http://www.nuguru.com - website opinion

[crus]

Hi there,

after a break of 5 years I have again begun designing and programming for others again.

With heading towards 10 years web developement experience in a complete range of fields, marketing, some design, ASP, PHP, MSSQL, MySQL, JSP, XML, RSS, hosting, server admin, etc, etc. I am looking to continue developing my web developement over the coming year and develop a big growth in workload through existing and new clients.

I already have a solid group of associates and just need to freshen up the website before marketing the services I / we offer (mainly in SW before anyone gets too jumpy).

So if you could help, take a look at www.nuguru.com and flame it all you want, as part of the redevelopement we will be splicing some flash into the design as well as cleaning to use XHTML and CSS. I really need some, 'not got the info I need', 'could do with a few more client example' etc etc.

Thanks in advance.

D

[crus]

Is it that bad?

[Coding Monkey]

It's just the season to be jolly. No room for negative feedback

[SillyJokes]

You might say that, I couldn't possibly comment.

First of all, the landing page gives no indication of what it actually is that you do. the strap lines a re to ambiguous. as a designer you'll know that it is important to let visitors know what it is you do as soon as they land.

The navigation seems a bit odd on the perpendicular like that. I wasn't sure if I got it working or not. I learnt to read horzontal text left to right, call me old fashioned but that is how I like to read to this very day ;o)

The text is terribly small and I found it rather difficult to read when overlaying the images and when I tried to resize it to a format I could read it wouldn't change.

The portfolio page lacked any information about the tiny weeny screen shots which were so small and had no alt text to give me any indication of what they might be. The one I did look at, Peopletones, was completely different to the one you show in your portfolio implying that your design wasn't working and they changed it.

web pressence is spelt incorrectly on the services page so you may want to check the site over - there are some copy writers here who can cast a fresh eye over it for you. You need to get this done to have any credibility in the "aquisition and brockerage" of websites.

Sorry to be so negative. It's just not my cup of tea, it has to be said, but perhaps a couple of points will prove helpful.

All the best with your business.

[crus]

Thanks silly,

its been a while since I have done work for others, more programmer than designer, thats why asked for feedback before I updated, redesigned nuguru.

thanks very useful.

D

[Coding Monkey]

Just as a small comment, I see you alternate the background image on the front page. One of them looks like a huge lump of cheese. Really distracts my attention from anything else on the page.

[crus]

LOL Champagne.

Total redesign on the cards I think!

Thanks again

D

[Coding Monkey]

Best of luck. I can offer some help if you need it along the way.

[crus]

Cheers Tom,

gonna have a blast later, do a mock up for the nav then bounce,
I have an idea in my head.

After that just adding some flash inserts, and making the news etc dynamic.

Thanks Again.

D

[DuaneJackson]

The first thing that occurs to me is that I have no idea of what you charge, Are you an expensive, high-end designer or do you do budget work?

[Coding Monkey]

Duane, do you say that based on having no idea of what's offered, or saying that as you expect to see prices on a website that offers a service?

[clairemackaness]

I was planning to say....what do you do? Your picture looks like cheese. But it appears great minds think alike!

[DuaneJackson]

Duane, do you say that based on having no idea of what's offered, or saying that as you expect to see prices on a website that offers a service?

Just a general gripe about the web design industry really. For most services/products most people want to know roughly what it's going to cost before they pick up the phone, most web design sites give little indication.

[Coding Monkey]

Guilty as charged. It all depends what you want to achieve. I've never gained a customer via e-mail and therefore want people to call. If I put a price on the website, it would undoubtedly be higher than 90% of the quotes they receive (depending how far they search and what type of company they're looking for), so I'd lose out because price would be their only interest rather than value and what we can achieve for them.

I certainly see your point. It really annoyed me when setting up when wanting to hire people, but I don't have a problem with calling now. No one can force me into paying them after 1 call. I also feel that you're less likely to waste someone's time when you get to know them, which is another benefit of having more people contact you. It's not always the case, but certainly an improvement over simple e-mail communication.

Just comes down to a calculated risk. I might give it a go later next year and stick a base price on the website to see the results.

[DuaneJackson]

I agree with your philosophy - for a lot of what we do we don't give pricing on the site - the idea being that it's easier to communicate the benefits and close a sale on the phone then it os on a website where someone scrolls to the bottom line and says "too expensive" and moves on. We've put prices up now for streaming media services and we are now seeing a lot more sales and enquires than before, but we do have a very low price for thisl

[crus]

Interesting,

OK first, two votes on the champagne bubbles being cheese, so that may be on its way to the bin.

2nd, I see where your working from Duane, and your site made sense to me, pricing per gig etc etc.

Thing is most non IT focused companies don't understand this, demonstarted in other threads even in the short time Ive been on here (sms solution springs to mind).

Hosting is easy to price, and a menu for tangable services makes sense.
I offer solutions from £1 a month to £1000+ a month for clients, but the real service I offer in hosting is the knowledge to what they need.

This is the knub of it, the skills of extracting the requirements from a client are nearly as important as fulfilling them.

So in line with Toms mentality, quoting for solutions is nearly impossible because the potential customer does not know what they need to be quoted for.

An example I was recently approached to develop a 'bespoke' shopping solution for a client who retailed clothing goods on a global stage. To date they had run their business with a here is our new stock email and fax ordering. They had been on the web and had a quote / pricelist for ecommerce solution of $695 (off the shelf with a bit of customisation).

It took a while before they realised how damaging this would have been for the potential of their brand online. An hours chat, for free, running into marketing, levergaing existing customers, etc etc led them to spend more (with someone else I add), but I did get rewarded with a subsequent contract (guess they were crap).

The moral, as an example I guess is that if I had said 'web conceptualization £500 an hour to this client they would never even have bought me the latte they did, but the fact that we enetered into conversation probably saved them thousands would have made that £500 seem a bargain.

On this front I still feel that quoting a per page or a 5 page site price is not the way I wish to do business (its one of the reasons I stopped developing for clients 5 years ago). I would rather, and am aiming to get across the message that I can and will make you suceed, without getting your pants pulled down on price, or buying a rehashed template site.

Thanks for the input, and I will look at adding a menu for the more tangeable services we offer.

D

[DuaneJackson]

I find it very hard to argue with any of those points crus.

I'd suggest wordking something to that effect on the site. But bear in mind some companies would happily to a website for £500 others wouldn't touch anything for less than £5,000. Which are you?

Some kinds of indication or ball park figure - even if it's a big ball park - is useful.

Re the streaming stuff on our site. It's bloody hard to explain to non-techies. The copy we have up at the moment seems to make it clear to people that our way of billing is fairer even if they can't explain exactly why.

[crus]

Duane,

I like the way you have done the bandwidth stuff, as this is the root of many souring of hosting agreement relationships, at all levels.

Good work fella.

I used to host with one 'world class' data centre, had some issues where a supplied dedictaed machine was hacked as they prevented kernel level security admin. Huge bandwidth before they spotted, 6 month argument to get sorted. The result, I walked out with 20K a months worth of my own and clients hosting revenue. Its funny because they thought I only spent a couple of ton a month with them, my clients trust me that much.

D