Find an Inspector - Inspector Locator

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Originally Posted By: ecrofutt
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There is no easy to spot “Find an Inspector” or “Inspector Locator” type button on the Nachi.org homepage. Instead there are two selections “buried?” in the main menu. One for Pennsylvania inspectors and one for “featured Members”.


I feel we need a BIG, easy to spot, button that will take consumers to the member list. Even if it takes you to an intermediate page that gives you the choice of "Pennsylvania Inspectors" and "Featured Members" on that page, it needs to be something EASY to spot. ONE of the member benefits needs to be getting business to us easily for the consumer. I know, someplace on the site, it says there is nothing of interest to the consumer on Nachi.org, but find links "for consumers" such as on housewizbiz or whatever it is that takes a person directly to NACHI.org.

Most, not all, of the state type associations that I have listed on the KREIA web site at http://www.kreia.org/inspectorlinks.html have that feature to let consumers find inspectors easily. Why not here too.

Erby

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Originally Posted By: jremas
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Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko
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You’re thrilled? I’m SUPER THRILLED! I’m going to make every online home buyer in America get directed to their local NACHI inspector, one way or another. I promise.



Nick

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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I spoke with Jeff about this via E-mail, but I am working on a much better script to do all of the above. Hopefully sometime this week.

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Chris Morrell


Director of Information Technology


http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: ecrofutt
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Jeff,


Put an "area served" box on your home page. One for counties, one for cities. Then submit your home page to search engines thru www.addme.com. If you are frugal (cheap{G}) like me that will get your own web site showing up in about 4 to 6 weeks. If you want to spend some money on search engine submissions it can be quicker.

When they index the pages, they usually will index that block.

Also learn "meta titles" and "meta tags" and "meta descriptions" to get those indexed also. Do a google search on those terms. You'll get plenty of education about them.

Erby
www.b4uclose.com

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Good suggestions. Meta Tags are the most important thing to add to your webpage. Make sure each page has a meta description and meta keywords (but don’t go overboard or the search engines will consider it spam).


I just now got the Zip/Latitude/Longitude database up (unfortunately I'm running a 46k connection right now, and there are 30,000+ rows in that database). Now I'm going to work on the script that takes a given zip code, calculates a milage radius around it's lat/lon position, and matches it to the zip codes around it. Hopefully it won't take too long.

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Chris Morrell
Director of Information Technology
http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: ismetaniuk
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This membership was a big waste of my time!!!

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Igor


Top To Bottom Inspections


Glen Spey, NY

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Originally Posted By: ecrofutt
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I look forward to the easily located “find an Inspector” button on the home page.


That zip code script will be really neat when you get it running. I look forward to seeing that.

Those that have web sites can find out how effective they are at getting listed in search engines by searching on your company name. I hope my listings will improve with the next engine crawls as I have made a lot of changes since. I guess I'm just to cheap to pay for it after seeing how successful the last one was without paying for it. Just a question of time.

Erby

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Originally Posted By: jremas
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I did the meta tags thing & we will see if it works. I tested it after I put them in and they test good. All the information I want people to see is there. Thanks for the heads up Chris. Anyway, will there be a profile that we can change for ourselves once the new find an inspector is off the ground? Will it be by counties or cities?

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Jeff Remas
REMAS Inspections, Inc.
Northeastern PA & the Poconos
www.NEPAinspector.com

570-362-1598

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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The new find an inspector script is up and nearly working – there are a few bugs that I need to fix up before public release. It lets you search by zip code, city and state, or county and state.


The memberlist database we keep for the web only has name, company, city, state, and web/email. I moved everything to a new database that includes separate fields for web and email, zip, and space for username/password when we start working on the members only section. It might have a few other columns, but I've forgotten them right now 

If you want to see it (please don't refer anyone to it), check http://www.nachi.org/findaninspector.htm . The column that you seen on that page will be taking the place of the Spectoscope ad that currently resides on the front page. I also hope to add a consumer section.

I hope to have it finished with (or before) the new layout.

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Chris Morrell
Director of Information Technology
http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: jremas
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Chris, I looked at the link but it took me to the regular nachi.org/index page with no difference. I guess I am visualizing a column on the right side for the find an inspector service.

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Jeff Remas
REMAS Inspections, Inc.
Northeastern PA & the Poconos
www.NEPAinspector.com

570-362-1598

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Sorry, it’s now working (it added my end-of-the-sentence period to the link). See above or click http://www.nachi.org/findaninspector.htm (don’t refer anyone to that link, as it still has some bugs.)

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Chris Morrell


Director of Information Technology


http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: ecrofutt
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This is just what I was talking about. Excellent. I look forward to it being up and running with a BIG easy to see button on the home page.


Looks good so far. works easy.

Two suggestions:

1. Search JUST by state link without the city & county requirements.

2. Search again button that will take me back to the search criteria page without using the back button.

Erby

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Good ideas.

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Chris Morrell


Director of Information Technology


http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: jremas
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With the new redesign of NACHI.org and addition of the 'inspector locator", what else could we do to improve the position of NACHI with search engines? Right now under a Yahoo search for “home inspection”, after the sponsor matches, ASHI comes up as the #1 web match. NACHI is not even on the page. I get the same result with Google when looking for “home inspection”. The same results come up with “home inspector”. If there is money available and we are a .org, I would hope we could improve our positions with these 2 widely used search engines. If we push the “find an inspector” on the meta-tags or however we do it (Chris, I learned about them from you), we could increase internet business which is becoming increasingly more prevalent. Just an idea, but I think a really good one. Nick, Chris, could you give us some feedback. I really don’t like seeing ASHI come up #1 and I am sure you don’t either. Thanks!

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Jeff Remas
REMAS Inspections, Inc.
Northeastern PA & the Poconos
www.NEPAinspector.com

570-362-1598

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Marketting is our next project. To be near the top of Yahoo! searches you have to pay, I beleive, which we might do. We’re also probably going to set up one of those boxes on the right of a google search. I’m also working on a new feature of NACHI.org which will increase out ranking 10x.

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Chris Morrell


Director of Information Technology


http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: jremas
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I did the Google box on the right thing and it did not work out too well for me. I made a point to make sure that the box specifically stated I serve northeast Pennsylvania so I was not paying for clicks from people in Florida and North Dakota. I had a good position but the GoogleAds people are a pain in the a#%. I kept getting email telling me I was not getting enough through clicks per search so they kept inactivating the ad and made me change it. After 3 changes they charge you $5. each change. For NACHI being a national organization, it will probably be OK. For me, I only wanted people clicking who lived around here. Google just did not understand that. They expected more clicks than what I wanted. Anyway, I hope this helps, just get us in the #1 spot with marketing money. Thanks!


Jeff

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Jeff Remas
REMAS Inspections, Inc.
Northeastern PA & the Poconos
www.NEPAinspector.com

570-362-1598

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Originally Posted By: ecrofutt
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.

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I’ve got the #9 spot on yahoo for Kentucky Home Inspection and #13 for Kentucky Home Inspector.


Didn't pay a dime to anybody. Just good meta tags, meta keywords, and meta titles along with using www.addme.com for free submissions (and any other submission places I could find for free) and then a little paitence. It took about four weeks after the submission before I started showing up.

I also submitted listings to each of the home inspection or business type directories that would accept it free.

Erby Crofutt
B4U Close Home Inspections
Georgetown, KY
www.b4uclose.com

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Originally Posted By: rmeyers
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Chris,


You're doing a GREAT job with the site!!! We appreciate all the hard work!!! I noticed a slight glitch on the "Find an Inspector" results page.

When only one result appears on the "Search Results" page, that below the line that says, "NACHI Certified Inspectors within approximately 10 miles." the statement, "No matches were found near the area you specified." still appears. It's not there when 2 or more results are shown.

Is this something a minor "tweek" can resolve or do we just need to recruit more members so there is always at least 2 NACHI inspectors within 10 miles of any search point in the USA?!! 

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Russ Meyers

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Russ,


Can you let me know what zip/location you're putting in? Right now, it searches both for an exact match, and a nearby match. If there's no results in the exact zip specified it displays:

Quote:

No matches were found for the exact area you specified.

even if it finds someting nearby.

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Chris Morrell
Director of Information Technology
http://www.nachi.org/