Signs That Your Foundations Are in Need of Repairs

A home is often a once in a lifetime investment for many people, and this means that any problems in the home, its structure, or its foundations can be a cause for concern to the homeowner.

Home foundations can be on concrete slabs or have pier and beam foundations, and these can develop issues. How then do you know that you are having foundation problems that can lead to costly foundation repairs, and structural damage if these signs are ignored?

Fine small cracks in exterior walls are quite common and are part of the normal process caused by expansion and contraction of bricks and concrete due to the temperatures in the environment. It is only when these cracks widen, have a zig-zag pattern or have bricks protruding from walls, that these are signs of a larger problem with the foundations. These same types of cracks seen in drywall and other partition materials can indicate a problem in the walls and supporting structure caused by foundation issues.

One sign of definite problems in the foundation comes from doors that go out of square and lead to difficulty in closing and opening them. The same problem can often be noticed in windows. This is a result of the walls supporting the frames of doors and windows going out of square from the original alignment. When the frames separate from the walls, this is a definite sign of foundation problems.

Floor slabs can sink, tiles can show cracks, and if these are widespread and happen in many rooms, this is a definite indication that the foundation is showing signs of distress. Some homes may have expansion joints to allow the structure to compensate for movement due to earth shifting, temperatures, and other weather conditions. When the foundation develops a problem, often these expansion joints may separate from the structure and lead to more cracks or other defects being noticeable.

The shifting of walls and the structure that is caused by any defects developing in foundations can often lead to nails popping out of any drywall construction. A few nails popping out can be due to poor workmanship or unnecessary stress on the drywall, but if the problem occurs in many ways all over the home, it is a definite indication that the foundation is causing the stress.

If the walls pull away from each other, especially in the case of exterior walls, it is a definite cause for concern, and often points to foundations below these walls settling or not providing the support that they are meant to.

Foundations are based on soil, and if there is a constant change in their moisture content this can cause the soil to expand or contract, and thus lead to the foundations that are based on them to settle or move in an upward direction. The same problem can be caused by soil that has excessive moisture that freezes during extreme winter. Clay soils are the most vulnerable in this regard.

When any of these signs are noticed in a home, it requires further investigation and is best looked at by qualified experts who deal with foundation problems.

Foundation Repair work in Oklahoma City

Building an Electrical Business – How Much to Charge

happy male electrician working on industrial machine

If you need electrical work done, you’re not going to want to handle it on your own. Projects like this are complex, and wiring can be very dangerous. You’ll want to hire a electrical company that’s fully qualified for the job. How much do electricians charge? If you’re concerned about the costs of hiring someone, there are a few things that you should know.

Rates Vary From One Location To Another

Rates for electrical work might be affordable in one area and costly in another. The amount of money you’ll have to pay for electrical work will vary based on the scope of the project and the location that you’re in. Call around to local electricians in your area and find out how much they charge.

It’s wise to get quotes from a few electricians so that you can get a better understanding of what rates in your area are like. You may also want to check in with people you know that have had electrical work done recently. They can give you a clearer picture of what you’ll be paying. Check local state business sites to see what advice others are sharing.

There Are Financing Options Available

If this is an unexpected expense, you might be worried about how you’re going to cover the costs. You should know that plenty of electricians offer some sort of financing. Instead of paying for everything at once, you might be able to cover these costs one payment at a time.

There are a lot of electricians that will be able to work with you so that these costs will be easier to cover. You shouldn’t put off having this work done. Instead, you should look at electricians that offer payment options.

Hire Someone That’s Qualified

If you’re desperate to save, you might want to hire someone that charges unusually low rates. It’s important to remember that you’re depending on the electrician you’re hiring to do their job properly. There are serious consequences to faulty wiring, including fires.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to save money, but you shouldn’t work with someone that cuts corners. You should aim to find the best person for the job. From there, you can look at rates to see who is offering the best deals. There’s nothing wrong with considering pricing, but you should focus on finding someone that can do the job properly.

What do electricians charge? There are all kinds of answers to that question. You should find out more about the options in your area and decide how you should proceed from there.

How To Market Your Towing Company

Want to spread the word about your towing company?

There are so many details to think about but five specific methods can help push your towing company to the next level. Here are the leading methods all towing companies should be using.

1) Social Media

It’s important to take advantage of social media as it is one of the most powerful options at your disposal. A towing company has to get out in front of the community, which can be done with the help of social media groups and followers. If you are able to market to specific people in your target area (using FaceBook‘s targeting features), it will go a long way in helping promote the company.

A lot of businesses have made it with this strategy and it has to be a part of your approach to marketing.

2) SEO

Search engine optimization has been around for a long time and is one of the most influential options to keep in mind. Basically, you are going to rank for major keywords in your niche (i.e towing company in Omaha) and rank for it.

This can be done by posting content with this keyword in it on your website for starters, but SEO is complicated so we recommend hiring a reputable company to handle all your towing marketing needs.

3) Flyers

You want to make use of offline marketing strategies as well. This can include setting up flyers that can be put up around town and at local dealerships. This is a good way to spread the word and let people know what you are all about.

4) Link Up With Mechanics and Dealerships

Anyone that wants things done the right way will need to network. This is going to include finding businesses that are in the same industry as you. This can include mechanics since they will want their clients to come with a qualified towing company.

Connect with them and make sure they spread the word for you to their clients.

5) Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is one of the more recent marketing strategies that have done wonders. You want to create something that is going to spread like wildfire. This could be a video, image, or something that’s unique. When done right, you are going to get everyone talking about the business through social media, blogs, and major news outlets. It requires work but can be done with a bit of patience.

These five steps are going to go a long way in pushing your company to the next level and that’s what it all comes down to.

How a Garage Door Repair Company Built a Free Website

Starting a new business can be expensive, many times you have to invest in tools, licenses, staff, software, marketing, etc.. But did you know that you can build a completely free website like BP Garage Doors, a garage door repair in Largo, FL. There are many companies offering free websites like WordPress but you can often strike up a deal with a Web design company to get a free website with marketing package.

Typically small business websites can cost upwards of $1,000 to $1,500 depending on your requirements but if you know you’ll need digital marketing, contact your local web design companies and see what they can offer you. Other costs you may incur include domain registration which typically runs $10/year and hosting which averages $5-$10/month.

Who Can Benefit From a Website

Whether you own a small garage door company or a large multi-location healthcare facility, you’ll need marketing and website to stand out from the crowd. Just about every business has a website today and if you don’t start now!

BP Garage doors has seen the majority of their garage door repair customers come through from their site. Basically nobody uses the yellowpages anymore and in an emergency type situation, the quickest way to find service is by using your phone and finding a reputable business directly from google.

If you have a little knowledge of HTML, checkout WordPress and see how you like it and get a feel of what you can and can’t do like this. Also make sure you set up your Facebook page and add your sites to directories like: Manta and Local ones. Once you have a larger budget you can always hire a pro to help.

How To Optimize Your Website For Search Engines with SEO


Most website owners are aware of the importance of optimizing their pages for search engines. They know this traffic has the highest conversion rates, so they are willing to go the extra mile to get a nice slice of it. However, SEO agencies aren’t cheap. This means most small business owners can’t afford to pay the monthly fees to have their websites optimized by someone like Boost Digital Marketing, Milwaukee Wisconsin.

The good news is that you can learn a few optimization tricks to help your website improve its positions in search for its most relevant keywords. On-page optimization is something that doesn’t require more than one hour of study. Once you understand the basics, you can apply them to your web pages. This action alone can help your website become more visible in search. For this, you need to identify your best keywords, and then include them in the titles of your pages. Ideally, each page should be optimized around one main keyword. Include this keyword in the title tag, in the UKR of the page, in the description meta tag and in the copy. Avoid keyword stuffing, but make sure to include lots of synonyms and related terms. They all help improving the relevancy of your page for its main topic.

Internal linking is also important. In order to optimize your website for search engines, you need to have properly structured menus. When you write the copy of your pages, include links to other pages of your website, as this improves the authority flow, helping all pages to rank better for their keywords.

Ideally, you should write long articles, as they tend to perform better than short ones. If you don’t believe it, you should check out the blogs of some SEO experts, and see what they think about this. By adding a blog to your website, you’ll be able to provide search engines fresh content to analyze and rank, thus improving your chances to get more organic traffic. One of our readers Erin Mckelle wrote a blog post about Quick Guide to Choosing the Best Breast Pump and is willing to share her story about how she ranked that term online.

Check your code for errors. You can do this for free, on special websites. Just search for code validators online, and you’ll find at least a couple of decent ones to use. Fix all coding errors, and make sure you create a sitemap for your web property. Submit this map to Google, in order to help its crawlers parse and index all your pages. If you want, you can consider including schema.org in the structure of your pages.

Once you finish optimizing the pages of your website, you should try to obtain as many inbound links as possible. Try to get in touch with other webmasters in your niche or industry and ask them if they accept guest articles. If they do, write something useful for their readers in exchange for one or two links back to your own pages. Rinse and repeat hundreds of times, and you’ll see your website improving its positions in the SERPs. The result will be more traffic and leads for your restoration business, part of which will convert, making you more money.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language, or  HTML, has been  the standard text-formatting language since 1989 for documents on the interconnected computing network known as the World Wide Web. HTML documents are text files that contain two parts: content that is meant to be viewed on a computer screen, and tags, encoded information that directs the text format on the screen and is generally hidden from the user.   To see what html looks like for this page, right click on an open field and choose “view source“.

     The average site builder does not have to know everything about HTML, but it is very important that you understand a couple things.  One of which is “meta tags”.   This is how your site is found and listed by a search engine.  (See “Meta Tags”).  And…

A couple necessary scripts…

Create a hyperlink:   <A href=”http://yourdestination.com”>Text</A>    Just replace yourdestination.com with the location you want the link to go to, and replace Text with the words you want the viewers to click on.

Image or photo:   <img src=”yourphoto.jpg”>   Very simple but you have to have the image uploaded to the server, and make sure you have the file name and extension exactly correct!

Image with hyperlink:
<A href=”http://yourdestination.com”><img src=”yourphoto.jpg” border=”0″></A>

<HR>   This creates a horizontal divider like the one right below this line.

Tutorials

I learned the hard way how to put a free website together because there were really no help out there. That is why I built buildfree.org – to help beginners like you.

I have assembled some lessons that I wish were out there (when I was getting started) that are in easy to understand. Read them at your own pace and the free education you receive will allow you to put together a website that will have visitors smiling and coming back day after day.

The links below cover a lot of material that you may not be able to comprehend all in one day. Do not be upset if at first it does not make much sense. As you get more familiar with the different free websites out there, in time it will become clearer.

Free Stuff You Need / Website Tools

When you get a little more familiar with website building, you can learn to use ready-made web page templates, make free navigation buttons and drop-down menus. Navigation for your website is how your visitors find your other pages in your website, if you want visitors to find your site in the search engines take a look at our SEO guide.

You will also learn why you should use a new free email address and get some free cool downloads to make your website building experience safer and easier.

Getting Started With A Free Website

Most people ask me “How do I get started? Should I build a free personal website or can I just create a free blog? What if I just want to upload my photos or my music?”

Others are worried that they need advanced computer skills (not true), and still others just want a free mobile website. My main recommendation (and I cannot stress this enough) is to just go ahead and get started. You do not have to have the whole thing planned out. Website building is just that – building. It does not happen at once, it is an ongoing process. It is built up little by little over time.

So generally when I start a new website, I create the pages that I know that eventually I will be able to fill with content. You could look at it as an outline, then when you think of something to put on the page(s), the hard work is already done.

But like anything free, you have to do the research and make an attempt. I have filled this website with helpful information. Read at your own pace and good luck.