web sites

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Originally Posted By: kbliss
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I know this topic has been covered some, but I want to know how much business is derived from web sites? I was thinkg about having a web site and want to know which way to go. I`m not really up on how to create a web site, so if anyone can help I would appreciate it.


Kurt Bliss Home Inspections Inc

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Originally Posted By: jmyers
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Kurt,


I use godaddy to host my site. The cost is 12.95 a month. I used frontpage to create my web site so as you can guess I did it myself. If you decide to use frontpage and do it yourself I suggest you purchase a book on using frontpage because while I am very familiar with microsoft products I could not just sit down and create a site without reading the book first.

Hope this helps.

Joe Myers

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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If you use anything, use Macromedia Dreamweaver. Frontpage generated pages only look good on 60-70% of web browsers out there. I’d recommend hiring Chris Morrell, he’s a very good website designer

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Chris Morrell


Director of Information Technology


http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: jmyers
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Chris,


I guess that I am one of the lucky ones. Over 95% of the hits on my site are using internet explorer. With that kind of coverage it is well worth it.

If you are referring to Netscape my web site is also displayed in that one too. I know, I had my brother visit it just to make sure it would work correctly in his Netscape browser. 

Since you are in the web design business I will let you slide on this one.

Joe Myers

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Joe,


Here's a quick lesson for ya:

This is what your site looks like on the latest Netscape versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer:


This is what your site looks like on the latest version of Opera:



The left picture is what your site looks like by W3 HTML 4.0 standards, which are what IE and Netscape 4.x are based on. To the right is what your site looks like by W3 HTML 3.2 standards, which are what IE and Netscape 3.x are based on:



Now granted, no site is going to look perfect in all browsers, and I have to say that the current NACHI.org is designed specifically for the latest versions of IE and NS (although a function will soon be built in to determine the browser and display the content accordingly).

That said, lets move on to size.

You index page is 7.89K, which means it'll load in about 5ish seconds, not including the images. I was able to cut your page size in half by removing unessesary code that frontpage adds. That's no big deal here, but consider this: Nick wanted to use frontpage to format our standards of practice for the web. It would have been approx. 70k, which translates into about 28 seconds of load time. The html for our standards of practice is only 28.7k, or 11 seconds (all these numbers are based on 28.8 modem... granted most people have faster connections, but I'm only connected at 38k right now).

Anyway, I don't know if I proved anything, but there's a lesson in some of the things you have to take into consideration when designing a site. Joe's site is simple enough, that with the exception of IE and NS 3.x (which barely anyone uses anymore), it looks fine. If you plan on having large amounts of content, you start to notice the difference in size, and when you make more complicated sites, you start to notice that they only look good on IE.

I think I'm going to shut up now Hope this was somewhat helpful.

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


[system]

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

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Chris,


You are always helpful. I do know that frontpage is notorious for including excess code. I also know that I could speed things up a little for the slower connections. Frontpage lets me know approximately how long it will take to load at the given 28.8 kbps. Most of those pages load at well under 30 seconds which is one of the reasons that I like using it.

BTW...over 95% of the hits on my site are using version 5 or better, IE or netscape. One of the big reasons that I like godaddy is because it does offer a stats page so you can track that sort of stuff.

I do absolutely agree with you that with a high content site such as NACHI.ORG it is better to go with a HTML guy such as yourself. Frontpage does not do a lot of things that you can without the frontpage extensions on the servers.

If you were to build a site like mine how much would you charge? Just for reference I paid $150 for the frontpage program plus $50 for the books bringing the cost up to $200. I do have to warn anyone that it took a considerable amount of time to create that site, so if you are short on time a HTML guy like Chris is the way to go.

Joe Myers

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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A site like yours would probably cost about $50-100 dollars (closer to $50). If you take into consideration that you can edit you site whenever you like, maybe more like $150 because of the coding involved with online editing, et cetera.


Here's my opinion. It's great to expand your horizons and learn new techniques in the tech field. If you want to learn how to design websites, thats great! Just don't do it to save a few bucks, 'cause it's going to cost you a lot more than you think. I spent almost all of today tinkering with my lawnmower. I got it working, and I feel pretty good about the fact that I did it myself, but if I had dropped it off at a shop and worked on a design project instead, I would have made more money in the end.

I'd just recommend that if you're going to do it yourself, either buy a real web development app (like Macromedia Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive!) and take the financial hit, or learn to code your own site. http://www.webmonkey.com is a great resource.

As for hits. We get almost exclusively Msie likewise. I think that that's least of the problems with frontpage, actually. Nonetheless, the statistics still remain that there are plenty of people out there that don't use Msie, or make an effort not to. I recently saw a library full of PC's running Netscape 4.7 (the absolute worst web browser ever designed), and there were plenty of people using it. All the sites that I host have access to stats like that, also. 132,842 of May's hits came from Windows XP users running MSIE 6.0.

When it comes down to it, Frontpage gets the job done, but when your roof is leaking, so does a bucket.

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


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Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko
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I knew that eventually this IT discussion would get around to leaky roofs.


Nick

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Originally Posted By: jremas
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All of you with websites, please add yourself to the following to increase your web presence. I started a new web-ring on an established website and you are invited. Please sign up and follow the diretions:


http://B.webring.com/wrman?ring=homeinspectionwe&addsite

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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: Nick Gromicko
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Thanks Jeff:


I added NACHI to your webring.

That gives me an idea. I'll make all the member's web addresses links on all our web-sites at http://www.nachi.org/domains.htm

Nick

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Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko
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Check out http://www.nachi.org/stats.htm End of year statistics are in. We almost got a million hits in June 2003, and that doesn’t even include the lead generation sites the association owns.


Nick

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Originally Posted By: chorne
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You guys are getting me excited! I don’t have a site,


however, I think that I am now interested.


Chris can you help me?

Thanks,
Carla

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Originally Posted By: jhorton
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I came in on this discussion a little late and I want to add my 2 cents. I am not opinionated on most matters but I am on very much so on web sites.


I think it is great that people do their own sites. I do mine and I have done some for others. Some as favors and some as paid jobs. (I am not looking for to do anyones on here!) I just feel that I have some knowledge in this area.

My one piece of advice is if you don't know how and you don't have some artistic taste, or if you wife has to tell you if your shirt and pants go together hire someone!

A bad web site is not better than no web site. If you are a professional your web site needs to look it too. When I go to badly designed or just very plain web site it does reflect on the company. Your site needs to look good and have good content on you site. Odds are your first site is not going to be that great. So let someone do yours and play and learn on a personal site or something. Then when you gain some knowledge you might want to redesign your business site yourself.

Next peeve is hard to navigate sites. To me next to content easy navigation is most important! I won't stay around a site that is hard to use unless it has some really good content.

So for you first timers think seriously before you do it yourself. The cost of having it done can be well worth it.

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Jeff <*\\><
The man who tells the truth doesn't have to remember what he said.

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Originally Posted By: Jonie Lynn
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Chris,


 please do me a favor? You seem so good at looking at sites, maybe you could judge the followig sites for me. Just a little comment here & there. Good or bad, i'l take it, just give it to me gently.

www.moldinspector.com
www.moldinspection.com
www.certifiedmoldinspectors.com
www.indoorpollution.com
www.moldmart.net

Hopefully you'd grant me this favor.
Thanks!

Jonie

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Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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Jonie,


In general the sites look good. They could use a little more in terms of art/photos in the design. The one comment I have about all of them is that the pages are too long. Split your sections up over separate pages so that the site doesn't look too crowded. http://www.moldinspector.com, for example, could be split into an intro page, a Q&A page, a "Mold Terms" page, and a links page. I'd also suggest having the links along the left not open in new windows, as they're still within your site.

The most important aspect of your sites is displaying the content in a way that's easy for people to navigate. Try to group items as much as possible, and then let people navigate via those groups. The sections you have along the upper left right now look good to me. Work with those, and perhaps set up a menu based on them:


Mold Inspector Home
Mold Clues
Product Catalog
Mold & Health
Mold in the Bible
Mold Training
Mold Inspection
Mold Testing
Mold Removal
Mold Scams
Legal Liability
Mold in the News

Then try to take the separate sections that are in each of those pages and make subpages. You can leave a "breadcrumb" if you like, so that when someone's at the index page, they see:

Mold Inspector Index >

And then when they navigate to the product catelog they see:

Product Catalog >

When they click on the mold test kit link, they see:

Product Catalog > Mold Test Kit >

Each link leading to the page it represents. This lets people easily know where they are, how to go back to where they were, and what section of your site they're navigating through.

Now, I don't want to help you out too much, or else I'd have to charge you  I hope this helps.

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


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Originally Posted By: Jonie Lynn
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Chris,


I really appreciate the help, plus I have to thank you for not charging me 

The suggestions and tips you gave are very helpful. I'll try my best to make the site look good and be easier to navigate in. Maybe one of these days i could make it as good as nachi.org or even better... when that day comes maybe i'd let you charge me for the help that is, if it comes!

Thanks a lot for the help!

Jonie Lynn A.
Dumaguete City, Philippines

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[system]

Originally Posted By: Chris Morrell
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One thing you could do is join NACHI

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–
Chris Morrell


Director of Information Technology


http://www.nachi.org/


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Originally Posted By: Jonie Lynn
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well i wanted to but was to lazy to read on how to and when i saw the message board i just got interested with the topics and jumped into the conversation. If I’m not wrong my boss is already a member (maybe).


Just in case, what do i need to join nachi?

Jonie Lynn A.
Dumaguete City, Philippines

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Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko
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The PHILIPPINES!


I'll personally pay for your NACHI membership. Just send or fax it in. http://www.nachi.org/join.htm

I would love to add another country to our list. We are already the largest geographically here on earth and Captain Russel Kirk has a NACHI Chapter forming in another galaxy somewhere.

Nick


PS "I shall return!" for those of you who are WWII buffs.

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Originally Posted By: Jonie Lynn
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Nick,


Thanks! Had I been an inspector, I would love to join especially if you'd pay for my membership 

Unfortunately, I'm no inspector, not even close. I maintain some inspector sites, though, but I am just a Filipino fresh grad with no plans to pursue a career in the Inspection biz. As far as I know, there aren't any or aren't many (if there are) home inspectors in the Philippines.

My interest in the home inspection biz is only for the company's good and not for personal ambitions or what. The inspectors in the web sites I'm working on are in the US  and I'm here in the Phils.

Jonie Lynn A.
Dumaguete City, Philippines

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