Name of your website?Home Handy Pro
Your name?
Jeff Hagemeier
Your Location (city, etc)
Lincoln
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Advertising for my home improvement and repair business
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I launched this site to promote my business and give potential customers a place to see samples of my work.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I launched Q-logic design in 2003, attempting to break into the web design field. I did a few commercial sites, web banners, and various full and half page ad designs.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
It's my business name
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
I design everything, from the site itself to my business cards, invoices, bid sheets, logos, I'm also the guy who shows up at your door to bid the jobs, and I also do the actual work. I don't sub out anything.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I plan on keeping it, and expanding it for a more interactive feel, use it for scheduling estimates, posting auto-cad drawings of proposed projects, and offer on-line estimates for certain projects.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Hmmm well, since I just started promoting it not real well. I've gotten a few leads, but since the whole thing cost me nothing I guess it's ok.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Spend more on promotions, pay-per-click campaigns, hire an actual programmer so I don't have to do it myself. I would registrar as many relevant domains and use the main site as a hub and cross link everything.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
I guess that depends on the hits to qualified lead ratio.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Since I have developed about a dozen sites I didn't run into anything unexpected. My biggest headache is driving highly targeted traffic to the site.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Finding time to actually finish the site up, promote it, and do my real world projects.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I have an overall strategy for promotion that I have spent most of the winter researching and I'm going to give it away. ;)
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
None at all.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site will stay on the free host till I go out of business, once I iron out the bugs and move it to my domain and hosting then it will stay up as long as it is producing leads.
Why use free hosting?
This is mainly to "test drive" promoting a site of this type.
What is your website address?
Home Handy Pro
