| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Do you generate any business through your website? Thread poster: Trans-Marie
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Textklick 
Local time: 03:17
German to English
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In memoriam | "Eye candy" - or hits? | May 24, 2007 |
Giles Watson wrote:
Hi MV,
Your business adviser is probably right if you are just going to stick something pretty on the web 
As Jørgen says, people will first have to be able to find it and then they're going to need a reason to come back.
With Giles on this.
I think that if you were an outsourcing company, you should seriously consider putting up your own site.
But even then, how many hits will it attract? There are ways of managing that, but you have to know what you are doing.
The easy alternative is to purchase a domain and point it somewhere else. Here is an example: www.textklick.com
HTH
Chris
P.S. As Michele very rightly says "... keywords will be be crucial to your success." So put them on your Proz profile.
[Edited at 2007-05-24 22:53]
| | | | Neil Allen
France
Local time: 04:17
Member
French to English
| A simple and effective solution | May 25, 2007 |
Buy your own domain name then simply point your URL at your Proz profile.
Advantages:
1) You have complete control in the sense that you can point it anywhere else if you ever want to.
2) Filling in your profile correctly takes a couple of hours, whereas coding up your own site with equivalent functionality would take... well, longer!
3) No matter how many meta-tags you put on your site, you will probably never be able to get it as highly-ranke... See more Buy your own domain name then simply point your URL at your Proz profile.
Advantages:
1) You have complete control in the sense that you can point it anywhere else if you ever want to.
2) Filling in your profile correctly takes a couple of hours, whereas coding up your own site with equivalent functionality would take... well, longer!
3) No matter how many meta-tags you put on your site, you will probably never be able to get it as highly-ranked with the search engines as the Proz site is for translation-related queries.
4) It is very inexpensive.
5) It allows you to get on with what pays the bills -- translation -- instead of messing about with IT-related issues.
--
Neil ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 04:17
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| The flipside... | May 25, 2007 |
Neil Allen wrote:
Buy your own domain name then simply point your URL at your Proz profile. ... You have complete control in the sense that you can point it anywhere else if you ever want to.
You're also at the mercy of the Proz.com profile layout, which (and no offence to the Proz.com staff) is not optimal.
Filling in your profile correctly takes a couple of hours, whereas coding up your own site with equivalent functionality would take... well, longer!
Not all the functionality of a Proz.com profile page is necessary, or necessarily useful. Taking your profile page and converting it to a web site shouldn't take long, either.
No matter how many meta-tags you put on your site, you will probably never be able to get it as highly-ranked with the search engines as the Proz site is for translation-related queries.
A search for my prime keywords does list Proz.com higher than my own web site address, but the page from Proz.com that is listed, is not my profile page -- it is some other page.
It is very inexpensive.
A proper web site will cost you USD 30 per year more.
| | | | Neil Allen
France
Local time: 04:17
Member
French to English
| Time is of the essence... | May 25, 2007 |
It basically depends on how much time you want to spend on it.
Doing it by using the Proz.com page gets you a "brochure site" up and running very quickly, if that is all you want. I personally didn't want to spend too much time on this, despite being an ex-professional programmer. Neither did I want to spend time maintaining both a website and a Proz profile.
However, the key thing is to have your own domain name, no matter what you do with it, as this gives control ov... See more It basically depends on how much time you want to spend on it.
Doing it by using the Proz.com page gets you a "brochure site" up and running very quickly, if that is all you want. I personally didn't want to spend too much time on this, despite being an ex-professional programmer. Neither did I want to spend time maintaining both a website and a Proz profile.
However, the key thing is to have your own domain name, no matter what you do with it, as this gives control over your e-mail address and allows you to change your aliased e-mail provider in a way that is transparent for your clients.
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Neil ▲ Collapse
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Jenns (X)
Local time: 20:17
English to French
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I think it is really important to have a working site. Some people put Flash and music which distracts the customer. I actually was in website design before being a translator and I found that people seem to thnk they knew what worked but in practicality it didn't work for their customers. It is not a good to have a contact form without showing your email. Sometimes customers want to write a quick email and this does not give them the chance to do that.
| | | | Neil Allen
France
Local time: 04:17
Member
French to English
| Back to the original question... | May 27, 2007 |
To come back to the original question, as far as I am aware, I have not generated any business through people INITIALLY finding me via the website, apart from those who have first searched in the ProZ directory (bearing in mind that it is the same page). However, just as all roads once led to Rome, so all entries in professional directories, business-cards, e-mail signatures etc., give the website address. I would estimate that over 70% of new clients look at it after finding a reference to it e... See more To come back to the original question, as far as I am aware, I have not generated any business through people INITIALLY finding me via the website, apart from those who have first searched in the ProZ directory (bearing in mind that it is the same page). However, just as all roads once led to Rome, so all entries in professional directories, business-cards, e-mail signatures etc., give the website address. I would estimate that over 70% of new clients look at it after finding a reference to it elsewhere.
I do consider it a vital part of building a business.
--
Neil ▲ Collapse
| | | | Xu Dongjun
China
Local time: 11:17
Member (2006)
English to Chinese
My website was created around two months ago, and unfortunately, it has not brought me any project yet.
ummm... Could you please take a look at my website, and give me some advice on the web content as well as the design? The URL is: www.xudongjun.com
Thank you very much!
Good luck,
Dongjun
| | | | | Free web-sites | Aug 18, 2007 |
It depends, my web-site is hosted free of cost on google-pages. I have paid 10 USD for domain name.
I have web-space on proz but it seems much more complicated. It's easier to create/ upload pages on google-pages.
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| how has it worked? | Aug 19, 2007 |
Ritu Bhanot wrote:
It depends, my web-site is hosted free of cost on google-pages. I have paid 10 USD for domain name.
I have web-space on proz but it seems much more complicated. It's easier to create/ upload pages on google-pages.
Hi, Ritu
I find your experience extremely useful. Could you tell me-us if your google.pages website has proved successful as regards being contacted by new clients, people just getting to you because of your website?
Thanks in advance!
Isa
| | | | MariusV
Lithuania
Local time: 05:17
English to Lithuanian
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| your website? do it without any doubt | Sep 9, 2007 |
why?
1) it does not cost a lot - it is a simple website that can only costs a couple of hundred euros (if you do not want any flash things that are actually not needed at all)
2) it is like a booklet about you seen by many people who can be your potential clients at any time
3) it creates some kind of image
4) saves A LOT of time - instead of sending your CV or telling to each potential customer who you are and what you do, you can simply give ... See more why?
1) it does not cost a lot - it is a simple website that can only costs a couple of hundred euros (if you do not want any flash things that are actually not needed at all)
2) it is like a booklet about you seen by many people who can be your potential clients at any time
3) it creates some kind of image
4) saves A LOT of time - instead of sending your CV or telling to each potential customer who you are and what you do, you can simply give a link - here is my website at www and you will find all the info needed
5) if you put skype or MSN data on your website contat page, or some small order/enquiry form, it works wonders - many clients simply go via that and at least a dozen of new ones (despite that they are small ones) have some jobs...
So, make it right away and do not have any doubts - it will give you ten times more effect than you think. It was just enough for me to have proz Plat membership and a website for a couple of hundred, and it boosted a lot the number and the volume of my orders.
Of course, you have to promote your website somewhere (at least to leave a couple of banners here and there) - an unknown website will not give any effect. Moreover, do not make it on a free hosting - this will appear not serious and will really make no sense. Buy a good domain (your own) and hosting is not so really expensive (all you need is to keep your web pages in it what takes a minimum space)...
IN ANY CASE, your investment into your website WILL PAY back. Any more doubts or reasons against ?
P.S. And the domain www.mvtranslations.com seems to be free. Quite a good one
[Edited at 2007-09-09 23:41] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Don't forget to advertise | Sep 11, 2007 |
I have a website I created myself on Microsoft Publisher, which did not work very well because it does not properly display international characters in Firefox... so I spent some time and $$ on buying and learning Dreamweaver and will be debuting my new and improved site in the next few days.
However, even my not-so-great site, which has been up for about a month, has generated a few jobs. I think the key is that I am paying for pay-per-click advertising on Google, showing Spanish a... See more I have a website I created myself on Microsoft Publisher, which did not work very well because it does not properly display international characters in Firefox... so I spent some time and $$ on buying and learning Dreamweaver and will be debuting my new and improved site in the next few days.
However, even my not-so-great site, which has been up for about a month, has generated a few jobs. I think the key is that I am paying for pay-per-click advertising on Google, showing Spanish ads in Spain and Latin America and English ads in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Australia. I budget only a few dollars a day but get lots of clicks. Since the site itself had only a middling page rank, I don't think I would have gotten any jobs without the advertising! I also have high hopes that when I upload my new, more professional site I will get more "conversions" from clicks to jobs.
Also, whether or not you choose to advertise, Google Analytics is a great free tool for tracking your traffic, showing you the source, country of origin, web browser, screen resolution etc of your visitors... Big Brother is watching...
~Shannon ▲ Collapse
| | | | Rob Grayson
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:17
French to English
| It's a must have | Jan 11, 2008 |
As one commenter has already said, the only measure of what business you get through your site is not what comes directly through it. In this day and age, I don't believe that any serious professional (in any business) should be without a professional, high quality web site. Many potential clients will look at your site and will form an opinion based on what they see.
My two cents....
Rob
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| Point URL to profile - how please! | Jan 16, 2008 |
Neil Allen wrote:
"simply point your URL at your Proz profile."
Could I ask how this is done? Sorry if it's a silly question... My domain name has just been sitting there waiting for me to get the time/volition thing together, this would be great!
(Sorry if this is a little off topic - I'd eventually like to find out the answer to the original question myself too, all comments are really helpful )
[Edited at 2008-01-16 07:28]
| | | | Textklick
Local time: 03:17
German to English
+ ...
In memoriam | Login at the hosting site | Jan 16, 2008 |
With my host, you login and then click through: My account/domain manager/(your domain name as displayed)/services/change hosting type. There, you select 'Redirect with no frame' in the checkbox.
Click O.K.
The checkbox says: "Redirect with No Frame
Any traffic going to your domain will be redirected to a URL of your choice, such as your pre-existing web site on another server. Traffic will be redire... See more With my host, you login and then click through: My account/domain manager/(your domain name as displayed)/services/change hosting type. There, you select 'Redirect with no frame' in the checkbox.
Click O.K.
The checkbox says: "Redirect with No Frame
Any traffic going to your domain will be redirected to a URL of your choice, such as your pre-existing web site on another server. Traffic will be redirected directly to your site, by using a HTTP 302 redirect. The destination URL will be displayed in the "Location" field of the browser."
If all else fails, there will be a help tab or you can send them a trouble ticket/E-mail request.
HTH
Chris ▲ Collapse
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Textklick wrote:
With my host, ...
HTH
Chris
Thank you very much!!!
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