Name of your website?Hilltown Tree and Garden - Certified Massachusetts Arborist
Your name?
Jim McSweeney
Your Location (city, etc)
Chesterfield, MA
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Hilltown Tree and Garden is a Certified Massachusetts Arborist and Master Gardener who teaches courses about native plants and helps people design and maintain gardens that will provide them with enjoyment and value for many years.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
To be more easily able to communicate with people who need my exact services. Living off the grid in a solar-powered house in a community without broadband service, the internet has come slowly to me, but now I've embraced it wholeheartedly and love the results.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is my first web site, www.HilltownTreeAndGarden.com but I have had a presence (1 page mini-site) on www.Hidden-Hills.com for some time now.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The name of my business was available as a URL, so it was easy.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
Our services are both more complete and more knowledgeable, in our opinion, because we have spent years studying native plants and related topics so as to have the maximum information available to our clients.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Live a good life, raise my children well, and help the earth support and nurture the beautiful landscapes we help develop and maintain.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Everything I do pushes my business and professional life forward, and since I work with nature and plants, that's success right there.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
By having a comprehensive directory of all American native plants along with suggestions on how they would be used appropriately and pictures and testimonials from places where they have been installed.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
The site mainly advertises my company's services, with related topics, so that's not much of a concern.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
The difficulties of building a web site without first having email or a computer or broadband made it so there was much more driving in the car to my web designer's office than I thought there would be.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Moving from the world of plants to the world of the internet enough to understand it to use it to my advantage.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Good search engine friendly text and pictures that discuss and depict the themes in my site.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
More detail oriented and text heavy than I initially thought, but it's all good, since it's working in Google very well.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site has been up for a year almost, and I plan on keeping it as long as I have my business.
What's the best thing about having a well designed and maintained native plant landscape?
The pleasure you get from looking out at it or standing amidst it while you appreciate your place on this earth and the blessings you receive from life itself.
What is your website address?
Hilltown Tree and Garden - Certified Massachusetts Arborist
