Hi Guys,

I have created a website for my business. I built it from a packaged program at Sam's Club called web.com. I decided to try it myself after getting a proposal for $15,000 from a website development company.

I feel that the site gets the points across but it is lacking a smooth professional appearance. I'll go to some of my competitors sites and am kind of embarrassed with what I built. I feel that some potential customers might get a negative impression of my company based on my web site.

I don't want to spend any more money on the site until I start to see a positive cash flow coming in. (This is actually more of my wife's opinion.)

If anyone could offer any thoughts or comments on how I can improve my website, I would really appreciate it. I have never created a site before and have been flying blind.

Thanks.

Bill

http://turbobid.net

PS. I am thinking of adding a user forum to the site. In my estimating program, users can create new assemblies. I would like them to be able to share what they have created with other users. Is this forum a template that I can purchase and use on my site?

I believe that the site is pretty OK. You may consider adding more pages and more content that is targeting particular keywords. See http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com and select and target relevant keywords.

One thing I have observed is that the image on the page is blurred. I think the compression ratio was too high. You may have to export the image again with a lower compression ratio.

As for setting up the forum, this forum uses vbulletin. The script is not free, however there are many free scripts available. vBulletin is currently the best. Free versions include snitz (based on ASP), simplemachines, Yabb and PHPBB. If you have a cpanel based linux web hosting account you can install simplemachines forum, Yabb and PHPBB with ease using Fantastico. There are free templates available as well for these.

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Thanks for your reply ncaditya.

I will look at adding more keywords.

I am not at all pleased with the site host. It is Site Builder by Web.com. I can't seem to get quality images regardless what I do. Their support is non existent.

I want to try to find a new host but I'm not sure if I can transfer the site that I built.

I also cannot determine if the Vbulliten will work with it.

VBulletin needs a webhost with support for PHP and MYSQL. These days, almost all web hosts support these.

If you want to switch hosts, I would recommend Hostgator. Lot many webmasters love hostgator. I currently host at these and think they are pretty cool. Never had any problem with them.

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Thanks. I will check them out.

Do you know if I can use the site that I have already created or will I have to start over?

You can transfer the domain name to the other host. Simply change the nameservers with the ones provided to you by the new webhost and the domain will point to the new webserver.

see: http://www.hostgator.com/tutorials/d..._namecheap.htm

As for the content, you could download the html pages + images to your hard disk and upload them to your new host using a ftp client like filezilla or cuteftp. Some hosts offer the free service of moving your sites.

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