Website help

[desiraefranco]

Hi everyone,

We will be launching our home inspection business in about four months and I am doing some research on the different things we should be doing to get up and hit the ground running.

Particularly, I'm trying to figure out if we should build our own site or have someone do it for us. If I build myself, what platform should I use? If I have it built, does anyone have some suggestions on who to use?

Thanks for your advice in advance.

Desirae

[Chad Fabry]

Pay someone to build your website. With rare exception, most self-built websites look cheesy and unprofessional.

Call Mike Brown @ DevWave

[Marc]

Website advertising in this business is moving front and center. Mobile compatibility is also crucial.

What Chad said.

Marc

[Tom Breslawski]

I agree with Chad & Marc.

I am currently working with Mike Brown at Devwave on my own website and have found him to be very helpful. I recommend him.

[kurt]

Yeah, Mike....Devwave. He knows his way around.

It's also good to have a basic background in Wordpress. Wordpress comes in very handy.

[Marc]

Yeah, Mike....Devwave. He knows his way around.

It's also good to have a basic background in Wordpress. Wordpress comes in very handy.

You bet. Mike takes care of the fundamentals, fixes everything and keeps it modern.

I use my understanding of WP to update the content.

Works beautifully.

Marc

[desiraefranco]

Yeah, Mike....Devwave. He knows his way around.

It's also good to have a basic background in Wordpress. Wordpress comes in very handy.

You bet. Mike takes care of the fundamentals, fixes everything and keeps it modern.

I use my understanding of WP to update the content.

Works beautifully.

Marc

[desiraefranco]

Thank you all so much for your help! I greatly appreciate it. Does Mike happen to have any contact info you would be interested in sharing? Also, would y'all mind if I take a look at your sites to get some ideas?

Again, THANK YOU! [:-angel]

Y'all are a huge help.

[Michael Brown]

Thanks everyone for your kind words!

WordPress lets you control your content as well as some of the design. These days you need a responsive design that works on mobile as well as desktop. Unfortunately a custom one of a kind responsive site ends up costing way too much. Many of the others for sale are heavily bloated and nobody wants to wait 90 seconds for your website to load on a Mobile 3G connection (test them here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/).

I created a WordPress theme (http://slydeways.com) that we use. It was heavily tested and finished a couple weeks ago. I don't have time to make any custom ones right now anyway. You can alter much of it colors/backgrounds etc. in the customizer (a point and click interface) and WordPress widgets etc.

For now the theme is only 125.00 for anyone else that wants a copy also (contact me as I haven't put it up live for purchase/download yet).

We use the contact 7 forms plugin for scheduling inspections.

We also offer decent fast hosting starting from 9.95 a month (www.nitroshock.com). You can signup today and be working on it by tomorrow.

If you do all the content in WordPress yourself, setup is about an hour but plan on about 6 hours by the time your all done (somewhat dependent on what you can do yourself).

We are also a Google Partner and manage adwords as well as bing ads etc. if needed later.

Michael Brown

DevWave Software Inc.

1-888-739-4033

[tdriscoll]

Yes I too use Wordpress http://bestlongislandhomeinspection.com/ - on all my sites. HOWEVER I do highly suggest having a professional set it up for you and then train you on how to update it properly. Good luck.

[Alpha Man]

I did my own. Drawing on my experience. If you can, get a good webmaster, you will waste allot less of your time and have a better result. If you just have to do it yourself, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND GoDaddy web builder

I hear Weebly is easy, but I haven't tried it. Wordpress is good but you have to build it live or install a WAMP server to build locally.

[a1home]

Agree with most of the members here.

You should pay someone to build your website. Also, try to have search engine friendly website.