Website Traffic

L

LilRed

Location
Portland, Or
I am not sure what a good goal is or a minimum standard should be for website views daily/monthly.

Can you guys shed some light on this subject for me? Also, of so many views how many calls should I be looking for?
 
Hi LilRed,

This is sort of a quality vs. quantity question because you can have the whole world coming to your website but as you note in the second paragraph, you need it to generate calls. There needs to be something on your website that triggers someone's impulse to contact you for business.

I am guessing you are using some type of program like Google Analytics to see how many people land on your website. You might want to pay attention to how long they stay on it ("engagement") and how many pages they browse. If they are bouncing away in a couple of seconds, you need to do more work.

Do you use Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest to find potential customers elsewhere and coax them to look at your website? Do you have a special you can advertise (someone clicks goes to you website from Facebook will get 5% or 10% off a job you do for them if they fill out a contact form or sign up to be on your email lists for specials?)

It doesn't cost a fortune to market via your website although you will find that initially it will "feel" like you aren't getting a WOW return on the time and financial investment so you will have to stick with it for a while. I see the value in it as your longtime clients disappear and new, younger people move to the area and look for someone on the internet who gets their attention in the first few seconds.

I'd be happy to look at your website and give some free feedback if you like. Hope what I said above is helpful for you to look at a different ruler to measure your success!
 
Our website is still new (1 month) but we are setting our goal for about 400+ unique visitors a month. This is of course for ORGANIC searches and not PPC or adword generated visits.

We have good knowledge web development and SEO.

I would recommend the following things:

1. Get a tracking number for your website so you know where calls are coming from
2. Get Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools installed if you haven't yet

Without these, it will be difficult for you, or anyone else to measure results or make recommendations for improvement.

@TheArborMan 3-5 hits/Call is a very good rate. GREAT JOB sir!
 
Hi Sugar Land Trees,

I had a look at your website and have an important suggestion and that is to have your location and contact information in a very obvious place toward the top of your landing page. I don't know where you are located, or if I wanted to just pick up the phone and call, I would not be able to do so.

This is a particular problem as the contact form is down at the bottom of the page and not high enough to catch someone's attention.

The Google+ link is also a bit too buried, and it would look better if you had the Google+ icon that linked over to that page (which also is missing any location or contact information). Social media connections are important.

No blog option is troubling; adding new content and information is what keeps the indexing "bots" interested in your site.

Arbor Man's website is done very well and would be a good model to follow for creating a nice menu design (navigation is easy but very clean), social media links, and content. The service area info is great and it is nice to have staff pictures and bios because it makes the company look friendly and approachable (not faceless and anonymous).

Tree Tech in Foxboro MA is the bee's knees, using video, social media, lots of photos, and tons of helpful advice. http://www.treetechinc.net/index.php It is probably a more complex web design done in some expensive Adobe platform with a Wordpress blog sort of glued on. They come up in a local search for arborists in the region, nearly at the top (Bartlett's always at the top, it seems).

Hope these suggestions help you. Getting the contact info in the site is most important.

Good luck, and have a safe holiday season.

Carol
 
Thank you so much for the input DruidCarol =)I really appreciate the analysis.

The only component I'm hesitant on is video. I understand blogs and keywords will have to optimized in the following months. Do you feel videos and social media is THAT helpful for this industry?

thanks =)
 
A little father down "weather the removal is hazardous or for view improvement..." needs to be "whether"
Ditto for the next weather farther down as well.
Nice website!
 
Looks good Bix.
Also, the first line under hazardous removal, it reads "Though majestic, our trees often pose hazard to our property and lives". Seems like it should read "pose a hazard" or "pose hazards"
 
Bix- the quote on your home page is punctuated wrong.

Should be

A wise man once told me, "Whatever you decide to do in life -- do it with honesty, love and integrity." I have built my business on these fundamental beliefs and I look forward to many great years ahead.

I'm seeing a few grammar things here and there. The website looks good, but you gotta find someone with grammar skills to clean it up.

In FAQs you refer to the term spikes and gaffs. I think the average customer doesn't know what they are. I'd clarify
 
Bix- this a good start with the site. I think you need a page about who you are and what you believe in. People want to know who they are doing business with. I would keep the long testimonials they tell a story and people can connect with that. Lastly i think you actually may have too many photos and videos which is usually the reverse with most sites. Most have to much text. You seem photo/video heavy. People are on sites for a really short time. You need to communicate what yur about really quickly. My .02c. Hope its recieved well. The other thing that ive realized is my website is never done its always in progress. Good luck!
 
Loved the tribute to Dr. Shigo in your website, Kieran. Very classy, imo.
Your website just kinda blows me away, it is so professional.
 
No new conversation on websites would be complete without my chiming in, I suppose!
wavzing.gif


BIX: I can echo the other comments on getting the grammar and spelling spruced up (pardon the pun) to boost your credibility and improving search results for potential clients. One thing I did like was you had at least one "before" and "after" of what I think is crown thinning and cleaning of an old oak tree.

I suspect what makes the video and images come across as too much is that they might have more overall balance if they were presented in blog posts. It looks as though you don't have blog and that might be something to consider adding. This would minimize how much scrolling up and down visitors would have to make to see all the content.

And as I mention to others, getting the contact information up towards the top is better than at the bottom.

KIERAN: you do have a visually compelling site that I see is done in SquareSpace to which I have become accustomed in working with another (nonarborist!) client. My jury is out on SquareSpace vs. Wordpress. There are some limitations to SquareSpace that frustrate me and the prices I'm seeing for hosting is awfully high, but the end results can look pretty awesome.

Website design tools that are proprietary, such as SquareSpace, mean having to wait for the vendor to decide to add functionality (not to mention the company goes out of business, the technology falls to the roadside) whereas the open source tool, WordPress, is continually being extended with new designs and functionality by enthusiasts who like solving problems the minute they find a need. It's a question all of you should use in weighing what platform to use and what would you do if a proprietary vendor bites the dust and you no longer have support for their product.

Not certain how useful the Events calendar is since apart from next month's New England Grows annual convention I didn't see anything coming up. I'd remove it if you don't have plans to do anything with it in the next month. The Community Resources page is great! I look for ideas like that because they tell me that you are creating relevant content for your customers who can look to you as THE resource to go to for a wide range of questions.

The gallery is also nice visually however I would think it would be helpful if you had more text to describe the benefits of what you are doing in each picture. For example, the photo of using an air spade might have a little blurb about reversing potential damage to the root systems by safely removing compacted dirt at the tree base. Anything that shows and tells the story of why a client should hire a skilled arborist should be in the gallery, I think.

If I had a quibble in the design it is the difficulty in reading some of the text when it sort of disappears or melts into the background foliage. This is a case where the mobile phone display is easier than the desktop/laptop display. The menu items might be condensed into fewer top level and more submenus to make the appearance cleaner.

That's all she wrote!
 
Hey Sugarland,

Sorry it took me a while to work my way back into the boards. Images and videos are a big reason I think the tree service businesses of the future will benefit from their web presences. The key thing is to put what they call "alt tags" on these elements so the search engines can tell what the image is about.

Social media is important in how your website is 'weighed' by the search engines like Google. Essentially, if you can get people to like and share what you are posting in a social media platform, and your website is clearly linked to that platform, the search engines can see you are engaging people so you must know what you're talking about!
grin.gif


Google+ is definitely the one social media platform that you should work in. Getting your business page puts you on the map, literally. You should also submit to directories like YP, Yahoo business, and others. Different social media have different demographics they attract so if you think the decision makers about dealing with landscape issues are women from 25 - 45, Pinterest might be a great place to post pictures of your work. Facebook's audience may be changing enough (young people are dropping it) to make sense for you. It's a good place to advertise special deals. Tumblr is more young people based. But Instagram may make sense if you do photos of your work. Just don't try to be everywhere!

Hope this helps.
 
Hi Brendon,

HTML5 is the fifth version of the original internet data format that makes any website structured optimally for searching, viewing and other ways you interact with a website. The other major component that partners with HTML5 are Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for which the most current up-to-date version is CSS3. Style sheets handle font styles and colors and other "prettified" elements of any website. HTML is not really the variable but the program you use for website design is.

Wix.com is among a number of website programs that allow someone without the need to know the ins and outs of HTML5 and CSS3 to create some pretty awesome websites, many with a simple drag and drop editor for moving your pictures and texts around and adding links to other elements. Wordpress, Joomla, Weebly, SquareSpace, iPage and a host of other programs do the same basic thing but the range of designs, features and functionality vary between them. It's like models of cars that have varying degrees of standard equipment that come in the package; some are more basic (no a/c or power locks) than others.

Wix also allows for building a website using Flash (aka Shockwave Flash) and you are wise to stick with HTML5 since Flash based websites, once a visually stunning alternative to older HTML versions, are becoming unsupported by mobile devices (and Apple devices like iPads and iPhones won't support Flash at all). Someone tries to sell anyone Flash for a website, run away. I don't care how cool it looks, run away!

I am most familiar with Wordpress, which I think is hand's down, one of the best options for many businesses big and small, and I'm becoming familiar with SquareSpace that a new client of mine is using and wishes to stick with. What I have learned about Wix is that there are limits to adjusting the overall design template you choose and if you get tired of a template you pick to start with, you aren't likely to easily shift to a new one (this is a similar problem that I see SquareSpace has, you really have to start all over from scratch) and if you try to stay with the free version, you are subject to having ads appear on your website. Also if you want to ever move from Wix to another platform, my understanding is you can't export your Wix website to load elsewhere (Weebly and SquareSpace do allow this). Redesigning a Wordpress website is easy-peasy in comparison, which is why I like it.

I am personally a little nervous with something like Wix since it is what is called a proprietary website platform-- it is owned privately and the features offered are driven by the company that owns it; Wordpress (and I may dabble eventually in Joomla and Drupal) are what's known as open-source meaning no one owns the platform and others are welcome to develop added tools to make it more sophisticated and attractive, often at no cost. So if you need a new feature and Wix doesn't offer it, you have to bug them to consider offering it in the future whereas often the problem is solved already in a platform like Wordpress.

If Wix is ever sold to another company you may find yourself in a pickle in terms of new pricing, changes in support, etc. Wordpress is more complex to use yet it has a lot of ability to adapt through new themes that are often easily changed if you do so with some care, along with new features and functions being crafted by developers to add new goodies in eCommerce, newsletter subscriptions, blogging options, landing pages, and other elements too numerous to remember of list. It's my giant tinker toy collection!

I hope this wasn't overkill. I thought if I went into some length, it may help others who are planning website building for their businesses to be aware of some of the options on offer. You may want to research how well the different website building tools support your being found via Google/Bing/Yahoo (the search engine optimization/SEO stuff you hear about) and how well you can make use of your choice of social media via your website (some may limit your choice to certain social media and if you can't use Google+ links, I would say good-bye to that platform). Google+ is becoming the emerging social media tool for businesses from what I hear among my fellow geeks.

If you can, before picking a web design tool, jot down what things you want in your own website and what is the important thing you want your website to do for you (get customers, establish your brand that sets you apart from your competition, engage with your customers, educate your customers, offer discounts and deals, etc...). That should drive, in large part, your choices in what you use for a tool and how much you can afford to invest in it.
 
Wow, thanks.

Im figuring the minimal investment will be worth it to if nothing just be able to show a pro what i want. I see too many pro site really cheesy to be honest. If i can say make it look like this with your "better" program we'd be in good shape.

Do you do websites? If so, shoot me an email or pm with contacts, maybe your the pro i can connect with.
 
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