My new web site (what do you think?)

Finally created a web site, any one want to check it out please feel free. Any feed back is appreciated. www.prolinepavementmarkings.com Frank

looks like a Pissed off 3rd grader charged you way to much money. Even though it is a Small business page you need a little more pop. (Not Green Highlighting) just my $0.02

You should talk to Don http://parkinglotplanet.com/forum/index.php/topic,6316.0.…

yeah mine is probably not the best but i do think its fair for me creating it myself and only paying like 4 dollars a month. its www.sealcoatandstripe.com . yours is not bad and is somewhat similar. what i personally think is i really dont like the green but the biggest thing that i dont like is the statcounter shown. try to set it where everyone can not see the hits your received. you should be able to set it where you can see it but not everyone else.. for your first site, i do think its pretty good. remember to do the important things such as register it with google and just basically anywhere you can

The green is well--ugly 60's avocado and lose the highlights.--And can the counter they mean nothing and evryody knows you can set them to10,000 to start if you want. I had a long critique typed up but wait and see how many sales you get. (accidentally deleted it and I'm not getting paid anyway to retype it) You also must have a reseller for a host because your site is at a company that doesn't host individual websites. And I'm sure it's cheap like the last fellow brags "only $4 a month. Makes me have a question. Proven fact only 3% of commercial customers look in the yellow pages and that 3% will call 3-4 people. How much do you pay per month to reach that 3% who is also calling your competition? What is it worth to reach the other 97% ? What is it worth to "capture" them first so they don't get 3 or 4 other bids? I was using web sites for my business in 1996 when "cheap" was $20a month. I can't believe that in 2010 people are pinching pennies and basically saying "it may not be much but it only costs $4" for the most important marketing my company does. (Of course maybe nobody ever finds your site so $4 is OK I guess) I just don't understand it in 2010 that people haven't figured out it's ALL about the Internet when it comes to today's overworked property managers. Why do you think the NPCA got over 160,000 visitors and sent 8, 500 referrals to contractors in 2009 with a lousy economy? They are all on the Internet (Not stripes that's their totals combined from their site) Other companies in 2010 are spending more than ever on Internet, consultants, designers, polls, research, and on and on---but not stripers... they are back in the "well I dunno if I need a web site" age or if they do get one. "Well I tried one, didn't get no bidness spent $4 a month on it too!" Sheesh, I am not trying to drum up business, right now I am 8 web sites probably 6 weeks plus behind right now and didn't really have time to type this, but I saw that green and those highlights (ever see that on any professional web sites? Or did you take time to look?) and then see other posts like this and I can't help but be left dumbfounded. Do you still drive your 63 pickup out to work & use that dial telyphone too? Look on TV, EVERY ad has a web site tid too it, may channels have web sites for all their hit shows, everybody else in the world knows that everybody these days lives on the Internet, heck that property manager probably got an e-mail from the store he needed new handicaps so why get OFF the Internet to find a striper UNLESS it takes too much time. Remember we forgot it takes an hour to bake a potato. When the microwave isn't done in 3 minutes we are complaining about wasted time. EVERYTHING is about FAST--- The Internet is the main place people look today, especially property owners and managers who are 100% of the striping clients. How many of them have you EVER seen with a yellow page book on their desk? How many have a computer in front of them? Duh... anybody home... People cut-corners sometimes just enough to cut their throat. As for the OP your web site does absolutely nothing to sell me as a striping buyer. I could care less about the equipment page (that's your home-made vanity showing itself,) I will bet NO customer HAS EVER asked ANY STRIPER ON THESE FORUMS "do you own a brand new striper?" before making a purchasing decision. That page is to stroke your ego for other stripers-but they aren't potential customers. Any your photo page is horrible. Took over 20 seconds to load on my my machine without the super-fast DSL. quad-cores and extra graphics card it might take30+ IF they have high speed- 5 minutes if not; people seldom look at photo pages but sure won't wait to look at one. You are also hosted by a reseller because the company with that IP address doesn't host for individuals.

Well I guess I asked for it...I did ask "what do you think". For those of you who took the time to look and comment...thank you. Although I found some of the comments "abrasive" Im trying to believe that it was meant as constructive criticism. I will make some changes when I have a chance (I did't know green was so bad ). Now I'll take a moment to explain a few things as to why I did the web site the way I did. First of all I'm in Canada near a city of 1 million and there are only two other line painters who have a web site for this area (there are over 30 line painting companies in this city). Second I didn't really build a web site to drum up "random" new business (although that would be a nice fringe benefit) I created a web site to provide extra info for the new customers I get via word of mouth or direct contact (95% of my growth is referrals or me making direct contact with the customer). Strange as that may seem most of my new customers are referred and I just wanted to provide a site for them to get a little extra info about my company - feel confident that we know what we are doing based on some of the high profile jobs listed under the projects we have completed page and also to see a few pictures of our work. Also for that small percentage of customers that I get via the yellow pages they have a direct link to my website to get a little more info. Don,I have seen many of your posts over the years and you do have a lot of knowledge that has been freely offered on this site. I for one have learned that "who ever this Don guy is he has lot of experience and I should pay attention when he posts something". I dont know you so what I'm about to say probably isn't the case, but in your response you sound like a arrogant and condescending man... your probably not... but thats the way you come across. Regardless to clarify... I didn't put the "our equipment" page on the site to stroke my own ego, it was put there to show my potential new customers that we do use professional equipment and we are not painting with a roller or spray can (believe it or not there are people who do that). The site "visit" counter was put there for my own information...I really am curious to see how many people visit my site. That is the only reason its there. Finally, I've loaded the Pictures page from several different computers and it never takes more than 5 seconds to load. Also, I have talked to both the property managers I work with and some of the new construction companies I work with and asked them "how would you find a new "service trade" company if you needed one" ...do you know what they said? Most said they would ask a fellow property manager. The new construction guys (the site supers or engineers) said the same thing...check with a colleague or ask around. Otherwise they said if that didn't work they would check the yellow pages and the internet. Based on that info I havent been getting to worried about being on the web, but I still recognized the value of a presence on the web hence put together a small web site myself. Why did I do it my self and not hire Don or someone else? Well things usually are not that busy in my part of Canada at this time of year so I had some time AND I wanted to try it myself just to do something different and learn something new. Would I have done it myself if I was really busy painting lines? No, I would have hired someone. Anyways thanks again for all your input. Frank

I liked your site Frank...you know what they say opinions are like....###holes....good start anyways

i think thaty you need to move the phone number so that it reads altogether in onoe line...but what do i know, im not the a website expert, idid my own site too and am constantly having to change it around....until i can get it to where i am darn pleased about it....thats another pro about doing it yourself, you can edit your site as often and whenever you want....

Frank, I don't see anything wrong with your website. Your colors, wording, and pictures are based on your preference. It doesn't happen very often, but in 18 years, I have had people ask what kind of equipment I use (maybe because others are trying to make a sale based on their equipment?) If I were in Canada, I would probably go with red and white colors with a touch of gold, since they did so well in the Olympics.

I believe # 7 on your project page has a spelling error.

Anybody have experience with Kelly Moore curb marking or zone marking paints? They called and offered competitive pricing against SW and Aexcel. Thoughts?

contact drivelane, i believe he says that they have some very good paints

I would tell them to send me at least one 5 Gallon bucket of sample paint. I am switching to ENNIS and they sent me 5 gallons each of white and yellow samples.

Sorry, I don't think I sounded arrogant to you-remember I was answering 2 people in one post. My main critiques of your site were The green colors--that avocado green--and remember; you used a set size-800x600 the size of an old 15" monitor for the actual site-so on my 23" widescreen there was a ton of the green on either side of the web site (more than the site itself-that's why I don't like the 800X600 sites; there are arguments for it and I understand them, some people are steadfast in their use of that fixed size. But I like a site that fills the screen with content-the reason for a big monitor, you don't have to scroll down as much. Today it's hard to find anything smaller than 20" even on a "box deal" from Wally-World or whatever. This economy has made big monitors cheap-the same as HDTV's that have dropped like a rock in the last 6 months. The photo page having photos that were way too large in Kilobytes-you need no more than 96 DPI resolution for the web, and if the photo page is slow on MY connection it would cause people with regular DSL or lower speeds to "click away" before it finished loading (people are terribly impatient on the web) The equipment page. I may have sounded arrogant there but I see that a lot, especially people who just paid $16K for a seal rig or $100K for a paver-but like I said; no customer cares about equipment and sites should be about the customer. They would rather know why your paint application is so much better, not see photos of the equipment-even if the equipment (like a computerized Graco) is part of what makes your application better. If there was anything else that sounded "arrogant" I apologize but when people ask "what do you think?" I answer like I see it. And you shouldn't limit the potential of your web site by the attitude of "I just built it for something extra for people who already heard about me". That's well and good but why limit yourself? If nobody in your town has a web site I could easily put you at 1 or2 on Google if they use the town or area in their search and a property owner might be 500 miles away but the manager called and said he needs stripes-so the PM goes to Google; his computer is sitting right there so it's faster than finding a phone book or telling the local manager to get bids and send them to him for review etc. The web is the most powerful marketing tool there is these days, since DVR's allowed skipping TV commercials... and people can find just what they are looking for IF you are listed where they look. But sorry if you took it as arrogant-I think that part was in the middle addressed to another poster who was talking about $4 a month.

Yes, It's all I use anymore.

Looks fine to me. Shows who you are, what you do, and how to reach you. FWIW, the pics loaded in <5 secs on my slow connection and I don't have a nuclear powered 5 gigawatt 75 core graphics card either . Net presence is great, but I think some people get too caught up in the "my site is the best" garbage. Just my .02 and I am sure it's not worth that much when it comes to websites. I would like to know who the (expletive) cares who is hosting your site etc. If a potential customer is turned off by your web hosting, they probably aren't worth having!

found one for $5500 new , they guy never got his business started unsure what kind of deal it is

paintsprayersplus.com $5275.00 with 2 guns and free shipping. Check it out.

thx milt i forgot that site, guess no deal Would anyone guess what it is worth? again it is brand new

Like anything, it's worth what someone is willing to pay. If you are ready to shell out 5,200 to a company, try offering 5,000 and save the wait time