The other important thing to realize about a business card website is that is does not drive traffic... you have to drive people to the website through other, usually, traditional means of business communication.

This cannot be emphasised enough for local services, any good designer will know this also.  However it offers you a broad reach which can't be maintained by postcards in the window of your local store if your services are not just restriced to your location, i.e. you are providing some service that can be accessed from abroad such as mix and mastering services and providing remote session services.

The other important consideration is to think through any other useful purpose you can put the site to, after all you are going to be renting the server space anyway so maximise the use you can get out of it.

Hey Mike do you think the guy featured in that page had more to do with instigating the 7 figure revenue stream than the page you made did?   Because I reckon what Dave does with the service he provides is going to be far more important than his business card.

I could also cite my credentials through the fact my sister's, auntie's, cousin designs the local council's web presence or even my own previous non-trivial semi-professional experience in the field, but I'd rather tell you to get a REAL professional experienced in the trade you are in to handle it for maximum effectiveness all-round.

"Hey Mike do you think the guy featured in that page had more to do with instigating the 7 figure revenue stream than the page did?   Because I reckon what Dave does with the service he provides is going to be far more important than his business card."

Hi Jon,
 Kevin is a great guy to work with... and surely that is the key to success.

 I can only pass on the statements which he has made to me where he voices his opinion that the website was a stepping stone for initial contact that has resulted in this sort of revenue. He says he has repeatedly been told that his name was referred by some mechanism and that the caller said a quick visit to the website and THE INCREDIBLY EASY ACCESS to contact information made the caller feel very comfortable with taking the next step.

 Kevin isn't counting the follow up business in that figure, he attributes that figure to the work directly initiated through a contact made with the website.

 I, personally, suspect that the low-tech get-it-done .htm approach appeals to people that work behind the scenes in the entertainment business.  Now, while I say I enjoy the idea of the low tech look... I think it may be useful to state that regular old html can be used to make the slickest and fanciest looking pages anyone might want. It's versatile.






 I think very highly of Dave M. and I am aware that he is a full featured band arranger. I think he is the perfect candidate for a 1 to 3 page business car website. I think his OP reflects values I identify with... and I think his vision of hoping to get the website to initiate opportunity for him to present his detailed info in subsequent personal communications is spot on and will be very effective.

 I don't want to make his website but I hope he will take the idea of simplicity seriously and if he doesn't do it himself I hope he finds a good local service provider that still enjoys working simply.

 I happen to know his market, which I'll refer to as the Tampa Bay metro area and I am aware that there are a lot of website service folks down there that drive around with a bunch of templates and sell badly made template based websites to small businesses and then they hit the road. I hope Dave can find someone who is keeping it real and wants to help out for the long run.




 I know why "wordpress" needs a hi powered search tool... you can't find anything in the quagmire of a blog.
 I know why "wordpress" needs a hi powered spam filter... all that Web2.0 linking to Face-tube exposes you to lots of world-wide-spam.


I have another tip: :-) The best and most effective way to get to the top of a search engine is to place pertinent content on a static htm page and leave it there. It's like, well, magic... if the content is pertinent and it's sitting there on the web Google will be happy to suggest it as a top pick. It is so simple that it is hard to justify charging money for good advice like that. :-) Active server pages are remarkably ineffective in this regard... and so you need to find other ways to crawl up a search cue.
 

 I tried to keep my 2cents out of this, and I wish I had... but then I got weak and posted my personal opinion. I'm gonna try to back out gracefully.




 best regards,
mike

Mike and Jonbouy,

Please don't feel like you are dominating the conversation.  In this public thread, all things need to be considered.

For me, I wish to get enough new projects to give me something to do and a means to support gearlust if possible.  I never intend on taking it full time as I have a pretty nice income with the plastics fabrication business and I enjoy what I do.  On my current site, I discourage day hours by pricing them higher than what the market will bear in this area (for a project studio).  Evenings and weekends is what I'd like to do so I encourage those by bargain rates.  If I get more than I can handle, I'll thin out the business by raising rates.

Already others are following the thread and their needs may be more in depth than mine.  A full blown professional design job may be what they are lacking and is still my goal as well if I can budget it in.

Got to run, but I am reading all the good suggestions.

From the "horses" mouth. If you want to maximize search engine rankings (specifically Googles) the right way..., this is a must read.

Webmaster Guidlines

"mike_mccue"
I have another tip: :-) The best and most effective way to get to the top of a search engine is to place pertinent content on a static htm page and leave it there. It's like, well, magic... if the content is pertinent and it's sitting there on the web Google will be happy to suggest it as a top pick. It is so simple that it is hard to justify charging money for good advice like that. :-) Active server pages are remarkably ineffective in this regard... and so you need to find other ways to crawl up a search cue.

It's much more than that Mike. Before I can even think of the static content, I need to know fairly accurately what would be the most likely keywords used by potential clients in that search field. Then, I have to make sure that I use those keywords in the pertinent content in a natural, non-repetitive fashion. This also needs to be properly structured/organized with the help of headers (H1, H2, H3 etc.). But before I get to the content, I need to make sure that my HTML/CSS code validates properly under a DOCTYPE. And the list goes on and on. 

I happen to know his market, which I'll refer to as the Tampa Bay metro area and I am aware that there are a lot of website service folks down there that drive around with a bunch of templates and sell badly made template based websites to small businesses and then they hit the road. I hope Dave can find someone who is keeping it real and wants to help out for the long run.

I hear you on that aspect of finding the wheat from the chaff.

I actually also think he could do a lot worse than employing your services in particular in this case because of your local knowledge and being an advocate of the simple approach to the business card aspect.  Dave is a good step above the average hobbyiest, semi-pro music service provider and his representation on the web ought to reflect that, because he needs to be found through a similar  mountain full of lesser services than he is able to provide also.

His requirements specification should be thought out long and hard because there are services he can cater for that may well be overlooked, getting somebody to implement a good brief is key here.

I'd also advocate your recommendation of the quick-loading simplistic html implementation here for the business card 'contact' aspect of the site but I can't help thinking he also has other strings to his bow that might benefit from a longer look at where he can capitalize further on the services he is able to offer world-wide.

So I'd say Dave you've found your man if you can talk Mike into doing the initial contact page, but there's so much more you can do when you've got that part up and running.  And don't forget this is called the Web for a reason there's lots of advantage in having a few linked domains all taking on a single aspect of your services that lead back to the same place, which of course is yourself.  So get that contact page up first it won't need much maintenance or alteration over time but it will get you afloat in the vast ocean very quickly.

(p.s. Mike stop advocating nested tables already, <div>'s are much more elegant to work with these days, they make far more sense when producing readable mark-up...  They even work properly on most newer browsers which is a novel bonus...)

Until I come up with something better, I'm up with a temporary site at http://www.gatortraks.com

Looks better than my old one already.

One of my favorite musicians
 
One of the worst sites ever.
 
http://www.mike-gordon.com/home/

kgarello


One of my favorite musicians
 
One of the worst sites ever.
 
http://www.mike-gordon.com/home/

Yeah.  Feels like you are in one of those role playing, adventure games.  I spent a half minute staring at a black screen while the animation loaded.  Then, every page made me wait for it to load after I finally located a control.  This is the kind of animated site that I was referring to as "flash."  I suppose I shouldn't generalize because there are different amounts of Flash effects that can be utilized and some, if not most, can be transparent to the visitor.

Mod Bod


Until I come up with something better, I'm up with a temporary site at http://www.gatortraks.com

Looks better than my old one already.

It's a good start.

I think the blog part is a good thing.  It showcases the work you've been doing and you can use it highlight stuff that's coming up.  The important thing about having a dynamic aspect such as a news page or blog is that it makes the site look alive and thriving so it's important that you update it regularly with some good stuf.

So basically what you do is have your static business card style page, such as the one Mike is advocating, which makes you easier to find through a search and link out from that to your wordpress blog page.  You get yourself the best of both worlds then very easily.