Mortgages Site

This was a 2nd financial related site consecutively, but for a different customer. This customer is a mortgage broker and wanted basically a calling card for people to refer to. There's a reasonable amount of information on the site, not a huge amount.

After a year he felt like a refresh so we built the look shown, then one of his friends said he could look after the site, so he took over the maintenance. Apparantly, the friend isn't getting changes done quickly enough so he's asked about moving the site back under our control!

Loans Website

This site was for the same customer as mentioned in the previous post and he's due to have another new site off me in the summer.

He is a loans arranger and has a group of brokers that pass him leads that he needed to be able to accept over the internet. He also wanted to be ablt to take leads direct from the public. So I built this nice, but simple, site for him that does just that.

I also send him leads from my mortgages site, for which he pays me a percentage of the commission when they complete. This site quickly got to PR4 without any real effort and as such the links swaps pages are very popular!

Endowment Mis_Selling Website

This was another venture into my own ideas. I already had a mortgage website running, so thought that connected with that it would be a good idea to run an endowment mis-selling website. Given I was going through the claim process myself at the time, it was on my mind!

So I set up this website, after travelling an hour each way to speak to a solicitor willing to buy leads from me. I generated a good number of leads and started off my own affiliate scheme (other affiliates generating leads for me).

But the solicitor was very slow responding to me and would take months to tell me which leads had signed instructions (the point at which I was paid). He asked me to see him again, so I travelled the hour there on the train, waited in reception for three quarters of an hour, because he was running late, then had a 2 minute chat with him then a few minutes with another guy. All both wanted to know was how to change their own website for better optimisation, nothing to do with what we were actually running together.

But it was taking ages to get cash from them. Usually a couple of months to confirm payments were due then even longer to chase up all of the outstanding invoices, so in the end I pulled out of the agreement. The website is still live, and will remain so until it expires, but just earning a bit of Google cash instead.

On the whole, I now stick to recognised affiliate schemes as they are far easier to get your cash from!

Insurance Affiliates Website

This was one of those customers that thought if he paid me a couple of hundred pounds in return I'd give him a site that was top of google listings for every conceivable search keyword.

It didnb't seem like that at the start. I thought the site he wanted was a basic directory of insurance schemes for him to promote through his existing outlets. But no, when it went live he expected to sit bck, cash monthly cheques and maybe pay me a further hosting charge the following year.

I'd say he was disappointed! Yes, I built a directory site that looked good and generated some search engine visitors, but the number dropped off as he wasn't using a news feature nor adding any new merchants. There was no attempt at marketing the site, so it failed.

Yes, I can build sites that draw people in and tick over nicely, but they require work from me each month to maintain their positions and content, like comparemortgagerates. And if I'm putting in that much effort that you are earning thousands each month, do you think I'd just be charging you a couple of hundred a year?

Personal Injury Directory Website

You can tell by looking back over the portfolio how by the time this site was written, the business was getting busier. The occurrences of own sites is reducing - well this is one.

I actually took the laptop away with me on a short holiday and wrote this site whilst I was on the holiday. It wasn't bad, but as business got busier, I just never had the time to develop it the way I wanted to. I'd intended to research loads of personal injury lawyers around the country and list them. I'd hoped for tons of traffic and generating leads to sell onto the lawyers.

I got the site in, with a respectible directory and had many requests for others to be listed into it. But I just never seemed to get the time to fully work on it - there was always customer work to be done instead. So I decided to concentrate on the mortgages and cottages websites instead. This one lasted until the URL renewal, at which point it was still receiving requests for new listings, then I let it drop.

A good idea, but as with many of my own I just couldn't afford the time to market and maintain the site. Such are the woes of a successful business!

Loan Calculator Site

Here's one of our own sites that we're still running, but as always if time allowed it could do with a lot of TLC!

Basically the original idea was to bring together loan calculators from everyone that we could find providing them. Where possible, these would be affiliate links, so that we earned a commission. Add to that Google Adsense and there's a nice little earner.

And it worked well, apart from there weren't many affiliate schemes with this simple tool. It's a shame because the reason behind the idea was the realisation that on other sites of our own, such links worked many times better than banner links.

As with many of our own sites, we've just not had the time to maintain it, giving priority to customer's websites instead. But I'm sure that over the next few months as we reduce the number of own sites that this one will be given the attention it so desperately needs. After all, it still gets some traffic for us and covers its keep.

Insurance Website

This little website was a strange one. It wasn't for a local customer, but by fluke he was selling the insurance services of a company that is almost right next door to me - I can see their building from my desk.

He's an insurance broker and I built the website and he got down to the work of promoting it through his normal activities. But he knew that major changes were on the way in the financial services,literally only weeks away. When they came, he pulled the website, intending to move it to a different supplier. I spoke to him a few times and the move and redevelopment was always around the corner. We still host a holding page, nearly 3 years after the site was pulled. I'll speak to him tomorrow and find out what is going on.

Accountants Website

Here's one that recently taught me a lesson. An early customer with a simple site. It looked OK - not fantastic, but it still looked good. Every year I contacted them with their hosting, asked them if they wanted any changes and every year the payment arrived by BACS. Safe as houses.

But I didn't pay them enough attention and they are moving their website to a local designer. No reason given, just contacted and told they are moving. Shame, but it's shown me that the personal touch when building a site must continue when the site is live. Those customers that I am in regular contact with are far more content and send me far more referrals.

So why didn't I do something simple like send them all a Christmas card??? Already got next year's planned.