Wordpress for Roofing Contractor Websites

Wordpress is a free content management system (CMS) that allows website owners to take control of their content by providing easy to understand graphic interfaces for creating pages, posts, uploading images and adding social interaction to your website.

Wordpress also organizes your content in a very Search Engine friendly structure. Wordpress uses permalinks to eliminate dynamic urls, creates optimized meta tags on the fly, organizes keywords and tags plus lets you ping search engines to let them know anytime you add content.

Dominion Roofing Co, a Kensington Maryland roofing contractor, recently migrated their website onto Wordpress and already the results are amazing. Changing the appearance by selecting from multiple themes is very easy (there are 1000s of free themes available for Wordpress). You can have a professional premium theme developed to really set your site apart from the competition if you would like.

In Dominion Roofing's case, we quickly migrated content from the original site onto Wordpress, setup a free theme, then contracted out various graphic elements (logos, contact form submit buttons, etc). This allowed us to setup 301 redirects for the old dynamic urls, optimize the content for SEO, begin creating new content and start building quality inbound links all before the graphic elements are completed. If you have no patience for the time graphic requires, Wordpress will allow you to bypass the frustration and get to work creating quality content.

Spam Protection For Roofing Service Reviews

I've installed some basic spam protection on Roofing Contractor List after several reports about severe Spam abuse in our roofing company review area.

I apologize to anyone that was negatively affected. I've removed all the abusive reviews and am watching closely.

On the flip side I had a great trip across the United States during February that allowed me to meet with dozens of the top marketers in our industry. Huge developments are coming.

If you are not already a member of My Roofing Leads you should join now to get all the juicy updates!

Delete Videos and Photos from Site Profiles

You can now remove photos and videos you've added to your site profile on Roofing Contractor List.

For videos, you'll see a link under each video that allows you a one click process to remove them.

For photos, you'll see a "delete this photo" link under each photo on the photo viewing page that shows the full size version.

Cleaning Up Code Day

Some progress for Roofing Contractor List development:

• added youtube video link format instructions to add video page


• cleaned up unfriendly server error if you attempt to log in with wrong credentials


• cleaned up server errors generated if you attempted to visit a profile for a site that has been removed.


• the "Add Site" form now uses a dropdown menu for state selection instead of requiring users to type in the state name.

Example Roofer Profile On Roofing Contractor List

Now you can view a roofer profile on Roofing Contractor List.

Services offered, contact information, photos, videos and a contact form are available for each profile.

Add Videos To Your Roofing Profile

You can now add videos to your Roofing Website's Profile by clicking the administration tab on the profile page and then clicking "Add Video". Paste in your YouTube Video link and it will be embedded into the site's video gallery.

Services Included In Site Profile

After some re-engineering the services section of the Roofer Profile now correctly lists services roofers check in their site profile.

Honestly working with checkboxes on the "profile creation" form and then transforming those values into service listings - plus allowing the site owner to edit these checkboxes and show which ones were already selected - was really a pain in the butt. I learned a lot in my quest for PHP knowledge with this.

Optimizing PHP Code For Photos

I've been working the past several days on making photo uploads more secure and safe for our system. During this process i also realized I should make the photos easy for the system to sort and process.

I've rebuilt the photo upload utility and it is now public on the website. Now I am focusing my energy on displaying uploaded roofing photos on the website's profile page.

Upload Photos To Your Roofer Profile

It's now possible to upload photos to Roofing Website Profiles by clicking the "Administration" Tab on the website's profile page.

Next click "Add Photo" to access the photo upload area.

Select the photo from your harddrive. Enter the photo's title and description. Click "Upload Photo" to automatically send the image to your profile's photo database.

Encrypting Passwords on Roofing Contractor List

User passwords are now fully encrypted in our database for added security. Thanks to Lachlan Picking for the great advice and tutorials.

Edit Your Services

When you add a site to the RCL you have the option to choose which services to display on your profile by selecting from a variety of checkboxes.

I'm happy to finally have a working version of code that will allow you to edit (add / remove) these checkboxes from existing profiles. Unfortunately, the previous code was quite buggy and would not update the values for services.

Although this took several hours to fix I was able to test everything quickly and it all checks out ok. Let me know if you have any problems.

To edit a profile just visit the profile on the Roofing Contractor List and click the "Administration" tab. Then click "Edit Site".

Adminstration Tab added to Roofing Contractor Profiles

I've added a new tab to each individual Roofer Profile page that will only appear when

1. you are the owner of the profile


2. you are logged into your RoofingContractorList.com account

The administration tab will allow Roofers to edit details about their services, website and contact information.

Customer Contact Form For Roofers Goes Live

You will now see a "Contact This Roofer" tab on any individual roofer profile you view on Roofing Contractor List.

When a homeowner submits an information request we forward it directly to the Roofer. I also log the lead in the RCL database so later that you can view historical accounting of your contacts from RCL.

Multiple Reviews Now Visible For Each Profile

There was a software error that would only allow 1 review to appear on the "Reviews" tab. This has now been fixed.

Roofing Contractor Reviews Now Active

A "Reviews" Tab has been added to each Roofer Profile. Visitors can read and submit reviews of roofing contractors directly to RCL from this tab.

All reviews will be held for moderation. Once approved, the review will public on the Profile.

Basic Roofing Contractor Profiles Now Working

Click here for a preview of the "Profile Page" shown anytime someone clicks on a search result on RCL.

I am adding the review and contact coding next.

Form to Add New Sites

I've created a form to add new sites to the Roofing Contractor List. The basic function of adding new a site to the database and having it display on the site is coming together.

In the near future we'll break down the site list by State and Service Category.

Publish Post

Roofing Contractor List Account Creation Debut

I've completed a basic user manager that will allow people create an account, login with the credentials enter during the registration process and also log out of the system.

Accounts will be for anyone who wants to actively participate on Roofing Contractor List or submit a site for listing. Registration will not be required for users to post service reviews initially.

RoofingContractorList.com Blog Created

After spending a few years unsuccessfully looking for pre-built website directory solutions I decided to just throw in the towel and just learn enough about programming to write the software myself.

This blog will give me a space to type updates and log my journey in PHP.