DJGold

hernan · Joined: February 5th, 2006 Posts: 90

Hello everyone,

I am starting on my website and I was wondering if you would help me.

What would you do again or not do again, if you were to build your website from scratch.

Should I emphasize the wedding or event DJ's portions of my buisness.

What does the customer like the most about your website?

What features make you the most money.

What forms should I have on the website.

How many pages?

How do I get top ranking in my market?

What questions am I not asking

TheBartman47 · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 3:15 pm Post subject:

If I was starting over from scratch, I'd work a lot more on my meta tags and titles. I need to update mine baaaad. I would have also started out my directory structure a lot more organized too. This is all behind the sceens stuff that the customer will never see or know about, but still important for efficient page development.

hernan · Joined: February 5th, 2006 Posts: 90

Thanks for that.
It is the small things that make all the differance.

When you have time,

what meta tags would you use.
How would the site topology (is that what you mean?) be structured?

Dj Sean · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 5:57 pm Post subject:

A good tip or two that helped me.

Study your competition website's this will be invaluable.
If you right click you should have a option to "view source code" this will show you website's coding, especially their metatags.

Keep a speical journal that you can use just for website comparison and ideas, etc. Also get a tracker like the one I got its free and will tell you alot

www.extremetracking.com

Work closely with your website designer to make sure you get what you want. They sometimes don't do the best at helping you tweak your content to be SEO friendly.

Choose your homepage titles, metatags, and content CAREFULLY, especially since google doesn't really use metatags anymore your titles and content have become more important.

Also visit these two sites as they will help out hugely. Especially the first one.

http://selfpromotion.com/index.t

http://sitereportcard.com/

jwg · Joined: September 15th, 2004 Posts: 1089 Location: Erie, PA

Dj Sean wrote:
Study your competition website's this will be invaluable.
If you right click you should have a option to "view source code" this will show you website's coding, especially their metatags.

By all means, don't COPY someone's tags & content. I've had 2 cases of
someone stealing from my site. One time it was a simple picture and another time, a DJ actually used my bio almost word for word. I know DJ's that have had PAGES of their sites copied and used by other DJs.

A great way to detect theft is to go to Copyscape.com and compare pages of your site and see what may be out there.

djdonny · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:15 am Post subject:

Q. What would you do again or not do again, if you were to build your website from scratch.

A. I made the mistake of using frames initially -- bad for rankings. Also, I should have created a site map right away for robots to follow, linked from the home page. Also, include pages with lots of text -- my list of venues played is one of the most frequently "entered" page by visitors.

Q. Should I emphasize the wedding or event DJ's portions of my buisness.

A. That's a business model decision. Either become a wedding-only business, with a site to match, or a less restrictive business with a more general site. Or split your business into two, with two seperate sites.

Q. What does the customer like the most about your website?

A. It's comprehensiveness and ease of navigation. My downloadable song list is the most appreciated feature, plus the ability to check date availability, get a price quote, and pay online.

Q. What features make you the most money.

A. I'm not sure what you mean by that. My DJ services are the main source of income for the business. Giveaways, lights, etc., are not big money-makers for me -- I keep their costs down because they help improve the event, getting me future jobs.

Q. What forms should I have on the website.

A. I have a "Price Quote" form that checks date availability, whether the event zip code is within my range of travel, and then takes the rest of the client information before offering prices. The price quote, with all the client contact info, is emailed to both the client and me, allowing me to make follow-up contact.

Q. How many pages?

A. I have over 40 pages. I believe in allowing visitors to find the answers to any questions they have.

Q. How do I get top ranking in my market?

A. I'm now the highest ranked DJ in the major search engines for "Staten Island DJ". (Staten Island has one of the largest, if not the largest, per capita DJ ratio in the country, so this is no small feat.) It has taken 10 years of constantly improving my site and increasing my exposure on other sites. Your page titles are very important.

Also, especially as a newbie, it wouldn't hurt to start with PPC (pay per click) ads through Google and Yahoo.

djmc · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 10:20 am Post subject:

All good advice (above)....especially the importance of SEO, site content, and backlinks.

Dj Sean · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 1:54 pm Post subject: Re: the well built website.

By all means definetly DO NOT steal content that's not what I meant.

Good point jwg!!!

STUDY your competitors that is why you can view source code because the internet is about open information.

This also why we are here sharing open information, networking and benefiting from sharing.

You can always contact the owner of a site and ask if its ok to look around.

You use that information to make better decisions about your own website design and content.

This helps to raise our level of standards as DJ's which ultimately helps all of us.

hernan · Joined: February 5th, 2006 Posts: 90

I dont think I will be stealing much stuff.

I may rewrite some text, or emulate structure.
But from the looks of it I may not even do that.

More like you look out the window, see everyone is in a bikini, so I will wear some shorts that day.
(I dont look good in a bikini, even now that the thong is going out of style. I just dont)

TheBartman47 · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject:

Something I've been thinking about recently, should one have a "cover page" to their web site? I currently have mine set up to a "welcome" or "intro" page that has nothing but a hit counter and a "click here to enter" that takes you to the main page. Should I skip using that intro page and go straight to the main page, or is it still a good thing to have an intro page?

Dj Sean · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 4:30 pm Post subject: Re: the well built website.

I personally don't like them. I really see no point to them.

As a customer I don't like having to click through some page that doesn't help me at all.

In fact I have even gone back to the search list just because someone had a cover page that wasn't loading fast enough for me.

I also wonder how the search engines feel about no content pages,
I wonder if this only helps to lower your website rank.

djmc · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 5:45 pm Post subject:

I remember they used to be called a "Splash" page, and all the web gurus (particularly Scott Rosenberg at WeDJ) says NOT to use them.

DJ Teddy Bear · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 9:51 pm Post subject: Re: the well built website.

Dj Sean wrote: By all means definetly DO NOT steal content that's not what I meant. For the record, I did not think you meant to steal the content.

Study the code? By all means. It's how you can learn to do things. Sure you can read books about it, as well as online tutorials. But sometimes, looking at the way someone else did it is the easiest thing.

My web design software does not support button rollovers.

So I found a web page where there wasn't a lot of content, and not a lot of extraneous stuff in the html. I.E. The source was relatively short and simple. And it had rollovers. So I studied that source code and figured out how to program rollovers on my own site.

Did I 'steal' it? Some might say yes, but I say no. Why? After I did this, I found an online tutorial for rollovers and this time it all made sense, and even helped me realize that I had a small error in my code.

jwg · Joined: September 15th, 2004 Posts: 1089 Location: Erie, PA

Didn't design my own site, but I update it periodically. I leave the design work to a talented webmaster. It's amazing how intricate HTML code can be.
One missing < or > etc. can REALLY screw up a page fast!

hernan · Joined: February 5th, 2006 Posts: 90

Yes I think I took JWG's advice and hired a webmonkey.

I am curious (actually he is demanding) what needs to be in a good wedding DJ website.

Like has been stressed before, the site structure is very important.
(i AM TOLD)

Dj Sean · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 10:53 pm Post subject: Re: the well built website.

Just make sure you consider being able to expand your site as needed.
I've already added lots to mine and I'm getting to the point where I need more pages but I don't have the buttons/links intergrated in yet.

If your designer is willing you might be able to watch as he's working and you could learn the basics of design. Thats what I did and like JWG I often make changes to my content without having to use a web geek.

Learn all that you can about HTML if you haven't already, it really isn't that bad once you understand the basics.

Its really like learning to write in a (slightly) different language, since its mostly english. LOL