Website feedback

[Ian Haney]

I designed/built my computer/laptop repair website by myself quite a while ago now and just looking to get some feedback on it really to get a outside view on it and see if can do anything to improve it or add anything that could be worthwhile for visitors or add anything that would be useful

my site is https://www.it-doneright.co.uk

Thank you in advance

 

[Your PCMD]

looking to get some feedback on it

Are you sure about that? OK......

Too gray. Needs to pop with better colors. You About Us page is NOT about you or the company. It just explains what it is that you do, which is pretty much everything on your index page so why bother with a Services page?

Speaking of the index page. Its... just... too... loooooong...... Scrolling for days will just turn people off and perhaps go elsewhere. Just saying!

Its not WP - so I'll give that to you.

Just a blurry background for the header image. Pexels.com is your friend. The top menu is not aligned right, or did you design it or left the template CSS that way? Now the footer. Its all over the place and "looks" unorganized - to me. The use of engineer? Why not technician?

Obviously, all my comments are subjective and take them with a grain of salt.

In regards to your prices. You are cheap. Is that intentional? Demographics? Competition?

 

[Rosco]

is it $30.00 per month month for unlimited computers on the business plan? That is low even if it is one computer. The site is clean and well put together. The one thing is your might want to rethink your prices they seem low. I started off that way to show each repairs and a different price. To a long time to drop the tire kickers and working for peanuts. If you are too low the right people wont want to hire you.

 

[Ian Haney]

Thank you for the feedback, appreciate it. Does give me something to work on ti improve the website and overall look of it

I'll make the menu a better colour and also change the top header background image

I understand that regarding the about us page and will alter all of it and write about my personally and the company and not about what I do services wise

On the index page, I did originally have less content and it did start from where the three boxes were, the text I added in a week or 2 ago as thought it may help more with SEO

Thank you regarding it not being WP. To be honest I am not keen on WP

Regarding the top menu, I tried to make the text links center aligned and the menu center aligned

Regarding the footer, I admit it's not the tidiest and does need sorting to be more tidy, I don't see the word engineer, where about's is it so can change it as should be technician

Regarding the prices, I was bit unsure what to charge but do feel they are too cheap but things have been bit quiet and due to competition in the area charging roughly the same so thought it may help to put them as they are and was then going to increase the prices once start to get more work in

 

[Ian Haney]

is it $30.00 per month month for unlimited computers on the business plan? That is low even if it is one computer. The site is clean and well put together. The one thing is your might want to rethink your prices they seem low. I started off that way to show each repairs and a different price. To a long time to drop the tire kickers and working for peanuts. If you are too low the right people wont want to hire you.

I am not going to do business support anymore as never done any commercial work, the repairs I do get in are all domestic so am going to remove the business plans and prices and anything related to business work

I wonder if because the prices are too low that I am not getting a lot of work in.

 

[Your PCMD]

thought it may help more with SEO

Nope. The headers is where your SEO will be better than paragraph content.

To be honest I am not keen on WP

I like this guy

I don't see the word engineer

Bottom of the price list. Its the button.

Regarding the prices, I was bit unsure what to charge but do feel they are too cheap but things have been bit quiet and due to competition in the area charging roughly the same so thought it may help to put them as they are and was then going to increase the prices once start to get more work in

Understandable. However, if its the bottom feeders your after, leave it as it is. But, know that prices like that are in line with Craigslist &/or pizza techs. Not saying you are mind you. I used to be cheap when I started, but people will generally pay more for quality work. If you charge £30 for virus remediation and take 30 minutes, that fine. But if it takes you 2 hours, you are losing money IMO. Think of your prices as what you think you are worth and what your time is worth. You even said it yourself.

I wonder if because the prices are too low that I am not getting a lot of work in.

Commercial companies see cheap prices as not worth it or inexperience, just like residential see high prices as not worth it. You can offset that by charging lower for residential and higher for commercial, but you need to get the feel for a median price range. £30 virus removal for home users versus £100 for business is a drastic difference.

On a side note, what did you use for your shop?

 

[Ian Haney]

Nope. The headers is where your SEO will be better than paragraph content.

I like this guy

Bottom of the price list. Its the button.

Understandable. However, if its the bottom feeders your after, leave it as it is. But, know that prices like that are in line with Craigslist &/or pizza techs. Not saying you are mind you. I used to be cheap when I started, but people will generally pay more for quality work. If you charge £30 for virus remediation and take 30 minutes, that fine. But if it takes you 2 hours, you are losing money IMO. Think of your prices as what you think you are worth and what your time is worth. You even said it yourself.

Commercial companies see cheap prices as not worth it or inexperience, just like residential see high prices as not worth it. You can offset that by charging lower for residential and higher for commercial, but you need to get the feel for a median price range. £30 virus removal for home users versus £100 for business is a drastic difference.

On a side note, what did you use for your shop?

Sorry for just replying, was doing changes on the site, hopefully it is looking better now I have changed the colour of the nav menu and added a better background image in at the top and tidied up the footer

I found the word engineer on the prices page, thank you for spotting it as I missed it haha

I am just going to stick to residential customers I think and did think they would probably not pay a higher price for virus removal, I think I did I originally have it at £45 but reduced it to £30. It can take roughly around a hour or 2 at the most to do virus removal going by jobs I done in the past.

Regarding my shop I use opencart as really like it and is open source and easy to use and customise

 

[Markverhyden]

I am not going to do business support anymore as never done any commercial work, the repairs I do get in are all domestic so am going to remove the business plans and prices and anything related to business work

You might want to rethink that strategy. Many on here have been doing the opposite. Ramping down consumer and ramping up business. Unless your working on adding smart device repair. So many consumers, especially younger ones, don't really use a traditional computer at home.

If your skill set is lacking in that department there's a lot you can do that is free so to speak. You can download trial copies of Server OS's that'll run 180 days. I'm sure you've got a spare HD or two around you can swap on your existing desktop, assuming you have one. W10 Pro will run unactivated, just can't customize anything. Not sure if you can join it to the domain unactivated though.

If you have a fairly decent desktop, in terms of RAM, with 16gb you can do virtualization to play with things. ESXi has a free license. Virtual Box runs on M$ OS's. M$'s Hyper-V is free as well.

For networking many on here, myself included, like Ubiquiti. Industrial strength at consumer prices. Which mean you can pick up an AP for your own use and learn how to set it up. Then pitch that to businesses, even consumers.

 

[Ian Haney]

I have had a couple of calls in the past few days asking if I can repair Playstation 4's but can't do them and don't really get asked to do phone repairs, think I got asked once if I can repair a iphone but that was ages ago.

Just think it's so hard to get into a business to offer them repairs/support as most of them have got a IT support company already in place.

 

[Your PCMD]

You might want to rethink that strategy. Many on here have been doing the opposite.

Mark is spot on. I recently did that. I went from 95% residential and 5% business to 95% business and 5% residential and I could not be more happier. Granted I moved to more on the MSP side at about 90% and yes my jobs are fewer, but my profit is through the roof. I am currently doing my tax prep and in 2017 at the 95% residential I did roughly $70k for the year, but last year (2018) or yesterday at 95% business, I'm just over $160k.

Granted, it was not easy doing the convergence but well worth it. Months of planning, researching and strategizing. The only bad thing about it all was that I should have done it sooner.

 

[Ian Haney]

I'm not 100% on MSP as never done it before. I'll have to look into it, only downside I have is I don't drive

 

[glennd]

Just think it's so hard to get into a business to offer them repairs/support as most of them have got a IT support company already in place.

I'm not surprised. There are 8 other computer places within 10 minutes of you.

only downside I have is I don't drive

That's a big downside. So there's 2 major obstacles for you to figure out. I think the thing to do is to work out how to differentiate yourself from the rest. Don't pass up a job just because you think you don't know how to do it. Tell the customer frankly, "I haven't done that yet but I don't mind having a go. If I can't figure it out then nothing lost, no charge." ... and then learn like crazy. You may well stumble into an area that you're good at that no-one else is doing.

You seem to have an interest in building web pages. Have you promoted that? I like what you've done with your site, it's just that there's too much of it. It's like you reached the point where it's done and then kept going.

I see you also repair books? Oh, wait....

Regarding pricing: You should probably, at the least, set your prices on a par with those around you. Lower prices doesn't necessarily generate more work, it just makes you look cheap. The thing to do is to add value, go the extra mile so to speak. Get people talking about you because the service you provide is superior. For example, when a repair is complete, clean up the case, blow out the dust, wipe everything down and get it shiny again. Little things like this that don't have to take long but make a customer say, "wow is that my computer?"

 

[Ian Haney]

I'm not surprised. There are 8 other computer places within 10 minutes of you.

That's a big downside. So there's 2 major obstacles for you to figure out. I think the thing to do is to work out how to differentiate yourself from the rest. Don't pass up a job just because you think you don't know how to do it. Tell the customer frankly, "I haven't done that yet but I don't mind having a go. If I can't figure it out then nothing lost, no charge." ... and then learn like crazy. You may well stumble into an area that you're good at that no-one else is doing.

You seem to have an interest in building web pages. Have you promoted that? I like what you've done with your site, it's just that there's too much of it. It's like you reached the point where it's done and then kept going.

I see you also repair books? Oh, wait....

Regarding pricing: You should probably, at the least, set your prices on a par with those around you. Lower prices doesn't necessarily generate more work, it just makes you look cheap. The thing to do is to add value, go the extra mile so to speak. Get people talking about you because the service you provide is superior. For example, when a repair is complete, clean up the case, blow out the dust, wipe everything down and get it shiny again. Little things like this that don't have to take long but make a customer say, "wow is that my computer?"

Yeah is quite a few around me doing the same thing.

I would be worried that if I do have a go at a PS4 repair for example that I would end up making it worse and then get the customer complaining etc.

I did used to be a website designer but got so fed up with it as was becoming hard work getting clients as other places were offering it for silly prices and found work was becoming less as places around me started doing sites for £99 and was so often messed about from the customers I did get by not paying as they didn't have the money for it and other excuses and kept changing their mind or dragging it out and would be months at times before I heard anything back and just had enough of it

I did think about just designing/building websites for computer repair companies but not sure

I am not sure what others around me are charging but the one site I found who displays their prices are only £5 more than me and one of the services, I am £10 more than what they are

When I do get a repair in, I do clean the tower or laptop so looks nice and clean/shiny and clean the dust out

 

[Bryce W]

Site is pretty well put together. I have one recommendation though. The captcha field on the contact page isnt obvious. Just a long field with a few numbers on it. Do you want me to enter those numbers? is that the field label etc..?

I am not going to do business support anymore as never done any commercial work, the repairs I do get in are all domestic so am going to remove the business plans and prices and anything related to business work

As others have said, most people are going the other way. Migrating from residential to business as residential is getting a lot harder.
The marketing of business is a lot different to residential though, so you cant approach it with residential marketing.

Just think it's so hard to get into a business to offer them repairs/support as most of them have got a IT support company already in place.

Many of them are not happy with their current IT support too. So there are opportunities even if they already have a company in place.

I'm not 100% on MSP as never done it before. I'll have to look into it, only downside I have is I don't drive

Not driving is going to hurt you. I used to live in London so I know how fantastic British transport is, even out in the country. But you really need to be able to get out onsite, possibly hauling computers/network equipment etc..

That said, I also know how much of a premium cars and a place to park it is in the UK too.

As for the pricing, who is the more competent computer technician: The one who charges $50 or the one who charges $100?
That's the view a lot of people have towards cheap pricing.

 

[Ian Haney]

Site is pretty well put together. I have one recommendation though. The captcha field on the contact page isnt obvious. Just a long field with a few numbers on it. Do you want me to enter those numbers? is that the field label etc..?



As others have said, most people are going the other way. Migrating from residential to business as residential is getting a lot harder.
The marketing of business is a lot different to residential though, so you cant approach it with residential marketing.



Many of them are not happy with their current IT support too. So there are opportunities even if they already have a company in place.


Not driving is going to hurt you. I used to live in London so I know how fantastic British transport is, even out in the country. But you really need to be able to get out onsite, possibly hauling computers/network equipment etc..

That said, I also know how much of a premium cars and a place to park it is in the UK too.

As for the pricing, who is the more competent computer technician: The one who charges $50 or the one who charges $100?
That's the view a lot of people have towards cheap pricing.

I have made a label for the captcha now so hopefully is clearer what to do with it.

What is the best to get into for business IT support, MSP has been mentioned, is there anything else to look at to get into for the business IT support side of it.

Just is the downside of not being able to drive that I think will hurt me and slow me down.

 

[nerd2u]

There is a book called MSP in a month I forget who wrote it I'll look when I get home it was a good read

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[Ian Haney]

There is a book called MSP in a month I forget who wrote it I'll look when I get home it was a good read

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

Thank you really appreciate it

 

[Your PCMD]

There are 8 other computer places within 10 minutes of you

Then here is my advice for @Ian Haney, don't advertise your prices. If you have that many shops around you, then I'll bet they probably know of you and are hitting up your site, looking at your prices, and undercutting you.

So when you get a call from a potential customer, don't tell them any price, instead, simply say "I'll have to have a look at &/or diagnose it to give you a quote." That will do 2 things for you. 1, get the client in the door where you can at least get a diagnostic fee and 2. eliminate the bottom feeders &/or the competition scouting you for prices.

 

[Diggs]

Woa! Don't push anyone towards the business side of things without the requisite background of domain controllers, active directory, group policy, Exchange servers, networking (layer 3 switches) and firewalls, etc. Quickest way to get a bad reputation is to go into businesses unprepared. Most techs in this area have mentored under a couple of good IT admins before attempting to service their own. People have their lives and livelihoods (payroll, assets, debts) on those computers. Be sure it's right and you are insured. (Personally, I don't like the stress of supporting businesses so I tend to residential and home offices.)

 

[Ian Haney]

Then here is my advice for @Ian Haney, don't advertise your prices. If you have that many shops around you, then I'll bet they probably know of you and are hitting up your site, looking at your prices, and undercutting you.

So when you get a call from a potential customer, don't tell them any price, instead, simply say "I'll have to have a look at &/or diagnose it to give you a quote." That will do 2 things for you. 1, get the client in the door where you can at least get a diagnostic fee and 2. eliminate the bottom feeders &/or the competition scouting you for prices.

Would that be a good idea as did read online that it's good to display prices on a website to give customers a idea. I agree though with competitors could be on my site and undercutting me.

Regarding the diagnostic fee, is £15 reasonable and is it best to get that when they drop off and then deduct it from the final repair cost?