mysite blog

Free House Plans

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400

We are now offering all of our existing website house plans for Free*. We have changed one of our main house plan web sites to become a source of Free House Plans for you and your prospective home buyers.

Am I crazy? Maybe, but I found that every month people are searching for "free house plans" over 60,000 times per month. Do the math even at 1 percent. And if you offer free house plans on your site, you might see some traffic as well.

Many production builders have been accustomed to offering only a few house plans with options, yet, if you had someone contact you wanting an estimate on a plan they found on your web site, would you turn them down? And in this economy, we all need to do what ever it takes to bring a client in.

For many years we have supported and supplied the builders who have used our services with free house plans for bidding. This gave them the opportuniity to work with prospects without spending hundreds and even thousands to have a home designed just to offer a bid. Now we are offering this same offer (not only for bidding and builders), but as construction ready house plans for everyone.

Go to WebsideHousePlans.com for more information and to search through our house plans. We offer these same house plans on our Builders Websites for you and your site visitors to search through - on your website.

Please click here to review the new pricing schedule

Tax Credit and SEO

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Home Owner Tax Credit and your Website

This months Nation's Building News newsletter was encouraging. Click the link below and read a number of the articles on the side menu.

http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/2009-04-27/Front+Page/index.html

But that is not why I am writing today. Your website needs to easily expand with important and relevant information for today's buyers.

http://www.nbnnews.com/NBN/issues/2009-04-27/Sales/index.html

I did a little research on keywords related to this years tax credit. I found that in most of the words used to find information on this issue, most words did not have enough data to produce a number. However, the phrase "housing tax credit" has an average 8,100 searches per month, but in March alone it was up to 40,500 searches. This is a huge jump, most likely from prospective first time home owner.

In the same section, I noticed that the phrase "affordable housing" had an average of 246,000 searches, but in March it was at 301,000 searches. Are you using these phrases in your website?

If you are a home builder or remodeler wanting to be a part of the coming (and perhaps slow) rise in housing starts or additions, then you need to start to learn what I am talking about and how to implement this into the content, the wording of your website.

How does this work?
Because you are a local company, a person searching for a builder will end up learning that they get the result of what they are searching for by typing in both what they want "home builders", and the city and state they want to find a builder.

While we are still working on tools to automate this process, for now, our website editor still allows a home builder to expand they're site to include this important information.

Let me give you an example.
... we are custom home builders in Grand Rapids Michigan. We offer high quality affordable housing and will help you fully understand how to take advantage of the housing tax credit and save thousands on your new custom home.

User Searches:

custom home builders grand rapids mi
home builder affordable housing grand rapids mi
custom new home builder offering housing tax credit grand rapids mi

Keyword phrases:

custom home builders
- singular 49,500 searches (builder)
- Plural 60,500 searches (builders)
The city and state being used with the keywords is very important, it is what people will use to find local builders
affordable housing
- This statement is typically going to be used for less expensive homes, but could be used for higher end homes.
housing tax credit
- This phrase is being used in the same sentience or paragraph as home building and will bring the site up because the content contains more relevant information.

And if you can turn those keyword phrases into links to more information, well, google rewards you for that. And not just to wikipedia, to your local or state HBA would be great, because they should have links of your website on their site, which will reward you again.

Let me ask this question. Visit home builder websites in your area, read their page content. Based on what I just shared in this newsletter, do you think you could spend a few minutes, maybe an hour or two, adding content to your website that would be more relevant to people searching to find you? I know you can!

If you are not a WebsideBUILDER client and need to upgrade your website so you are in control of your content, then give me a call. Let me help you make this happen correctly for very little cost to you.

Note:
Now you know that with time we all get a little better at what we do. And with technology, there is an ever changing host of information to take advantage of. Take a look at the last site I put together, I am very proud of this site because I am learning how to defy the standards and restrictions of html, always learning a few tricks to make the next site better.

Thank you to Bill Reaves Construction located in NC

If you ever want a new look to your existing WebsideBUILDER website, give me a call.

Steve

Is owning a website important today?

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Just a few years ago, everyone was heading to the Internet to compete for a small piece of cyberspace. However, even then many home builders did not buy into the idea that this will do anything to help their bottom-line. Nevertheless, our competition was moving toward and using the Internet to sell themselves to prospective home buyers.

I wrote about this some time ago, and I believed the builders who were moving in this direction would be the ones to come out on top in years to come. However, because of the current economy I believe more than ever before that a renewed effort must take place to compete for consumers in the coming years like never before.

As a country, we went though nothing more than a glitch in history of epic proportions of greed; a desire to compete with our neighbors and to get all we could in as short of a time as possible, even though we understood that our parents worked most of their lives to gain the lifestyle and material goods they were able to enjoy.

As builders we had our phone number on our truck and business cards, but that really wasn't that important, because people found us anyway. The phones rang and the doors to our office never stopped swinging. We didn't even have to work that hard just to get by. If you really wanted to be more than the competition, you worked a little harder to provide nice things, like a colored brochure.

Even today, very few builders have any history of their work. A letter head! What's that? Let's face it, our generation was unique above all. We were spoiled and we were passing those same traits onto our children who were growing up with attitudes we ourselves were unequipped to handle.

What am I getting at you wonder? I am telling you that we have an opportunity to do and be more in the coming years to put our company's back on track and competing for our livelihoods - much like our parents, but with more resources to do it better.

Take a look at this post from several years ago, you will find some good information here. But the one thing that I was getting to was owning a web site. Stop the procrastination and make it happen today. If it doesn't work out, move on, do it again and again if you must - but get out there now!

Contractors Talk

We have been providing web sites for a long time, and we know home building and what you need to do it right. Lately we have been updating many builders old web sites and giving them new latest technology tools, dynamic pages and beautiful design to look the best they can and to offer more. When your site begins to look a little old, we can now very simply give it a new face, a new look to keep it fresh.

It's time to get that first site going, or your old non-competing site upgraded to really work for you.

I'm just a phone call away, call 800-834-6198 - Ext 34 - Ask for Steve

2009 New Home Building Tax Credit

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400

2009 First Time Home Owner Credit

You may have already received information about the new home buyers tax credit. But if you haven't, click the links below for more information and brochures you will want to get your hands on, and link to your web site.

Important Information about Keywords and Your Site

It can take a month or two and longer for updates made to your website with more specific keywords and keyword phrases to begin to make a difference in the placement of your site on Google and other search engines.

The current tax credit is a great offer and opportunity for your 2009 sales, however, prospective new home buyers need to find you, and you need to do what ever you can to get their attention.

I did some research on keywords pertaining to the building industry and found some interesting information you will want to know. Let's take a look at the list below...

Keyword Phrases	Last Month
home builder	33,100
home builders	49,500
general contractor	110,000
contractors	90,500

Here I have selected only a few of the more popular keywords prospective home buyers typed in last month. I do not have information on local search or if these keywords accompanied a city and/or state. Nevertheless, these words must exist more than just several times in your web pages.

Let's take "home builder" vs "home builders"(plural). What this says to me is that over 16,000 more people were searching for home builder"s". They are interested in finding all who is out there to choose from. However, builders that have the plural keyword in their pages are going to show up higher in search results than those that do not.

Let's take the next two keywords, "general contractor" and "contractor". These words can be a little more broad relating to home builders, nevertheless, many people may be typing these words to find home builders. Again, these keywords need to be in your pages.

Getting Practical

So let's get practical. Take the paragraph below from our standard starter home page...

"The decision to build a custom home may be one of the most challenging decisions a person will ever make. It may also be the most important investment in terms of time and money that most people will ever undertake. Johnson Builders has earned a reputation as a luxury home builder over the past number of years, known for providing quality craftsmanship, sound product, and superior customer service."

Change to...

"The decision to build a custom home may be one of the most challenging decisions a person will ever make. It may also be the most important investment in terms of time and money that most people will ever undertake. Johnson Builders has earned a reputation as luxury home builders and general contrators in City, ST over the past number of years, known for providing quality craftsmanship, sound product, and superior customer service."

But don't stop there, add the following to your site...

Never before has there been such a great oppertiunity to get into a new home for less. In landmark economic stimulus legislation, Congress has provided an outstanding opportunity for first-time home buyers with enactment of an $8,000 tax credit for single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000. This offer ends Janurary 2010, so you need to act now!

Call us today at 555-123-4567 to learn more, and to find out what your options are. You just might find yourself in the new home you have been dreaming about.

Click here to download a free brochure

More about your website

New Plan Center

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I have had quite a bit of interest from custom builders and remodelers who are interested in our web sites, but concerned that our systems are primarily for production builders and developers.

While it is difficult to be everything for everyone, I have given a lot of thought to what I can do to help remodelers and custom builders.

I have talked a little about our design services and how we already have things in place that builders who work with us are using to interact and communicate better with their customers. We include a number of cost saving options for builders who use our services, one of them are free house plans for bidding.

But for those of you who have a great working relationship with designers and/or Architects I have decided to develop a Plan Center with a few more features than we currently include with ours.

E-Mail Accounts

Before I explain what the new Plan Center will do for you, I would like to bring attention to your e-mail account. If you are using e-mail to communicate with even a few of your sub-contractors, you are taking steps in the right direction.

Today I met with my HVAC contractor to show him a house plan that is coming up. He was in the area so he thought he would stop by for the plan. I don't have a problem with that and he gave me a price on the spot. I asked if he has an e-mail account and he said he just got one.

I explained to him that with the development I have coming up that anyone wishing to do business with me must have an e-mail account. I can tell you that the reaction I receive is everything from blank looks to anger. But I will not give in anymore to the old time consuming, and cumbersome way of getting bids.

My brother Mike went to Arkansas to establish a development. He found out that most of the subs did not even own a fax machine, so he bought fax machines for everyone. I could write a complete article on communication and when and what to use to be the most efficient and effective in our daily jobs.

The phone will never go away, but e-mail used properly can be a great time saver and effective.

New Plan Center

The new Plan Center is complete! I have personally been using and testing it for 5 homes my brother and I are working on as well as a few prospects we are hoping will turn into contracts. From my chair I sent all my subs the plans they need to start putting some bids together, click, click, done. One sub called me from Benton Harbor because he wanted to run up to Holland (60 minutes one way) to pick up a large scale plan. I said, No, give me the email address of your local Reprographer (print house), and save a half a day driving, gas money and your boss' labor expenses, not to mention the work you should be doing.

I know a number of builders are familiar with our existing SNAD Plan Center that has been around for a number of years, but the new system has many more features and gives you complete control over your suppliers/sub-contractors. You do not need to send us their info anymore. In fact you can click a button to send an email, and have your suppliers fill in their own contact info if you like.

You can add more than one Reprographer. If you have a client from out of state or a sub-contractor that lives far away, they can add their local reprographer like Kinkos, etc. which gets listed in your contact list for others to use. Then they can order and pay for their own large copies.

When a new prospect or customer is added to your system, a default list of suppliers/sub-contractors will automatically have access to the clients listing information on your web site through the login. This way you can give permission for one sub to one client and another sub to another, or one sub to ten clients.

All emails sent through the new system contains all pertinent information and login links so no one is short the information they need. As a builder, your contact info is sent with each email so you no longer need to enter that. The project info, customer current info, file attachments, as well as login information for the client or supplier are all included. In fact, they don't even need to login, clicking on the link in the email logs them directly into their details on your web site.

If you are not currently using any of our systems, and no longer want to wait for your 8 year old to grow up and show you how to use them, please give me a call and I will be very happy to show you how to implement the New Plan Center or other systems into your daily construction management routines.

Our current Plan Center has impressed our customers for years. If you are interested in a service that will make you stand out as a unique and technologically advanced builder or remodeler, please let me know your thoughts.

I will develop this system for my own business, but if you are someone ready to face your fear of technology, then this system will be a great addition to an incredible web site experience for you and your customers.

Maintaining your site

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

This is a long letter, so you do not need to read the whole thing at once, but please read it through completely.

We started hosting web sites about 5 years ago or so. Through the years I have learned more and have updated and moved our hosting services several times and to several different servers to offer more features and flexibility.

Web site interface

Our current system offers one of the most powerful yet simple interfaces I have ever come across. Many of you know me personally and know that I am foremost a home designer and recently a builder. Things have been slow for the past few years so I have dedicated much of my time to further developing our web site services.

Systems

I am very excited about several new systems we just completed, and still other systems yet to be developed to make your web site more powerful and useful to your prospects and customers and to enhance your company image and services.

Our recent systems include a home listing system and a house plan system where you can add plans of your own not related to our plan service.

These systems are tailored more for the developer with spec homes, condo projects or developments. I have had a number of conversations with custom home builders looking for a site with more custom relevant systems.

While I believe our plan service is next to none, I have already designed the schematics for a plan center system similar to our existing one where custom builders can have their own plan design team upload plans.

Our plan center is the one main feature many of you use to communicate with us, your customers and sub-contractors. I use it myself to send out plans to my sub-contractors and to offer updated plans to my customers throughout the design phase. A very powerful tool for custom and production builders. If you are not using this system, you might consider it. If you want to add your subs, please send us their names and email addresses.

Our new plan center will also offer fax capabilities for subs that do not have email accounts. Another feature will allow builders to create groups of subs for common requests to a common list of subs.

Another system we have started is the Task Manager. This system begins by giving a list of selections your customer needs to pick out for their house. When the selections are complete, the system will switch to a punch list and finally become a call back warranty system, all with just a click of a button.

I currently use a similar system on my own web site for my customers, but this system will send out auto emails to remind your customers of a due date. The system also will have a comprehensive note system to record the correspondence between the builder, suppliers and customer. One source to help guide your customers and will convince them that you are a builder with systems that today's prospective home buyers are looking for.

Maintaining your web site

All this being said, I have also become very busy with several building projects that have consumed much of my time. My goal is to continue to gain more, and enough web site clients so I can hire someone to help design web sites as well as help with support.

Because I know so many builders and others in the construction industry, I have learned that maintaining a web site is the last thing they want to work on and improve. Everyone of us know a web site is necessary, at the very least because we know our competition have one, and we know people are expecting it today.

The truth is, if you do not have someone available to help with your web site, it most likely will become stagnant and just exist. I would guess that 99 percent of all web sites built end up stagnant. We all feel the need to own one, but then drop the ball. Yet it is one the most inexpensive forms or advertising we could ever leverage to benefit our company's.

The construction industry is typically locally operated. This means it does not use the same rules a product sales site might use. We need to have our web site on our business cards, documentation, signs and on the tips of our lips. I personally market my sites on Google and Yahoo and gain a lot of activity. But it is not proving to be a best form of promoting my company in the current economy.

I am considering offering the setup of marketing campaigns for a fee and then handing it over to the site owners to maintain. I do offer an affordable marketing service, but for those of you that want to do this yourself, I can help set it up and show you how to operate a campaign yourself.

Search Engine Optimization

But there is another way to improve the number of site visitors. This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are sponsored listings and organic listings on the main search engines like Google and Yahoo and others. Most SEO company's will charge you 5000.00 and up to help you improve your ranking. Many will promise that your site will make it to the first page in 2 to 6 months. This is true, they can improve your placement in time.

However, you can do this yourself. Spending sometime searching and researching articles on this subject will help you improve your site ranking. I will give you a brief overview of what is needed.

Content rich
- This means you need to have enough information available on your site that will cause search engines to consider your site to someone searching for you. If it is lacking, another site with more content will show up.
Relevant content
- This is kind of a no brainier because our sites are all about our company and services. But there is an important area where you need to be very careful in how you write your content.
  Because the construction industry is localized, you can use this to benefit your ranking. If someone is looking for a product they want mailed to them, they do not care where in the US it is coming from. So they might enter something like "carpet cleaners". Anyone selling carpet cleaners has a far greater hurdle to get over to get their sites to show up because they are competing with every other company selling carpet cleaners in the world.
  That means when you add content to your site it might read...
  ...we are a custom home builder in holland michigan. We have homes for sale in holland michigan and are a custom house contractor in the greater holland area...
  You do not want to place this information at the top of your page, but you might include some lines of it that read better to a visitor.
- Break your page up, simple at the top with an image or two and a few sentences that explain what you offer. Then be a bit redundant and say things about your services below the top several different ways, including a number of phases you think people will type in to find you. Like "custom home builder holland mi".
- Search engines will then index your site as having very relevant content. But be careful, search engines, can also tell if you are being to redundant in your content. Do not just list a number of search phases. Make sure that what you enter on this page is relevant to that page. Use the opportunity to create pages with more relevant content making the complete site have a theme but unique on each page.
Meta Tags
- Our new system offers the ability to add keywords and description meta tags. The powerful search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN no longer look at meta tags because people have abused this system. However, there are many search engines that do still look at this. However, it is very important that the keywords and description use the same words that is in the page content. Failure to pay attention to this will hurt your ranking. Even Google and others will compare this information even if it does not use it and index your site behind. You either do not use meta tags or use them wisely.
- The description meta tag is often used as the description that shows up on the search engine listings. If it does not exist, the first sentence of your site page will be listed.
Copy / Paste
- Search for sites like yours using common and relevant keyword phases. Open the ones at the top and figure out what they are doing. You can even copy and paste their content into your site, but be careful, make sure to make enough changes or search engines will figure this out and set you back.
- The best thing is to find the theme, the things they are doing that places them at the top.
Linking
- Linking other relevant sites to your site is one of the most powerful ways to increase your ranking. What it does is tells the search engines that you not only have 6 pages of content, but 100 pages of content. They know there is a network of information that can help the visitor. Again, be careful of who you want to link to and who is linked to you. A non-relevant site linked to yours will lower you site ranking.

There are other things as well but these are the most important, a good place to start.

Other things to think about

I cannot possibly write the content of your site pages, this is your job and needs to be taken seriously with a proactive approach. Tell yourself or someone working for you to set aside an hour a week. Work on one page at a time and make notes for other pages when you think of them. Stay focused. Read it through when you're done, and read it again. Show someone else and have them read it out loud to you. Hearing what we write can help correct our language. Write like you would talk to someone in person.

Do not write long paragraphs.
- Most people including yourself will skip pages that have long paragraphs.
Do not tell everything.
- Think about what someone wants to know when they are searching for your services.
Guide them along.
- At the end of a page, add a link for more information that will take them to the next page or another page with further information. Your site should read like a book of chapters. Welcome them and guide them through.

Conclusion

Currently I have a number of sites to build. If you are one of these people, please get in touch with me with the information I need to put your site together. I have stopped advertising until I have everyone setup and running. I am running into a few issues with the new system, but I will get these sorted out.

To everyone else who have trusted me through the years or recently joined, thank you very much. While I have had help with several employees in the past when building was stronger, I am on my own until this grows. Anyone else wishing to add a comment that would help me promote this business further, I would be very grateful. I will also add your comment and web address to my site to promote your company.

Description Wizard

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Description Wizard is Ready!

We have completed the descriptions for Properties Only and Homes for Sale for your listings.

When you make a new listing you now have a button to access the Description Wizard on each listing.

Select what description you want... Homes for Sale, House Plans or Properties Only, answer a few questions and have the Wizard generate the description for you. Then modify it to say what you want.

In your Default Settings, you can also add to the existing descriptions I have made or make your own.

Click here for the demo

Web Site Priorities

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I was thinking the other day about a car radio I bought from a friend for my 1959 chevy pickup. I didn't know much about radios so I was skeptical to take his word that it was the top radio of last year as he proclaimed. Well I found out it was a 350.00 dollar radio (like he said) and he was selling it to me for 125.00. Today I am enjoying that radio while cruising down the road.

What does this have to do with web sites? Well, I have been writing, telling you about a great system, affordable, specifically designed for home builders and thinking that my word means nothing to someone who doesn't know me. I know my friend well, and yet until I checked out radios at the store to learn more about what I was purchasing did I give him my money.

Therefore, I am suggesting that you search the web for anything that is comparable so you can make a proper and intelligent decision, especially before you dismiss my emails altogether, (like some builders have. I have so many more services and great things planned that these builders have forfeited the greatest opportunity available to builders who wish to increase their offerings.)

With every email campaign I send out to members of the Home Building Association, 80 percent of these builders to unsubscribe have email addresses like, hotmail, yahoo, aol, msn, charter, cox, nc.rr, jaxnet and others... Why are you giving credit to these company's when you can be using your email domain name in your email as a form of advertisement and recognition? And, it gives you more credibility. Think about it!

Sorry, got side tracked...

Allow me to give you some pointers I am sure you will agree need to be part of your priority list while searching for a web site interface and hosting company.

It should be affordable:
That means it needs to fit within your budget. If you are a large builder turning out 100 homes a year, then you could easily spend 20,000 on a web site if you projected it brings in at least 2 - 5 percent of the sales.
If you sell only 6 homes a year, you need to find something for less.
You should have direct access to the content of your web site:
I am currently setting up sites for several builders who are tired of paying to have their web site updated by the designer/developer company. They don't really know what you need, you do and might as well add it yourself.
Template based interface:
It needs to be a template based interface because that takes a lot of the details that make up a web site programming out of the way, out of your way so can concentrate only on the page content.
Do not get caught up with company's telling you that you can change your template (site design) when ever you like. Ours can do that too, but I am not going to focus on something that goes against company branding. They can even offer you 1000 templates to choose from, but you only need one that portrays the characteristics of your company.
You should look for a company that will design your specific web site:
When searching, you should look for company's that will design a web site specifically for you using your photos and colors. Do you have time to design and setup the main portion of your web site, like do-it-yourself web sites offer? There are already to many builder web sites out there that have Not For Construction, or Coming Soon typed into the pages.
It should be specifically designed for builders:
That means they should offer you more than just a web site interface. Just because they say they design web sites for the construction industry doesn't mean a thing if they do not also provide dynamic construction related modules or included pages like a plan library or community listings page, etc.
Interactivity:
Interactivity means that your site visitors can interact with your site, not just view a number of pages with some pictures and content. They need to be able to search your house plan library, home listings and properties for sale in your communities and developments.
Being able to print brochures and plans and email their friends specific content and links to your site.

We are going to continue to offer new systems like our Task Manager that will help your customers with their home selections, final check list and call back issues with powerful scheduled emails and supplier location maps. Our existing builder clients will always receive these services for free in their web sites automatically, making them even more powerful.

I have focused primarily on production type builders in many of my emails. But look for my next emails as I will cover some of our other services that tie hand and hand with your web site, and how you can use these services to promote your company and convince your customers that they have come to the right place. These services are focused more toward custom builders, but can be very effective for production builders as well.

We are a company whose focus is on the preliminary stages before signing a contract, and keeping a prospect interested. We will continue to offer tools and assets to help builders look more professional, sell more homes and equip them with the latest technologies home buyers are expecting in a business partner today.

Allow me to touch on that just a moment... You know you can plug in a skill-saw to cut a board; the thought of using a handsaw would be out of the question. Most home buyers today are working in company's where most of their work is done on a computer, yet many builders force their customers to go back to paper and pencil to accomplish their tasks. Do you think they are impressed?

We already have systems in place that really impress our builders customers. And that makes them a great referral asset.

Web Site Types

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I am writing as a follow up to some of the response I have been receiving, and other information I have been reading about.

If you have been following my emails, I may have been telling you about things you really do not understand, nor care to understand. So I would like to step back and explain these things in detail from a stand-point of benefiting your company.

I hate computers... how can you help me?

That statement says a lot about where most home builders are when it comes to putting a web site together. Nor do they have the time. I understand this and am continually fine tuning our Builders Web Sites so our builders has very little to do to have a professional presence on the Internet.

One caller said that they have a do-it-yourself web site, but needed some help because they were not artistic and realized their web site is now making their company image look cheap. So, what do you really get with do-it-yourself web sites? ... "tools to do it yourself."

While our system allows you to edit your web site when ever you like, I personally set it all up for you, adding your photos, content, colors and design a custom template specifically for you. If that was all we offered, it would still be far more than any do-it-yourself web site service. After all, do you really think they care what your site looks like?

A Static Web Site

How many pages would you have to design to show off 40 house plans? At least 40. Can your site visitors search for specific criteria? Not effectively. The more creative you get with a static web site, the more cumbersome it will become.

And when you are all done, will your site ever stand up to the large builders who have spent tens of thousands for their web site? Our's can!

A Dynamic Web Site

What really sets us apart are the powerful feature pages we offer included with the Builders Web Site. Let me explain...

Our Home Listing and our new House Plan pages are generated from a database of information. This means, all you do is answer some questions to set it up, fill in the blanks, like how many square feet a house is, where a property is located, etc. There is no page design needed because we did that all for you.

A dynamic web site is a web site your site visitors can interact with. When a prospective home buyer is looking for homes, they can look at a list of homes or house plans by means of searching or by simple navigation.

If you have 4 homes for sale, or if you have 40 house plans you would like your site visitors to browse through, all you need to do is enter the data. From there they can view and print brochures, send information to their friends, layout furniture on house plans for a house for sale or on your house plans (future project) and much more.

I believe I have turned some people away because our system or services are not like other web hosting services. No easy "click here big buttons" to push to a web site in five minutes. - Do you want to run a professional looking company on the Internet, or a quick five minute company?

We have some great ideas for the future growth for our web sites. Get on board now while I am still crazy enough to spend countless hours for so little, and see for yourself that we really take an interest in helping builders just like you succeed on the Internet.

Our next newsletter will be about our new House Plan page - this is becomming one of the most impressive pages we have ever developed. Mirror plans, optional plan features tab, optional elevation tab, optional searchable front end and more. There is nothing like it available, and it can be a part of your new web site.

Understanding Meta Tags

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Please read this through carefully as it has very important information to help make your site successful.

A couple of things to go over...

Our New Web Site - websidehouseplans.com

I am building a new web site. Snad.com will continue to exist for some time as it is based of a windows system and will not run on my new Linux system. Everyone's web site is being moved to the Linux system which has proven to be far more robust. Sorry Bill Gates.

The new web site is being built with every possible optimization for search engines. Your new site will also be far more search engine friendly, I'll explain that in a minute.

The new site will have several key services. First to try and generate more income, I have added a cart so people throughout the nation can purchase our plans on line.

Second, and I need to think this through a bit, but the builders that have built from the plans listed on our site will have a link back to their site. This will be a great way to get your name and web site in front of thousands of people.

We are currently setting up our system so you can select from any of our plans that you want to list on your site so people can search from your site. The current Plan Search will be replaced with this system. This system allows people to store plans in their favorites, send to friends and more to collect names and emails.

The system will also keep a record of every search and what people are searching for both from a builders site, as well as from our site. So I will be submitting reports of what people are searching for in different parts of the country. This should help you decide what homes to promote. I have many other ideas but time and money will drag it out.

Your New Web Site

I have enough web sites to host that it is keeping me way too busy, but not enough to hire someone to help me. So, if you get into a conversation with any of your sub-contractors, please mention my name. Connecting them to your site will make your site more powerful to search engines and hopefully some time soon I can get someone to help me.

If you host your site with us, your new web site system (once I get you moved over) is far more search engine friendly. I am going to touch on a few important areas in this news letter so you can understand the connection your site has with all search engine listings.

This is a phrase someone might type in to find a custom home builder.

I typed in custom home builder south haven mi

The Title Meta Tag. Your new site allows for it's own title description. If not filled out, Google will use the page name OR a line from your page content. Two things I did here, I am branding my name AND including what I do.
Important: The title needs to express what the page content is about or it can be placed lower in the search results.

The Description Meta Tag. If you do not add a description, google will use a line from your page content. You can use about 140 characters to get someone's attention and get them to click on your ad. Again, this info needs to express what is in the page content.

The Keyword Meta Tag or Keyword phrases. This is the most important because how you write your content will depend on if Google thinks you have the most relevant content that the user is searching for. Google is looking for several things, how closely your content corresponds to the users search phrase, how much of these keywords or phrases exist in other pages of your site, and if your keyword meta tag phrases also correspond with your page content.

Landing Page. A landing page is just what it means. A page or pages setup specifically to be found in search engine listings. A front door to your business. A testimonial or content page will typically not be a landing page, and therefore these pages do not need the same attention. Google information will tell you to just write your content as you want people to read and learn about you and what you offer. That is all nice and sweet, but if you want to show up you need to do more than that. Though I have not read it anywhere, I believe a page should be setup into two groups.

When you search for something, you want to gain the information you want or you will search again until you find it. For this reason, I strongly suggest that the top of your page be very relevant to what a prospective buyer is looking for. If you have read to this point in this newsletter, I am proud of you. But do you read this much information on a web site? Most likely not, so write the top of your page into short one and two sentience paragraphs.

The bottom of your page should be a bit redundant in it's content and include a number of search keyword phrases. Example: We build custom homes in South Haven MI. New home builder in Holland MI. We offer quality built remodeling services in South Haven Michigan. etc.

This is not very friendly to read, but placed under a few images at the bottom of your page will not be looked at poorly, but seen as what it is, lines of relevant content that helped the user find you. Do not over do it.

Links. Linking from one page to another is something Google also likes. It recognizes that you are trying to help the user through your site quickly. Your new site editor makes this very easy. But remember one thing, if you send someone to another page, and they do not want that content, make it easy for them to go back. Getting lost on a site is very frustrating.

Overview. Your site is like a store, place the things visitors want to see first. If you make everything important, nothing will be important. If you have a lot to say, break it up into several pages with links back and forth. Use relevant images with less and very specific content. Write short paragraphs and mix in a few images. (Get a good camera and take a lot of images from now on.) Tell yourself that you are going to work on your site once a week for an hour, concentrate on one page. Read your content in a month and change it to make it better. Owning a web site is a good start, but making it work for you is going to take some work.

Link Exchange

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Getting other sites to link to your site increases your "Site Popularity" in the eyes of the search engines, and may just be the one most significant factor that will affect your search engine ranking.

Likewise, linking related web sites to your web site increases your sites popularity and those that are linking to you. The more you have linked to your site the more the multiplication of sites begins to increase.

Link exchange is easy because everyone who owns a web site also want to increase their site ranking. Inviting your colleagues to have their link attached to your web site in exchange to have your web address attached to theirs is rarely turned down.

It is also very important that you only link related sites to your site. Allowing unrelated sites will actually work against you and your ranking will go down. The higher your ranking the closer to the first page you will get.

The image below is an example of how search engines view a network of web sites' usefulness to those searching their directories for products and services. It is very important to the search engines that the most relevant content is displayed to their visitors.