Finished my website, feedback please :-D

[cqueen]

www.sequentialsuperhire.co.uk

[cmckay]

The site looks clean and its easy to use. Some of the photos take a little long to load though... maybe thats just me though??

Looks well though, not to cluttered and easy to find what you're looking for.

Good luck with it!

[Mwebb]

Cqueen,
I liked the layout of the site, and it had easy navigation.

A couple of things though. The pictures do load slowly. Might want to look into that,

2nd. The text on the front page is good. But i felt it needed something before it. I didn't really get from it immediately what the site was all about.

I felt you need some thing ( a paragraph) between "....the whole of east anglia" and "our first 15...." that explains what you are, what the customer can get from you, and then tell them about the offer.
I was kind left thinking..."points, for what?". It took a bit of searching to get the actual purpose of the business,

Just a few pointers, I am sure others will say differently. All in all though very good.

Good luck
Michael

[epiphany]

A few of the buttons don't work on some pages. One I particularly noticed was the home button while on the FAQ page. As previously mentioned, sort the image size.

With regards the general look of the site I feel it really doesn't match the feel and prestige of your product. I actually spent a while reading your site as I found it quite an interesting concept.

I feel your hits to conversion on that website will be extremely low. Banner up top is OK, images below are OK, buttons on the left look amateurish and keep changing position on different pages. The BIG rounded edges on the main frame again looks amateurish. Oh and the grey to white thing going on in the background, bake it all grey please. And the centred text has to go!

Sorry if you feel I am being overly negative, good concept but bad site in my opinion, ignore it if you like, websites are subjective after all.

Terry

[JustOneUK]

the page is too wide for my 1024 resolution

... so join me in a prayer for the 800x600 users :smile:

[SillyJokes]

There are too many fonts, you have centred the text which makes it hard to read and look bad, you spelt DEPRECIATION wrongly and you don't explain on the front page exactly what it is you are doing.

I do like the fact that you describe the area you cover striaght away but you don't explain what the customer can expect to gain from your business which will mean many will turn away immediately.

What is sequential super hire? The home page doesn't explain and I don't know.

Overall I'm afraid I don't think the site is commensurate with driving prestige cars at all, it looks very home made. Sorry to be blunt but this will obviously impact on the success of your business.

[ewan]

Too wide at the moment I'm afraid

[mattk]

I assume you're doing an update because none of the images load and I get a 404 when I click on "The Cars"

[mattk]

OK, normal service appears to have been resumed.

I agree with what someone else said, the quality of your site doesn't seem to match the quality of your product.

[Astaroth]

I personally have to say that the site does not say prestige to me.

On the more basic elements - do you have your points the wrong way round? according to your site the best vehicles (group 4) are the lowest points to hire

Your front page says that "Sequential super hire is your friend" - firstly you have missed off the capital letters in your company name. Secondly - the sort of people that will want to pay £10k for occasional hire, in my opinion, are going to be business professionals and they will want a professional company to deal with and not "a friend"

On the membership page - you state that it is interest free but you are charging them a higher amount than paid in full - I think you will find that you fall foul of regulations as you are charging interest

On the our service - you state you get the "experience of owning a fleet of prestige & exotic cars" - I misread this the first time (that or you have changed the wording) and didnt pick up the experience aspect but simply read owning a fleet of.... I personally would play it safer and say it is the experience of having access to a fleet of....

On the order form - it is cheques not checks. You are also asking a lot of personal questions without any explaination of why - working in insurance I am aware of why you need it but others may not want to give it without reasons why. I personally would also want to be accepting online credit card payments (and fully intergrated and not paypal etc) to capture the impulse buyers.

On the FAQ you specifically mention speeding fines but you dont mention congestion charging/ parking fines etc. Personally an FAQ is useful for the quick and dirty but you need to have an up front full terms and conditions with members having to state they agree to them when they complete your order form. You also dont state anything about availability of the vehicles - if I request a Ferrari F430 for a weekend what happens if you dont have one and therefore cant take the booking? What happens if you do take the booking but then the previous hirer doesnt return the vehicle?

On the harder element - you are marketing a prestige product with lots of images of what are considered some of the most prestige cars but your website really does scream home made. There is nothing dynamic or exciting about the site (again not matching your product). Your graphics (not photos) look fairly pixilated esp the edge of the border for the main text area. You have a grey (or it may be green as I am colour blind) background that does not fill the screen - I personally never like a background that is then surrounded on the right and bottom with the default white space. If the pages were centred in the whole screen so the white blank screen equally around it then it would be slightly better but not great. The worse offenders to me are the navigation buttons. These are just the most noticable elements but to be (possibly brutally) honest I really would consider either starting from a blank sheet of paper again in terms of design or now that you have £50k from your first 5 members then get a professional site done.

[cqueen]

Wow quite a big response, mostly bad LOL - appriciated though and I will get all of the mistakes ironed out.

[mattk]

I assume you've looked at your competitor's Web sites, like Ecurie 25 ;)

I'd use that as a benchmark to build your site against.

[ImageStudioz]

I think it looks rubbish.

Just me tho.

Considering you are trying to hire out cars with a value of over £1 million the site is a joke and i wouldnt hire anything.

You need a slick look, with flash and maybe videos.

You need to look at this in order to make this site a sucess.

Good Luck

[cqueen]

...nice.

I personally dont think the Ecurie25 website is very good, sure there logo & home page looks nice, but it's not easy to navagate. Anyway I'm working on a 'new & improved' version, come back soon for an update.

[mattk]

You're right, the Ecurie25 web site isn't the easiest to use, but it looks and feels prestige. I think what most people do is get a feel for the "concept" via the Web site and once contact is made they are invited to one of the open evenings that basically involves lots of champagne, some posh buffet and then at the end of the night a gentle push towards membership! I very much doubt many people will hand over £5k after just browing the site.

PS. Ecurie's FAQs are good.

[JustOneUK]

the e25 site looks crap too. don't base your ethos on what they have....

[amcphillips]

In this area I think that P1 have the best site http://p1international.com/ . I think that black portrays the prestige and exclusive image. You might also want to have some pop ups with more details of the cars when they are clicked on.

[c2webdesign]

Few pointers:

- Images too long to load

- Visual of site is not convey exclusivity. If your opening line is 'Welcome... To East Anglia’s most exclusive members club' your website look must match. Unfortunately it doesn't

- Much much too wide

- Good idea, but not enough visual or home page to make me go further. After the text on the home page add a link to where the visitor should go next. You've cut off and then expect them to go to the navigation area to continue reading

- Need a little SEO work - in particular your title tag just says 'index' - not very helpful to search engines.

Hope it helps.

[cqueen]

http://i4.tinypic.com/1043s5x.jpg

Right, have been working on a new version, this is just a preview of what it will look like, obviously the size isnt right but what are your general thoughts? does it say prestige?
Cheers,
Chris.

[mattk]

The pictures on the right are good - they look prestigious, but I'm not sure about the text, it looks a little difficult to read in that design.

I also check where you stand with using the car manufacturer's logos on your site.

A big improvement on the first go!

[epiphany]

Red text on the left, blue text in the center and yellow text up top clash.

Outer glow on blue text will have to go on the site.

Massive logo text up top is too big, make it way, WAY smaller.

And where is the navigation menu going to go?

[robertm]

My browser normally crams most things in but even i had scroll bars which is silly - either reposition it or do design in smaller frame. Im missing most text in right text frame

Loading was very slow, images must need to be re-done to get smaller loading size.

[ZARMarketing]

Hi,

Based completely on first impressions I was a little disappointed with this site. You are asking customers to buy into a luxury service aimed at those who want to attain a brand/lifestyle experience. Your website falls a bit short in fullfiling expectations for me - sorry.

The contrast between the pics in the sharp cornered box and the rpunded corners of the body copy sections, I don't think works. Make more use of your top banner - perhaps an image of spedo altered to denote motion, speed etc.

I used to work for BMW GB so I am passionate when it comes cars!

Love the cars by the way.

If you need any help marketing your services let me know.

Cheers,
Zoe
zoe@zarmarketing.co.uk

[cqueen]

Are you looking at the old one? or the new one?

[theMBA]

Chris,
I'd say this is a big improvement on the old site - speaks much more of prestige and excitement. Good use of interesting fonts and colours. The pics of the cars look good too.

I notice you refer to your business name as "Sequential Super hire" but then you abbreviate as "SSH". I think it would look better to refer to it as "Sequential Super Hire", which would then be consistent with the abbreviation.

If the rest of the site is as good as this (after correction of typos, insertion of navigation etc), then well done, and good luck with the business.

[cqueen]

Thanks MBA, I must remember to do that thing for your website!

On my website I'm going to use the car badges at the bottom as links to car pages, this one I'm particularly proud of...

http://i4.tinypic.com/10ctdts.jpg

[epiphany]

so once you put all the text on the site where are the buttons going to go?

[cqueen]

The four pictures on the right will shade when the mouse hovvers over them, they will be my main pages.
I've learnt a little about flash too, I've got a ferrari rev dial to flck, but I'm not sure if I'll use it or not.

[ImageStudioz]

Dont you have a budget for a site?

Id just pay someone

[cqueen]

I wouldnt,

Someone else wouldnt put as much effort in as me, and they might not be able to create what I want.
It may take longer to do it myself but it's another skill I can learn. If you still think it's not up to scratch then I'll just have to disagree with you.

[Coding Monkey]

Sure. They wouldn't put as much effort in, as they'd be a professional and wouldn't need to. It'd take them probably 1/10th of the time. But it'll look a helluva lot better.

[cqueen]

Well I think it looks plenty good enough.

[Faith28]

Well done on getting this far. I remember the old site and this one is much improved.

I noticed you charge VAT...are you VAT registered? I think you are meant to include your VAT registration number as well or is that done with every order processed. I've included mine in my terms and conditions page and I include it with all orders anyway.

Good luck with it
Eiman

[theMBA]

It's getting quite boring hearing people saying 'pay someone to do your website' - most of whom seem to offer website design services (shall we just put that down to salesmanship, then, which we all do to some extent). There are downsides to getting others to design your website. For example, there's a danger of ending up with a website that, fundamentally, is similar to many other websites that they've designed. It might also be more difficult/expensive to make certain changes to the site subsequently, than if you designed your own site.
Despite this, there are, I'm sure, some advantages, and I'll be looking for good quality input/ideas/ proven ways of making my site sticky etc from webdesigners when my business activity level can bear the cost.
If you have the money to spare, one of the main questions, I guess, is whether you have the time, and the inclination/motivation, to climb the learning curve yourself, or whether there are other more profitable uses of your time in developing your business.

[Gillie]

I think that when you are using your website as the main means of promoting your business and you have a 'corporate image' to portray then I would advise using a professional to do it. They are the ones that know what works best and the format best to get you google listings etc. And yes it can be said that designers do have a 'signature' with their websites in that they can favour certain styles say, but to say that they design all sites the same is just a slight exageration!!

[epiphany]

To be 100% honest I think most people that post website reviews aren't really that bothered about the advice they get.

I still don't think the website looks even close to being exclusive and throwing in pictures of nice cars and exclusive car badges and hoping they will make the site look nicer just isn't going to work. I agree that if you have the time then learning to do the site yourself is a great tool for your business so I am not suggesting you don't try that route.

[cqueen]

throwing in pictures of nice cars and exclusive car badges and hoping they will make the site look nicer just isn't going to work.

I think it works a treat.

[ImageStudioz]

I think you pulling our leg.

You got to be.

[cqueen]

Nope, I think you don't like that an amature has created a decent (if not amazing by your standard) website.

[Coding Monkey]

Not amazing by my standard

[webit]

Well I think it looks plenty good enough.

Hi cQueen. Speaking as someone who develops their own sites (and many blue chip clients sites) you have to ask what your business is.

Are you a web designer or do you run the car business. I know SEO but I'd rather pay someone else to do it - I know design but I'd rather pay - I know about PR but again...

I'd rather focus on the business (the money making side) and every hour not spent on that could be better spent.

[cqueen]

Well thats not the way I'm doing it. Constructive critisim please (i.e you keep saying it's no good but you don't actually say why), I dont want to hear anymore about paying someone else to do it.
Thanks.

[Faith28]

I think that people with limited budgets should certainly give it a go on their own. Then when they can afford it they can pay someone.

The way I see it as long as my time is cheap right now (!) I can give as much time as possible to every area of the business. But in the future as I become more and more busy with clients and management of the business itself I will be able to afford to outsource some of the work. The value of my time will be greater then so will be less likely utilised on mundane aspects of the business.

Cqueen - you're doing well and looks to me that you're improving your skills on this aspect so don't worry (as I'm sure you aren't) what others are saying about paying a professional to do it for you. If you're like me, you probably can't afford it anyway...so what is the option don't try to develop a business!?! No go for it and good luck

PS What about my VAT qn?

[NuBlue]

Hi Cqueen,

I agree with Faith28, when starting a business you have got to prioritise what you need and save money where you can. I wont lie, I think that a profesional website would probably get you more business in the long run (depending on who does it of course) but I think what you have created is fine to start with and doesn't look too bad at all.

My accountant (who will remain nameless) has got a shocking website but yet its one of the biggest, most prestigous accountants in Lancashire. At the end of the day, it's the product your selling and the customer service that comes with it that makes you money. Not your website.

Best of luck with it, and any chance of borrowing a Porsche next wk end, its my birthday !? :)

Regards

Michael

NuBlue Digital Web Solutions
www.nublue.co.uk
0845 0045 583

[cqueen]

Thanks,
With regards to VAT number, I will include it on the website, I just havnt got to that bit yet. There are a number of things I'm still to add, at the moment I'm just trying to get the right kinda vibe (excuse my David Brent).

[theMBA]

I think that when you are using your website as the main means of promoting your business and you have a 'corporate image' to portray then I would advise using a professional to do it. They are the ones that know what works best and the format best to get you google listings etc. And yes it can be said that designers do have a 'signature' with their websites in that they can favour certain styles say, but to say that they design all sites the same is just a slight exageration!!

The exageration is yours, Gill. I just said that there was a risk of ending up with a site that was similar to many of their other sites. I didn't say that they design all sites the same. However, your point about knowing what looks professional is a good one.

As an aside, I notice that you're in the business of facilitating access to finance. I'm in the business of reviewing Business Plans - sometimes this is to help my clients at a time when they're preparing Business Plans as part of their applications for finance. I'd be interested in the possibility of reciprocal links between my site and yours - PM me if you're interested.

[theMBA]

I think you pulling our leg.

You got to be.

So show us some sites that you think look better.

[theMBA]

Glad to see there are a number of people prepared to "DIY" their websites as a pragmatic solution to the business-on-a-shoestring challenge of starting a business. In particular, well said Eiman (Faith28) - I fully agree with your comments on this topic.

[MinuWeb]

I am confused by your points system (on your cars page)

A BMW X5 is group one, and as such would cost me 25 points in summer time

A Bentley continental GT is group 4 and as such would cost me 4 points per day summer time

So I can have a X5 for one day for the same cost as a Bentley GT for 6 days ??

[Coding Monkey]

So show us some sites that you think look better.

Certainly. Take your pick from their portfolios:

http://www.northkingdom.com/index2.html
http://www.springdigital.co.uk/portfolio/small_business.php
http://www.springdigital.co.uk/portfolio/e-commerce.php
http://www.springdigital.co.uk/portfolio/enterprise.php
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/portfolio/gods-smuggler
http://38one.com/

These are just one's I can recall. I could go on, and on and on.


The exageration is yours, Gill. I just said that there was a risk of ending up with a site that was similar to many of their other sites.


Isn't there a higher risk of it looking similar to other websites if you design it yourself, as you won't have the creativity of a designer?

[Coding Monkey]

Glad to see there are a number of people prepared to "DIY" their websites as a pragmatic solution to the business-on-a-shoestring challenge of starting a business. In particular, well said Eiman (Faith28) - I fully agree with your comments on this topic.

Of course it's a pragmatic solution, but thinking it looks better than what a professional could do, or even considering it high-end, is just absurd.

[ImageStudioz]

A blank would be better........anyway

What i would suggest is maybe......

Target and an area where you live or where the main business activity is run, PAY someone to design a nice slick leaflet that will get you noticed, and send to people etc.

Design shouldnt be too much and print...is as cheap as chips.

Then once you start making the money, get a website built.

I started out once and im totally self taught, but if i came across that i would even call you to see if it was legit.

[cqueen]

PAY someone
I dont want to hear anymore about paying someone else to do it.

I am confused by your points system (on your cars page)


Yes there are a few errors on my first website (which I havnt botherd to change because I'm not going to use it, the car grouping is the wrong way round, i.e. group 4 should be group 1.


if i came across that i would even call you to see if it was legit.

Which is good because I'd then talk you into signing up :)

I personnaly think you are being far too picky, I think it looks fine. If I stumbled upon it, I wouldnt question it.

[cqueen]

I also think you are looking at it from a web designers point of view. I'm more interested in an auto enthusiasts point of view, I'm an enthusiast and I think it looks great, as do others I have shown.

[MinuWeb]

I think it is OK for a publisher website, I would like a site offering services such as these to look like it has cost alot of money, even if it hasn't. And unfortunately this site does not do that for me.

The grey looks boring, the pic quality is not good, the buttons look cheap.

I would have thought that a site like this is one that you could really get away with a bit of clever flash (even though I normally advise against too much flash), especially for the header and menu.

[cqueen]

You're looking at the old website (the new one is on page 3). I would like to delete that very first post to stop people getting confused, but for some reason there is no edit option.

[mattk]

I also think you are looking at it from a web designers point of view. I'm more interested in an auto enthusiasts point of view, I'm an enthusiast and I think it looks great, as do others I have shown.
That is a very good point - and maybe you should post your site for feedback on Automotive Web sites, rather than on a site where people will look at it purely from a design/business perpective.

[cqueen]

I would but I'm not ready for people to start making enquiries. I am a member of the biggest UK auto forum (which also has a regional forum), and if I ask for opinions there, it'll ruin my credibility for when I start advertising there, if you see what I mean?

[MinuWeb]

You're looking at the old website (the new one is on page 3). I would like to delete that very first post to stop people getting confused, but for some reason there is no edit option.

Ask a mod to edit it for you (or upload the new version) :)

[mattk]

I would but I'm not ready for people to start making enquiries. I am a member of the biggest UK auto forum (which also has a regional forum), and if I ask for opinions there, it'll ruin my credibility for when I start advertising there, if you see what I mean?
I totally understand.

You'll have to let us all know when your launch party is so we can come and drink your champagne and eat your posh buffet!

[cqueen]

Who were the caterers for the Tottenham Hotspur team again?
.
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Only joking!