Web site reviews and advice

[BryanEx]

After reviewing close to 600 maple web sites in the past few weeks I noticed quite a few common issues on maple producer web sites that hurt their site's presentation either to the customer or Google. Some of these problems included poor or missing meta descriptions, poor navigation, no contact information, and one even spelled their business name incorrectly on their main page. If anyone is interested I'd be happy to take a look at your web site and offer any suggestions I may have or let you know if you've done better than I could have. I am not a professional webmaster... but I'm not bad at it either and know my way around both html and php (pretty clueless at flash though - sorry). Just thought I'd offer in case the interest is there.

[BryanEx]

I've had 6 Maple Traders take me up on this offer so far but they were all done through the private message system. FYI - they were all excellent sites and the only thing I could suggest to a few of the owners were minor Google adjustments. I would like to do at least one on the message board so others can see the types of things I'm looking at. If you are up for it just post your link and let me take a look. Anything I suggest is just that... a suggestion.

[ennismaple]

Bryan,

Have a look at www.ennismaple.com

I haven't spent much time on it recently so any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks a bunch.

[upsmapleman]

Feel free to look at Mine. I have not updated it for a couple of years.
www.millersmaple.com

Dale

[red maples]

Yeah sure I know I have some issues with mine. Email contact info for one I need a form. I haven't really had any time to sit down and figure things out beacuse I can do it it just takes me a bit longer to do. and I am not the best at grammar so I need to have my wife check everything out for me. But feed back is good. thanks

[BryanEx]

Have a look at www.ennismaple.com
I can't seem to pull up your site today. I tried this morning and again this evening but no-go. I know it's there because I've seen it enought times in the past. I'll move on to millersmaple and keep trying ennismaple in the mean time.

[NH Maplemaker]

I'm having the same problem also! I also tried last night. Jim L.

[BryanEx]

Okay upsmapleman... you've done many things with your web site VERY well but there are a few that should be addressed when you have time to "play computer". I'll start from a consumer point of view;

Your header is excellent and carries across all pages. I can get to any page from any page and same goes for your footer. I also like the rotational graphic menu you have on your main page but the text to the right of it needs to be squared up and widened. It looks awkward with each paragraph being different widths and hard to read for the second one (see attachment 1). I would also address the line "Please visit our store any time" because I thought that meant online store. If you have a retail front make it big and bold on your main page. While you are working on this section update your open house dates. 10 months is way too long to leave this if it's an annual event. In the middle section of your main page you have three images - 2 from the 2004 farm show and another from Almost Home which is a link. These three images are taking up way too much real estate on your most important page. Make them all the same size in height and have them line up in a row straight across the page so they do not take up so much room. They are important but not enough to take 1/3 of your main page. Down at the bottom of your main page I like the sugar shack image and the footer links are perfect. I would drop the extra email link though because you have a contact link at the top and bottom of every page which is perfect and all you need. Given that you are using paypal what I would suggest is to keep the maple leaf graphic and see our catalogue link, center it directly above the sugar shack image (which should also be centered) and include both the text and graphic as the link. Directly below the graphic add the Paypal sign up link but shorten it to simply "Sign up with Paypal" and have it as it's own link. Right at the very bottom is your copyright. Legally it has no bearing on anyone's claims but what it does serve as is an indication on whether the web site has been ignored or is actively administered and if you use a date range as you have it shows longevity. I will point out that the date range covers the content production date (text & photos) and not how long your web site has been online. If one of the photos on your site was taken in 1995 and you own the copyright your date range should be 1995~2011. Your copyright notice is 2 years out of date given it shows as 2002-2009 .

For your "About Us" pages you are on the right track but the multiple pages (Continue) is not the way to go. Make all this info and images one page, shorten up the early history stuff and keep the current info pretty much as is. I recommend changing the file names of the photos used in this section to meaningful names like collecting_sap.jpg instead of dale2.jpg for example (that's a Google thing) but the big thing for me personally is that I clicked on 4 links before I could figure out if I could come and see how things were done at Miller's Purely Maple. It may be only me, I doubt it, but many maple producers do not make it clear right up front if they are open to visitors and/or sell on location.

"Our Products" should be a regular html sales page. You have an impressive range in products and a large production scale. Use this page to "sell" each item with descriptions and photos. Link from there into your Paypal store instead of trying for the sale right away.

Your "Events" page is good but be sure to keep it up to date. Add as many links as you can into the text and especially if they link back to you (another Google thing). I would also say there is no need for the email link to the right of the sap bucket photo below the event listings.

"Contact Us" is really good but I would add the basics as the first section - Business name, mailing address, phone number, & email... then all the rest you already have.

Your "Ordering" page is very good but it doesn't say how to buy your syrup in person. Maybe add your store info under the credit card info if you don't have enough room for a fourth column or put it as a main paragraph above everything else. After all, we all prefer cash in person sales. ;)

Part 2 - Google. You are rocking! Your meta keywords and description are perfect. Google results for Miller's Purely Maple filled an entire page with the first 3 results being direct links. The only suggestion other than renaming a few photo files would be to drop the "Welcome to" in your main page title. The page title is what appears on someone's bookmark or favorites list if they save your site and often the names used are too long or do not make sense. Your title is good but I would drop the Welcome part to save room and not create a long-ish named bookmark. It's a minor thing and only my opinion... as is everything else above. I truly hope that helps and not hurts because it is my intention to help those that want a better web presence.

[BryanEx]

red maples... I'll tackle yours tomorrow evening unless I can access ennismaple before then. Either way I will get to everyone in order that they volunteer for a review.

... besides, I think you just want to rub that gorgeous sugar shack in my face yet again. :razz:

[Sugarmaker]

Brian,
I am always interested in constructive advice. But I believe my web master has used flash to build it so, any thoughts in general might help. Maybe like a lot of other folks I don't maintain mine as much/often as I thought I was going to.
Regards,
Chris

[upsmapleman]

WOW. Thanks for the in depth review. I admit I have let the site slip the last couple of years. The good news is we have done very well with it as far as business. It has exceeded our expectations. Again thanks very much and we will look at ALL you suggested and improve it in whatever way we can.

Thanks,

Dale Miller

[BryanEx]

Dale... I'm really curious as to how the online stores do for maple producers. Would you mind sharing in a percentage form what your sales are online versus in person or other sources?

I hope you get some ideas and suggestions from my review, just keep in mind that I am no longer professional and they are only suggestions based on my person opinions and knowledge. I believe in what I say but it does not mean you need to as well.

[shane hickey]

I have notice alot you guys have a web site, do these cost money? If they do how much? shane

[BryanEx]

Brian,
I am always interested in constructive advice. But I believe my web master has used flash to build it so, any thoughts in general might help. Maybe like a lot of other folks I don't maintain mine as much/often as I thought I was going to.
Regards,
Chris

Chris... I'll do the best I can with your site but I'm really in the dark when it comes to flash. I'm not familiar with how Google handles it and I'm not familiar with the programming or limitations. I'll do some research first but I won't know as much about what's going on as I did with upsmapleman or the others I've reviewed through PM.

[Sugarmaker]

Bryan,
Dont spend to much time.:)
I am just a user of computers not a web-guy or a programmer.
Thanks,
Chris


Chris... I'll do the best I can with your site but I'm really in the dark when it comes to flash. I'm not familiar with how Google handles it and I'm not familiar with the programming or limitations. I'll do some research first but I won't know as much about what's going on as I did with upsmapleman or the others I've reviewed through PM.

[BryanEx]

I have notice alot you guys have a web site, do these cost money? If they do how much? shane

Usually they do but how much really varies shane. The thing I recommend to EVERYONE is to buy your domain name first. To register a domain name costs $9 / year and up depending on where you buy it. The next thing you need is hosting. You can get free hosting at sites like http://www.000webhost.com/ which works quite well without any ads or banners on your site and they have free templates to help design your site or you can pay for hosting which gives you more speed, options, and tools. Then you need to design your site/ You can do this from templates and just edit them to suit your business or start from scratch. If you pay someone to design your site and don't know how to do it yourself you will be paying every time you need it updated,

If you want to try out a web site but not spend any money check out http://wordpress.com/. They will host it, they provide the content manager, you don't even need a domain name, and it's free.

[shane hickey]

thank you I will have my wife try that not that good on the computer yet
shane

[upsmapleman]

You ask about sales for our web site. We are only a small business. I work full time and do maple on the side as do most of you. We do have sales of about 50K a year. Of that about 20% comes from shows. (3) 30 to 40% from internet sales, and the rest from our store. We average a little more than a order a day 365 days a year. Most orders are in the 40 to50$ range not including shipping. The orders off the internet are sales we wouldn't have if we didn't have a site. Like any other business you build up loyal customers and our business grows. I think it has become clear keeping a web site fresh is the challenge.

[ennismaple]

I can't seem to pull up your site today. I tried this morning and again this evening but no-go. I know it's there because I've seen it enought times in the past. I'll move on to millersmaple and keep trying ennismaple in the mean time.

Crap - it is down. I'll let you know when its back up.

Thanks for your help.

[BryanEx]

Of that about 20% comes from shows. (3) 30 to 40% from Internet sales, and the rest from our store. We average a little more than a order a day 365 days a year. Most orders are in the 40 to50$ range not including shipping.
Wow! I'm really surprised about that but good for you. It's not worth my while to offer online sales given my business model but I'm almost shocked by the amount you are selling online. As an uneducated guess I would have said half that much in a good year. Thanks for sharing that info upsmapleman.


Crap - it is down. I'll let you know when its back up.
:lol: yep... web sites are a lot of fun and can often be like a 2 year old. Let them out of your sight for just a minute and poof... they're gone. I'll keep trying your link each day and when I get it I'll do a review on ennismaple for ya.

[ennismaple]

I doubt it'll be up soon my webmaster & host (bro-in-law's GF) is out of the country right now. I'll let you know when she gets it fixed.

[red maples]

Shane if you want inexepensive and pretty easy to use, and excellent customer service try godaddy.com. If I ever have questions I just call them and they are there 24/7 and help is always free. it all depends on what to do with your site is what you will pay. obviously the more you have the more $$ it will cost you. for what I have I think it is around $75 a year. and advise from bryan is great becasue if you pay a web master to do your site it can cost a ton of money!!! (thanks again bryan) I need to do a little work on mine which I know I have to redo photos and stuff and a few things I want to add a shopping cart and a few other things but I am just want to get the feed back from bryan first. And want to try to make navigating a little more easy. But it will get there.

Just one thing to look out for is make sure you renew your domain name on time. There are people waiting for expired domains they buy em up and then charge the original owner to buy it back and they charge a premium. I have a friend that that happened to. So becareful.

Yes the sugarhouse is beautiful but I wish it were bigger!!!:rolleyes:

[BryanEx]

Red maples & Mapleandhoney... I have both your site reviews done but can not post more than a sentence or two without getting a server error. I've passed along the info to Mapleman3 and will post them here as soon as I can post. :rolleyes:

[red maples]

thank you sir, looking forward to it!!!

[BryanEx]

Chris... as I stated in an earlier post I am not familiar with flash web site coding at all so my review may be a little lighter than others I've done.

Starting from a consumer point of view I think your web site is great. While I never recommend someone use a sound file on their site, yours does perfectly suit your product line and is limited to only the intro page so I'm cool with that. Navigation, information, and presentation are all good. I found it informative and easy to find what I was looking for and none of the flash pages took an annoying amount of time to load. A couple of issues that did catch my attention...

On your directions page I (as a buying customer) would like a way to print the driving directions so I don't have to write them out by hand. I wasn't able to just print them nor could I copy and paste into notepad.

In both your Maple and Honey sections you state "we can ship maple and honey just about anywhere in the world'... but how do I order? For that matter, it doesn't tell me how to buy your products even if I live just down the road from you. This info may be in your Products section and I did not see it because you are apparently out of stock right now. Either way you need how to buy right up front somewhere and don't be afraid to repeat it on other pages. We are in business... so ask for the business.

One thing I always want to know is if I can visit and what I need to do to come see. You have an events page and it's updated for 2011 so good on you for that and that at least gives me some info to work with. If you are open to families coming out to see maple or honey production at other times make that known as well because it's also good at picking up new regular customers. People really like to buy from people they feel they know.

On your links page you have three dead links and one buries you in pop up windows. Get Waterloosmall out of there ASAP and the other two are Amherst Maple Festival & Lapierre. Lapierre isn't really a dead link as much as a redirect. Just update that one to the new web address. I would also like to see a short statement under each link to explain what it's for.

Leader Evaporator
Maple equipment sales

Man Lake Bees
Bee keeping supplies

Sugarbush Info
Sugarbush directory

etc.

Thanks for the link to Sugarbush.Info btw! Much appreciated.

While you are tuning up the ol' web site it's time to update the copyright notice. I know we're only a week into 2011 but thought I'd just remind you it's time.



As far as Google goes I did some homework on this. It used to be that flash based web sites were not indexed very well but that has since changed. Google sees your web site just fine along with all text and links. The main difference is that Google does not see multiple pages. As far as Google is concerned a flash web site is just one very large single page which explains why your site is only listed once if I search "maple and honey". The good news is that you are listed first but I also noticed there was no description under your link (see attachment). Usually the description comes from meta information in the header or from the first few lines of text on the web site. Ask your web designer about this one because I'm not sure how best to do that for flash.

Speaking of your web designer / webmaster ... they have done an excellent job at SEO (search engine optimization). As I was searching various keywords looking for maple links your site came up in the listings over and over again and your domain name couldn't be better. I didn't look up your WHOIS info to check but if you renew your domain name each year really consider renewing for 2 or more years at a time. A solid domain name like that is a keeper and Google really likes to see a commitment on domain registrations given there are so many cyber-squatters out there these days.

I hope that helps Chris and as always just pick the parts you and/or your webmaster agree with.

Red maples... still trying to post your review but no luck yet. Still getting a server error.

[Sugarmaker]

Bryan,
Thanks you very much for taking the time to do these reviews! I will pass on this constructive information and review to my web master.
Regards,
Chris

[BryanEx]

Bryan,
Thanks you very much for taking the time to do these reviews!
It's my pleasure... and a whole bunch of opinion. Use what you can Chris.


Brad... I'm still trying to post yours. I have it saved as a text file but I'm still getting a server error when I try to post on Maple Trader.

[BryanEx]

Marty... I see Ennis Maple Products is back online so let's see if I can post yours.

Your site is a fantastic example of what can be done with Wordpress http://wordpress.org/ . I
really liked your layout, content, colours, and the way the header photo changed as the pages
changed or reloaded. It's hard enough to find a long panorama type photo that looks good let
alone several of them that suit your site. The "News Box" in the upper right side is perfect - a
quick and easy way to keep the latest info or what's going on highlighted. Navigation was good
with all sections I would expect to be there with appropriate content on each. There is a small
error on your links page though and funny enough it's for Maple Trader. The link is trying to
access http://www.ennismaple.com/www.mapletrader.com which is both your site and Maple Trader put
together. This is usually caused by leaving out the http: portion of the link coding. Perhaps
it's on purpose but I'd also like to see a mailing address listed on your contacts page. I
took a look at your .pdf newsletter and it's fantastic! Great layout, design, and content and
very suitable for mailings or other general promotions. Whomever did that was very good at it
indeed. As seems to be the case for so many maple producer web sites though, I have the same two
questions after viewing your site; how or where do I buy your syrup and can I come see it being
made? Your site does not answer either of those as far as I could find. I don't know if you
want to be bothered with it but online sales may also be worth considering given the sales
figures already quoted earlier in this discussion.

My biggest concern with your site is it's absence in Google search. I searched Ennis Maple
Products and only returned a single direct link and it was straight to your pdf newsletter... which completely
bypasses your main web site. There were many links returned that referred to your business but none to your site
directly and I went back 45 pages looking for them. I noticed there was no meta description or keywords included
in your site header but Google should have at least picked up some text from your site. I really recommend
chatting with your webmaster about some SEO (search engine optimization) efforts because as-is, people
searching for Ennis Maple Products are being sent to TryCanada.com or HarvestOntario.com. You should likely start
by submitting your site to Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
What all this boils down to is your site design and content is great but needs a bit of business
and marketing attention to realize it's full potential in my opinion.

Oh... one more thing. Your web site refers to being your "new" web site. If you had an old one and other sites had linked to it be sure to update all those links. That will certainly help with Google as well.

- Bryan

[BryanEx]

Okay red maples... Willow Creek Sugarhouse is up next.
http://www.willowcreeksugarhouse.com.

Really nice design and presentation for your web site and once again, your sugar shack is gorgeous. One of the first things I want to know is "can I come visit?" and your very first paragraph answers that - If you see steam we're makin' syrup. Please stop in and taste warm fresh maple syrup straight out of the evaporator. The only thing that caught my attention is your navigation bar across the top. On my computer at least the maple leaf icon and the text for each menu item are touching and it looks a little crowded (sample 1). If you can not just add a space in there you can use
  as the web site version of using the space bar on your keyboard. A web site will only show a single space no matter how many times you hit the space bar unless you hard code each one. I would also suggest bumping the Photos link a little further down your menu bar to keep your most important stuff right up front- between What's Happening and Recipes for example.

Your Photos page is fine but I'd like to see it expanded a little more. Don't go crazy with it but show a few other aspects of making syrup at Willow Creek - collecting, boiling, bottling, & final product. The two photos you have on the left side are touching each other but the two on the right have a nice spacing - the right side looks much better. You should edit the actual file names for your photos to something descriptive instead of the digital camera dscn0363.jpg. I noticed the evaporator photo on your main page was the same way. Rename it evaporator1.jpg or something like that and same for any other photos you use on the site. Photo names help with Google image search but more importantly they add keywords and credibility to what Google indexes on your site.

Your About the Syrup page is good also but I really recommend bumping the Problems paragraph all the way down to the bottom and certainly after your sales portion. I would even rename it if you can. Problems just sounds a little too harsh and negative in my opinion.

I have no issues with your What's Happening page. I think it's fun, entertaining, and informative but don't be afraid to mix things up here from time to time. After all... it is a "what's happening" page and not a what happened page.

Recipes pages is perfectly done. Looks really nice with each recipe archived instead of them all written out making for a very long page as most seem to do. Bravo!

My feeling is that the Links, credits, & contact page should be divided into two different pages - one for links & credits and one strictly for contact info. Most web users are used to looking for a separate Contact Us link for email and address info and normally in the top right corner. The links you've chosen to include are well suited for your site but I think there should be at least some description of what each link is for.

For example;

www.Sugarbush.Info (http://www.Sugarbush.Info)
The North American Sugarbush Directory
(which is not included there by the way.) :lol:

You said in an earlier post in this thread you wanted to add a contact form and I wonder why? If you are getting hit big time from spammers I understand but otherwise I really prefer an email address myself. It allows me to contact you in a form I'm familiar with using my own email client rather than filling in a bunch of boxes and sending it off to the unknown. One more thing, you have a typo in the Work "Links" just below the sugarshack photo (sample2) and there should be a comma after word "credits".

The Guestbook link is up to you. You currently have 2 entries both of which are over a year old. Guest books can be fun, a pain, or just take up space. I would much rather see the far right link changed from Guest book to Contact Us. On your contact page have a single paragraph telling people how and where to buy your syrup followed by your business name, mailing address, phone number, & email. From your site I could not figure out how to actually buy your maple syrup and that needs to be fixed for sure. Do I call, just stop by your address, find you at a farmers market, or do I have to know you to get some?

One thing I think is very important but easy to fix is your Home page title. In your web page coding near the top you will find the following coding;

<title>Home Page</title>
You need to change "Home Page" to "Willow Creek Sugarhouse" and here's why... when someone adds your site to their favourites or bookmarks it will simply show as "Home" with no indication of what the link is for but more importantly, when they save another web site that is also titled "Home" it will over-write yours and you are no longer on their favourites list. Home is the most common name used for main pages either because it seems to make sense when you design your site or from being the default text in many templates. When I was working on the links for Sugarbush.Info I had to keep editing the site name as Home1, Home2, Home3, etc so they would not cancel each other out. At one point I had 23 "Home" links on my list to check out with no indication of what any of them were for. Btw... the second most common title is actually "Untitled".

While you are editing this section also add to your meta description and add a meta keywords section. Currently you have;
<meta name="description" content="Home Page"/> Change this to something like;

<meta name="description" content="Willow Creek Sugarhouse located in East Kingston, New Hampshire. Please stop in and taste warm fresh maple syrup straight out of the evaporator."/> The text you use will become the description Google uses for your link. Right below your description add another line for keywords like this;

<meta name="keywords" content="Willow Creek Sugarhouse,maple syrup,evaporator,sap,New Hampshire,syrup,maple,sugar shack,taps"/>
Pick your own keywords based on what people are most likely to search for to find you. Keywords can be either single words or short phrases so there is a difference between "maple" "syrup" listed as separate words and "maple syrup" being listed as a phrase. All keywords or phrases get separated with a comma but no spaces after each comma and you can repeat the good ones up to three times.

Over all your web site presents very nicely and it's something you should be proud of. Most of what I covered in my review is to strengthen the business presence of your site with some minor adjustments for the end user... your customer. Very nice web site Red Maples! As always, just my opinions based on my own personal experience and knowledge. Feel free to only use what both you and your webmaster agree on.

With the posting of this info I believe I'm finally caught up on everyone that wanted their web site reviewed. If anyone else wants feed back just post the link here and I'll share my thoughts as I have with the others.

[BryanEx]

Just one thing to look out for is make sure you renew your domain name on time. There are people waiting for expired domains they buy em up and then charge the original owner to buy it back and they charge a premium.
A lot has changed over the years with regards to expiring domain names. I start receiving regular emails reminding me to renew starting from 90 days prior to the expiry date.

Contrary to popular belief, domains no longer expire when they say they do. If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into expired status. For 40 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut off, but the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee. If a domain enters this period the owner can re-register without penalty.

After 40 days are up, the domain’s status changes to redemption period which lasts another 30 days. During this phase, all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is currently around $100, depending on your registrar.

Finally, after the redemption period, the domain’s status will change to locked as it enters the deletion phase. The deletion phase is 5 days long and on the last day the name will officially be available for registration by anybody. This whole process takes about 75 days after the official expiry date.

Another note on domain names, Google and some security software take a domain name that is registered for more than one year at a time far more seriously than one that is year-to-year because so many people and companies just buy names hoping someone else wants them. By registering for 2,3,5, or even 10 years you show you are serious about sticking around a while and that your web site is legitimate and that will help your Google placement.

[SeanD]

The thing I recommend to EVERYONE is to buy your domain name first. To register a domain name costs $9 / year and up depending on where you buy it. The next thing you need is hosting. You can get free hosting at sites like http://www.000webhost.com/ which works quite well without any ads or banners on your site and they have free templates to help design your site or you can pay for hosting which gives you more speed, options, and tools.

Hey Bryan,

Thanks for all the info about web sites. It seems like there are a million places to register domain names including the webhosts themselves. Is there one, central registry we should get the domain name at. How do I know some of these are for real?

Thanks,
Sean

[BryanEx]

Great questions Sean! A company that wants to register domain names has to put a huge amount of cash "on deposit" before they can do business. The amount is over 1 million dollars I believe. Because this money is on deposit it guarantees the long term security of your domain name. Most web hosting companies that offer domain registration simply farm it out to one of these companies and take a small percentage of the revenue as an add-on to their hosting fees. Go Daddy is inexpensive but not the cheapest and they do offer a ton of services for people just starting out. I register through my hosting company but they just act as a front for a registrar set up to do just that. Generally speaking 10 bucks or less for a .com is a good buy. 10 bucks and up depends on your brand loyalty and features offered. I will also mention you can transfer your domain registration between companies at any point. You will likely have to pay a renewal fee but that gets added on to your domain expiry date. Hope that helps.

- Bryan

[twofer]

Hey Bryan,

Thanks for all the info about web sites. It seems like there are a million places to register domain names including the webhosts themselves. Is there one, central registry we should get the domain name at. How do I know some of these are for real?

Thanks,
Sean

I usually recommend to my clients (I moonlight as a content management systems consultant/PHP programmer) Namecheap (http://www.namecheap.com).

[SeanD]

Great. Thanks!

Sean

[BryanEx]

(I moonlight as a content management systems consultant/PHP programmer)

PHP programmer you say? :D I have some work for you twofer. I won't be able to get into it until after the maple season but I need to bridge two existing scripts for the next phase of development on Sugarbush.Info. If you are interested in a bit of work sometime around this coming May drop me a PM and I'll fill you in. I'm going to have to pay a programmer anyway so I'd prefer to give it to a Maple Trader.

[twofer]

PHP programmer you say? :D I have some work for you twofer. I won't be able to get into it until after the maple season but I need to bridge two existing scripts for the next phase of development on Sugarbush.Info. If you are interested in a bit of work sometime around this coming May drop me a PM and I'll fill you in. I'm going to have to pay a programmer anyway so I'd prefer to give it to a Maple Trader.

I'd be more than happy to take a look at it.

BTW thanks for approving our website this morning even though I'm still getting content added. I will get a reciprocal link added back to Sugarbush.info on our site tomorrow.

[BryanEx]

I'd be more than happy to take a look at it.
Great! I'll be in touch after the maple season.

BTW thanks for approving our website this morning even though I'm still getting content added. I will get a reciprocal link added back to Sugarbush.info on our site tomorrow.
My pleasure and the more (maple links) the merrier. I actually have the link submission process set to unmoderated until I get hit by my first spammer. I know that's coming real soon though because my stats show people searching for the tell-a-friend page. I've just disabled the tell-a-friend option but link submission and the contact form can't be far behind.

Be sure to let me know when you've added a link to www.Sugarbush.Info (http://www.sugarbush.info) because I will upgrade your listing to be a featured site to say thank you. A featured site is always listed first in your respective category and at random on the main page.

BTW... anyone else for a web site review? Snow coming this weekend so I have time.

- Bryan

[BryanEx]

Marty - Mr. Ennis Maple Products... I see you've made the changes I recommended and your site is looking great. I'm not sure what you've done but you hit a bulls eye with Google. You've gone from not being listed to having the first four results (see attachment). That will really help with people that know your business name and turn to the Internet to find you.

On another note, would you mind adding a link back to www.Sugarbush.Info (http://www.sugarbush.info) on your links page? That will help us both for Google and I will have it so your listing always appears first in the Ontario category to say thanks.

- Bryan

[ennismaple]

Marty - Mr. Ennis Maple Products... I see you've made the changes I recommended and your site is looking great. I'm not sure what you've done but you hit a bulls eye with Google. You've gone from not being listed to having the first four results (see attachment). That will really help with people that know your business name and turn to the Internet to find you.

On another note, would you mind adding a link back to www.Sugarbush.Info (http://www.sugarbush.info) on your links page? That will help us both for Google and I will have it so your listing always appears first in the Ontario category to say thanks.

- Bryan

Absolutely Bryan - with pleasure! I'll get to it later today.

[BryanEx]

Much appreciated. Just wondering what you did for the Google results that you went from not being listed to the first four results in a week? I know you have someone that is involved in SEO ... was it their doing or just some minor changes you and your web designer made?

[ennismaple]

The metadata wasn't enabled so search engines weren't able to crawl the site. My web designer did this when we were just starting out so the sire was basically invisible and she forgot to change the setting when we launched. She works for maple butter so I can't complain too much!

[BryanEx]

Thanks for sharing that Marty. I guess you win the blue ribbon for most dramatic change so far from a volunteer site review. I hope the others get a bit of a boost in their web site performance as well.

- Bryan

[BryanEx]

Thanks for the link to Sugarbush.Info Marty and for also correcting the link to Maple Trader. I've upgraded your listing to "Featured" so you always appear first in the Ontario category... even before my own maple web site.


I'm sold out for 2011 anyway. ;)

[BryanEx]

For what it's worth...

I've noticed many web sites that still link to Waterloo-Small Evaporators (http://www.waterloosmallusa.com/) but that domain name is no longer active and you will be hit with a bunch of pop-up windows when you try to leave or close the window. I strongly suggest removing this link if you have it listed on your own site.

- Bryan

[BryanEx]

Just a bump... I've recently had two Maple Traders contact me about site reviews or help but both want to do it by private message. If you have a web site or are working on one and would like a tune-up just post the link here along with any background info you can share and I'll do my best to help out. By doing it on the message board it may help out other folks trying to do the same thing now or in the future.

- Bryan