The article on responsive website design [“Get Responsive With Your Website,” online only, suggests that professional help is needed to make your website work on various devices, such as desktops and smartphones.
I have a WordPress site that I put together myself, without any help from a website designer or SEO magician. I worked from a free template, though I do pay a little extra for ad-free pages and for a package that gives me different fonts, backgrounds, and more. I post “Job Profiles” and other stories to my WordPress blog and have set up the page carefully with keywords and auto robot text (all under “Tools”).
Another free tool in the WordPress platform allows you to optimize your site for mobile devices. Mobile searchers—whether they are on an iPad or an Android device—love my site, and I have pictures of jobs rotate as headers that are tagged too. For about $160 or so a year, my site appears as one of the top listings organically in Google—my tile-deck page receives ranking as the top or close to it on all search engines.
The key to my success is having a clean site without typographical errors and posting lots of pictures of what I do accompanied by clear descriptions of each photo. My site also has a “contact me now” VIP box, so I get emails on my smartphone; when I receive one, I typically call the client within 30 minutes. I keep thinking I should quit being a contractor and start doing websites on WordPress for contractors ... maybe I’d make more money.
Bill Leys centralcoastwaterproofing.com
Arroyo Grande, Calif.
