Website for Review
http://www.allaroundthehouse.com

Additional Comments
Thank you in advance, for any comments on my site.  It's about 10 years old, has been redesigned only once, and I add extra articles when I have time.  It's intended to be an authoritative home inspection site, with the purpose of converting homebuying visitors to home inspection clients.  It's also intended to inform and assist real estate agents.

Hmm, just from a  2 minute glance I would be thinking about updating the layout - there are bits a pieces all over the place.
Plus a rewrite on some of the home page content...

Like I said it was only a 2 minute glance...

Hi! maybe you need a better looking layout. It seems cluttered. But wow! 10 years! Best of luck!

I think the site is a little misleading personally...

The site doesn't have a whole lot of information as a resource on home inspections, but it does a decent job of selling your services.

Considering you're only offering the service is a small region, the "source for home inspection info" just seems "to big" for you.

Why don't you change the logo & title of the website to your company's name & service?  Your company name & tagline are certainly better keywords than the "All Around the House" anyway too, so you'd probably see a nice increase in search engine rankings* by changing the site as well.

*Make sure you keep the focus on the region/areas that you serve.  Include your cities, etc. in your Titles, Meta Tags and throughout the site.

Hi

The US house market is alien to me so I will restrict comments to the look of the site, not the content.

I like the colour scheme and images, but there is just too much going on on the frontpage. There are too many sets of links to other parts of the site - one area should suffice.

I did really like your helpful information section - I would highlight this as it is a real strength. I would submit the articles to other sites to build links back to you.

Good luck in what I assume is a difficult market, judging by UK news reporting of the sub-prime situation.

Margaret wrote:

Hi

The US house market is alien to me so I will restrict comments to the look of the site, not the content.

I like the colour scheme and images, but there is just too much going on on the frontpage. There are too many sets of links to other parts of the site - one area should suffice.

I did really like your helpful information section - I would highlight this as it is a real strength. I would submit the articles to other sites to build links back to you.

Good luck in what I assume is a difficult market, judging by UK news reporting of the sub-prime situation.

Hi Margaret, and everyone else,

Thanks again, for your comments.  It's actually a Canadian site, however upon review I realize that's not immediately apparent.  I agree fully with everyone's comment upon the "busy-ness" of the home page.  It kind of grew up around itself over the years...  I've never had any professional assistance - just kept on tossing in bits with my WYSIWYG program (MS FrontPage 98 and now, 2003.)

(Everybody hates FrontPage, right?  LOL!)

It's interesting to note that you discovered the information section(s) whereas others apparently did not.  I wonder, is the blue "Homes A-Z" a little weak?  That area can be accessed also via the "Library" button and the upper-right text links, for example the lead article to the Library page entitled "Investment or Expenditure." 

But did everyone else find that difficult to locate...  not very evident? 

Thanks in advance, for any further comments you may have.  I do appreciate the opportunity to toss up this website for review in this fashion; it's a great opportunity to get a look in, from the outside.  I find I haven't an objective view of my own site, given that I already know where everything is located.  And I am trying to be objective as I can.

We aren't as much affected by sub-prime rates, however what we are affected by is a burgeoning home inspection industry with no real regulation, no licensing.  Proper certification is available and encouraged, however not yet mandatory.  Every dozen or so part-time "online graduates" of one dinky course or another deplete the market place for one full-time professional.  The inconsistency of the scope and quality of home inspections also tends to spoil the terrain.

It has been noted that my website doesn't take full advantage of the opportunity to stress qualifications and certifications.  I have found this angle less than helpful due in large to the great numbers of prospective home inspectors touting every manner of qualification, from goodness-knows-where.  The issue of qualifications is so muddied, so diluted...  the real estate community and homebuying pubic have no easy way to distiguish between substantial or bona-fide credentials, and whatever else flies around out there.

I liked Cory's observation regarding the site name and whether "online source" sounds too big for a local service.  The site name came before the .CA domain was available, and www.electrospec.com was already taken by a US company.  The All Around The House moniker was adopted in the early years, when we thought the site name had to match the domain.  We had all kinds of funny ideas back then...  we were also scared of long domain names.  The general wisdom was that long names were too confusing for people.  We stuck out like a sore thumb for a while, with www.allaroundthehouse.com.   Of course now, people are quite accustomed to reading long names.

I do now, have www.electrospec.ca and www.allaroundthehouse.ca hosted 
I don't push for traffic at these sites, because it's identical content, however the www.electrospec.ca is especially useful for imprint on other marketing materials.

The size and dimension aspect comes from the fact that I did have dreams of building a much larger business, encompassing a much larger geographic area.  That didn't work out first time around, and I had to pull in my horns for a while.  I guess the inferance does now, look a little silly for just one guy in business for himself.  (Oops.)

I do submit articles to a few places, and have collected a pretty respectable stable of backlinks.  The site ranking is good for a local service site.

Best regards,

Gil Strachan

Haven't posted as others have pretty much covered things, but I had to jump in here.

< >

electrospect wrote:

(Everybody hates FrontPage, right?  LOL!)

That's funny, The thing to remember is that FP is like any other tool. You just have to learn to use it. If you are using it then I say good for you. I use FP for my sites and like it. Our very own WaveShoppe uses it and likes it. I suspect there are a few others but they won't jump in and say so.

One of the best things about it is that it isn't overpriced like dreamweaver is. I fail to understand why anybody would spend so much money for a tool that doesn't do much more than a tool you can get for free.
</ >

I must say this about FrontPage vs. Dreamweaver.  I have used FP2000 and up.  This year upgraded to Expression Web since no more FP's available.  Learned a lot by using this. (has.css, layouts and a lot more)  Downloaded a full trial version of Dreamweaver on Monday this week because of all the hoopla about it.  Trial version expires in 26 days and I will not be using it again.  I find that I can do a lot more with my friend MS Expression Web.

ninak wrote:

I must say this about FrontPage vs. Dreamweaver.  I have used FP2000 and up.  This year upgraded to Expression Web since no more FP's available.  Learned a lot by using this. (has.css, layouts and a lot more)  Downloaded a full trial version of Dreamweaver on Monday this week because of all the hoopla about it.  Trial version expires in 26 days and I will not be using it again.  I find that I can do a lot more with my friend MS Expression Web.

I was thinking about buying ImpressionWeb sooner or later, since FP won't be supported beyond this coming year.  Also, ImpressionWeb is reportedly Web 2.0 and industry compliant.

I was just wondering if you experienced any difficulty in the transition?  I mean, what happens to you your FP website when you start working in ImpressionWeb?  Any notable difficulties?  Does the program convert an existing site?  How does that work?

Gil Strachan

Like previous reviewers I know nothing about Canadian housing, but I find the site fine - you have a lot of info to put across so you need lots of links. I would also have to say though that it is not easily evident exactly where you work - so maybe a bit more emphasis there