Just paid a deposit to get a new website professionally made

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DJ Ricky B

DJ Extraordinaire
Mar 9, 2015
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After years of doing everything myself with our web site, I finally have taken Taso's recommendations, and have selected a professional to build me a new website. I feel I have reached the knowledge limits in terms of building/maintaining the website, and SEO. Did what I could with what I learned over the years, and know the result.


They are also going to work on the SEO for me. He pointed out a lot of stuff that is wrong with my site. Also stuff that worked well 6 years ago, but does not work at all today. Also, apparently what my laptop shows me is different from how many others view the website. Even though GoDaddy tells me my site is mobile optimized, it is not truly mobile optimized as well.

It's going to be expensive, but hopefully the results will improve immensely!

I'm also going to end up cancelling other services to divert funds to this endeavor. My days on Gig Masters will certainly come to an end in December to help pay for the new site and SEO moving forward.

I'm suppose to have a new site up and running within 10 days. I'm a little skeptic that it will be completed in 10 days, but we will see. I have another phone call with him tomorrow to discuss things, and there will be another phone call next week as the website nears completion.

I was shown examples of other DJ's sites he has done. I'm looking to have a premium website with video animation on the front page. Moving to the high end web site look.
 
I think the new site is money VERY well spent for you. But to Steve's point - make sure the photo content is the same quality as the site itself. Good photos are key whether the site is as very simple design or something more elaborate.
 
I'm suppose to have a new site up and running within 10 days. I'm a little skeptic that it will be completed in 10 days, but we will see. I have another phone call with him tomorrow to discuss things, and there will be another phone call next week as the website nears completion.

I was shown examples of other DJ's sites he has done. I'm looking to have a premium website with video animation on the front page. Moving to the high end web site look.

You can literally have a site up and running in just hours. No one really designs from the ground up anymore. They start with a template, modify, add, and subtract elements and content. Even some of the basic SEO is auto-built from the input content.
 
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Hey ricky, i am really happy to hear of your decision to make this change. I think ouside of ones actual performance, this is in fact the best investment one can make. Making the site shouldn't take long so 10 days is realistically possible. What becomes time consuming is the wording and content... both the reading and visual type. What you want to say and how you want it expressed is crucial, and the photos and videos are just as much if not more crucial. Remember your wesbite must properly showcase who you are as a dj, convey what type of customer you want, what you in fact offer, what differentiates you, and where you are on the price spectrum (up to you if you want to include price), and that the content and info you offer and provide matchup with the pricepoint you're trying to sell at. Everyday I'd ask 5 or 6 people to look at my site and give me feedback and report to my designer with the changes needed, and ideas to discuss further.

Many say I have a nice site (I like it, but I know there's better out there)... the funny thing is, as proformance says... its really just a basic $50 template that my designers tweaked and made sure flow properly with fonts and colors and spacing. What made it stand out to everyone is actually the content, of which I spent a lot of time accumulating and editing. This is the time to reach out to any past photog and videographer you've worked with for footage, to contact brides and see if you can have access to they're online photo galleries or online vimeo videos that their videographer made. That's the content that's going to wow. And make it your goal to hire a videographer for 3 weddings to capture video for you and make a 60 second teaser.
 
No one can guarantee hits and visitors. Anyone claiming to do that is gonna fluff those numbers up with bots and irrelevant backlinks. It's a stupid marketing tactic they use to take your money. YOU have to do the work to get visitors by getting content on your site that people want to use. That's why videos on vimeo and youtube are important, facebook pages that you share content on are important too, as you want legit clients to potentially visit your site. Also the higher the price you pay, the more work they're putting in typically. I could have had my site www.djtaso.com for half the price if I made it all one page... but I paid double, because I wanted separate pages for my wedding and sweet 16's so that the user experience is better. I don't want weddings to see sweet 16 related wording and content and vice versa. I also say to be considerate of how much you are paying, because it has to be relevant to the product you need.

My site cost about $2000... no seo or anything like that guaranteed or provided. I paid for a specific look and flow that took about 2 weeks to make, followed by another week of tweaks. Since then, I do monthly updates to the content on my own. heres my site... www.djtaso.com

My friend's site cost NOTHING, other than $50 for the template and maybe another $50 for plug ins. www.djyorgo.com He didn't need more than one page, didn't need any special flows or coding to the site and didn't have as much content to showcase. His site is very good for his needs. He also used his personal time to learn how to make his site... something most (like myself) don't have or are unwilling to learn. Again his site is good mostly because of his visual content.
 
Good for you Ricky. I will say if the SEO is included in what you pay take it if not don't spent a ton of money on it do some reading and solve your own problem there
 
Good for you Ricky. I will say if the SEO is included in what you pay take it if not don't spent a ton of money on it do some reading and solve your own problem there

The SEO is included. He did not guarantee 1st place on google, but he showed me examples of other clients and where they are on google. Some were on page 1 #6, others where right near the top under the ad words ads.

Also, He said that Adwords do not work like they use to. Most people have caught on, and the click rate with most searchers to an adwords link is only about 15% now. 5 years ago, it was over 50%. That confirms why my adwords clicks are going down. Also google changed adwords so many times as well. He showed how my ad isn't showing up that often when people type of DJ related keywords which is why my clicks from there are down as well.

He also explained why the DJ companies that were showing up in those results 2 or 3 years ago are no longer showing up. They were not continually optimizing their SEO. They had it good for a while, but then let go on things, and google changed stuff around, and now they are gone from top rankings.

I am going to give this a try. It;s going to be expensinve, but I feel it's necessary otherwise 2019 will probably end up with the same, or worse outcome as 2018 has been for me, and I want to grow next year and beyond, not detract.

It's not going to be cheap. Initial investment over the next 5 months will be over $2,400. After that he will put together a monthly package rate which covers the continual SEO and small changes to the website. It's a hefty investment, but I hope it will be successful.

Also, if anything I hope that the new website ups my presentation game A LOT and in turns brings more interested clients just from that.
 
Alright, the new website is up. I don't have the animation done yet. Also need to obtain more professional photos to show case from photographers. May have to buy a better camera and do that part myself, but the new look is certainly refreshing!

www.bullesdeejays.com
 
Alright, the new website is up. I don't have the animation done yet. Also need to obtain more professional photos to show case from photographers. May have to buy a better camera and do that part myself, but the new look is certainly refreshing!

www.bullesdeejays.com

The formatting is fine - but it looks like you took a lot of the text and just ported it from the old website to the new one. It's VERY wordy, I think you could re-think the content to make it a bit more effective.

For example, you have a page called pricing and payments. But on that site, all I can find are your Friday/Sunday rates, deposit, and uplighting prices. It's fine if you don't want to post your full pricing menu... but having a page called "Pricing and Payments" probably isn't the best. And then especially if you're going to list pricing like this on another piece of the site:

Pricing on About Us.PNG

You've talked about how effective your videos are on YouTube... but you have to look hard to find them on your site. If something is working for you, make it more prominent!

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If I were to reframe all of this... I'd think about the main things you want people to see about you. Like.. on a sales call, what are the first couple of things you mention... and then hit people in the face with that stuff. Make it so that I don't have to guess where your good content is, and that I can just sort of flow through the page easily and learn what you want me to learn.
 
Site looks good so far!!

one caveat ...

...i truly mean no offense whatsoever... but the name of your company and the logo/font are bringing down a website and dj company with great potential

is that a new logo? new name branding? or has it always just been your last name?

i completely understand the sentimental value of your own name... but... it reads like bullies dj's... which would be a great name for WIFE dj's company...lolol...(just playing buddy)... but it and the poorly made logo really throw the brand off balance in my humble opinion... if you stick with the name....maybe put the Bulles on top with an elegent cursive font sitting on the word DEEJAYS in more of a block letter... but not the font your already using... it seems squashed and blurry

:pillyes:

cc
 
The Pricing and Payments site should probably be called "Our Packages" - and try to get all three packages horizontally on the first page instead of having to scroll all the way down to see them all.
 
Unless you ONLY cover Dundalk, MD, I would switch to an area of coverage for corporate work (greater Baltimore, East Baltimore, whatever .). ..

I also agree the logo really needs to be redone. The fonts are WAAYY too big and the rest just barely makes sense.
 
Just first glance, on the Our DJ pages, you have....

DJ Ricky with a phone number on the first line and a Top 200 Songs link at the bottom
DJ Terry has the number listed, then a Contact Us link
DJ Debbie does not have the number listed in the text but does have the Contact Us link
DJ Andy has the number listed then the Contact Us Link
DJ Rick has no number and a link to listen to his music with no way to contact, also, his bio starts with a thank you letter....