you say ,
but ive got hold of someone who seems reasonable when i read the prices some want to charge
£350 for a customized site,£50 for the domain with my controll ect,local as well so easily contacted
been on david howe website and it looks very professional,as stated people are more prone to look for tilers
on line ,and if your not on there ,so youve got buy a ticket if you want to win the raffle
thanks again

[johnryan]

it's certainly been an eye opener for me as far as a website is concerned. i've done a a few googles for tilers in durham, and david howe comes in most of the first pages hits. i have a free site atm, and even if i put my name along with tiler etc, i don't even get to page 10. i haven't bothered looking any further, as i know most people will only go the first page. going to be changing now to a paid site for sure.

[365drills]

Yes I use Dreamweaver to build my site and its got wordpress too...
The internet is a dark art for some but like any skill if you are persistent you can learn to do it.
I now host a lot of videos as well as images but the search engines like words and fresh content