Posted by Jersey_Boy on 8/16/06 8:44am
Msg #138889

Opinions Pretty Pretty Please

I am now pondering the idea of creating a professional website for my notary business. I secured the domain name quite a while ago, and now I am in the process of getting things started. I am a little afraid because I don't have a clue about running a website, and to get it done for you can be a little pricey...

My question is.... For those of you who do have a business website, have you noticed a difference in the number of calls for services? Are the people finding your site through google, or are they clicking on a link from your Not Rot profile? Any suggestions?

Any and all opinions are appreciated....

Reply by BrendaTx on 8/16/06 9:47am
Msg #138901

I get many calls from having a website. Google finds me. And, you'll notice that NR is at the TOP of the page, too.


http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2006-13,GWYA:en&q=college+station+notary

Reply by PAW on 8/16/06 9:53am
Msg #138903

I've had my own website for just about every business I've been involved with. Today, to be in business, if you want to be competitive, you need a website. However, let me qualify that for THIS business. For the NSA, you really don't need a website as the Signing Services, title companies and lenders will not be scouring the internet looking for NSA's. Having said that, I have had a couple of title companies review my website AFTER the initial contact and my providing the contact information. What my website has done, is provide for general notary work. The calls aren't busting the door down, but I do get a few each month for general work. And, I have picked up two new attorney offices who were looking for notaries to supplement their offices.

Please view my profile and then my website. That's the way many others have done it too. Plus, I do advertise (free sites) my website as well as provide reciprocal business links as well as notary links. My pages (including the links page and the Notary/Signing Agent Webring page) appear on the first page on many, many queries to Google, Yahoo, MSN, Excite and others.

Reply by Gary_CA on 8/16/06 10:00am
Msg #138907

Save some money

An imperfect website is better than none at all... and being found on google is about the text, not the beauty... so here's whatchya do.

Fiddle around on google a bit, search for "Notary Mytown" and for "Notary Othertown" and make a short list of sites you like that are in positions 1-5...

Write all your specifics in a word doc. Phone numbers names all that. Proofread it twice and then once more.

Then go find a starving student webdesigner and give him the word doc and the names of your top three choices and tell him "make me one like that" Simple, easy, no creativity. No flash, no music no fading graphics, video, none of that crap.

You can probably get this done for a benji, 3 at most.

Reply by Ernest__CT on 8/16/06 1:33pm
Msg #138955

Oh, oh. Careful!

"An imperfect website is better than none at all." Caution! An "imperfect" Site can turn people off. Please see all the other Posts about bad spelling, too many (unrelated) graphics, and broken links.

A SIMPLE Site is better than none at all. Just make it as close to perfect as you can.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 8/17/06 2:54pm
Msg #139119

Re: Oh, oh. Careful!

I agree. I also recommend being careful to not copy someone else's work. Very bad form, bad karma, not nice, and it goes downhill from there. There was a big brouhaha here about that a while back, too.

Reply by Charm_AL on 8/16/06 10:37am
Msg #138915

If you want to know what I went thru - call me later on this afternoon, before 4
Glad to be sane