The DV8 Blog

New online roofing merchant, Roofing Superstore, have again attracted the attention of trade magazine RCI, this time with an interesting write up.

Roofing Supplies Click into the 21st Century
Roofing Superstore is a brand new online roofing merchant offering a range of tens of thousands of roofing products, at trade prices to everyone. Accessible from the comfort of your office or home, the new Roofing Superstore site takes all the hassle out of buying your roofing products and saves you money at the same time.
Online shopping it’s self is by no means a new concept, but the extensive range of specialist roofing products offered by Roofing Superstore is unmatched anywhere else on the internet. Add to this the 80+ years of combined experience in the roofing sector possessed by it’s four directors and you have immediate access to a great deal of knowledge, experience and expertise. There is particular focus on ‘Value & Service’ with prices constantly being reviewed. The e-commerce approach dramatically reduces overheads when compared to the traditional routes to market, which means they can pass the savings on directly to you, the customer.
Roofing Superstore has the support of major manufacturers of roofing products from household names such as Velux and Encon, to specialists such as Web Dynamics, Calder and Filon Products. Other strong brands include Hambleside Danelaw, Klober, Ariel Plastics, Everbuild, SSQ, Brewer Cowls, CMS Tools, Sika, Rose Roofing, Youngmans, Areco, Eurodec, Wallbarn, Whitesales, Monodraught, and Flag Paints.
The bespoke site is easy to navigate and contains a number of free tools, which the user may find useful. There is a 5 day weather feed, showing you the temperature and wind speed for each day, so that you can plan the weeks work accordingly. You can access downloadable planning checklists for both Flat Roofing and Pitched Roofing projects to help you make sure you have all the materials and equipment you need before starting. There will soon also be an estimator tool which can save a great deal of time when pricing or budgeting for a roofing project by providing you with the quantities of the materials needed for a job.
The sites layout is focussed on ease of use, with the most popular categories at the top and the full category list on the left hand side. Should you be unable to find the product you are looking for by navigating the dropdown menu, then there is the very helpful search system, which highlights the words that you are searching for, allowing you to search faster.
The site is also stocked with a wealth of information relating to the products that are available, in most cases, downloadable PDF files containing further technical information, COSHH Data Sheets, Product Brochures and Installation Guides. It is constantly getting bigger and better as well, with new information, detailed product descriptions and new products being added daily. A “News” section will shortly be added and this will contain any up to date information that is regarded as pertinent to the Roofing Sector, so keep checking it out to stay up to date with all the latest news!
To see how Roofing Superstore can help you save time and money on your projects go to www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk
Finally, the Roofing Superstore team want the site to work for you, so please send any comments and feedback, positive and negative, to sales@roofingsuperstore.co.uk

Social Media - Dont Ignore It

This is a question that I am asked on a more and more consistent basis. In the week that saw Facebook announce they now have 350 million registered users, it seemed appropriate time to discuss it on the DV8 blog. Indeed, the Facebook user list is quite staggering, even if we were to assume (and we should never do that. ed.) half of all accounts are inactive. It took radio almost 40 years to reach 50 million users and TV almost 30 years to reach the same figure, Facebook have achieved their current goal in a considerably smaller time frame.
So, with Facebook as just one example, it is clear that ignoring social media is a blinkered head in the sand approach, when we consider the audiences involved. Where social media is key for me, is creating very well targeted links to resources and information. Inbound links are one of the biggest factors taken into consideration by Google’s ranking algorithm, the more presence the provider of the inbound link has, the more weight it carries with Google. In the past website owners have always looked to maintain reciprocal links with other website owners, in the interest of boosting their appeal. Social media opens up the gates and provides endless possibilities for well targetted inbound links to your web pages from user generated content in blogs, profiles and other articles. Every time your web page is linked to, someone is saying “this is a good resource, I found what I need and I recommend it”. By carefully targeting your audience and ensuring your site contains up to date relevant content, your chances of these kinds of “votes of confidence” increases considerably.

This is just one identifiable way of taking a pro active approach to social media, we would love to hear how you use it within your own business or personal life.