Yet another website review sought

[The Londoner]

Good afternoon all, used to visit here many moons ago under a different guise, when the site looked very different. Pleased to see it is still going and a source of much good stuff.

If website reviews are still a currency, would be grateful for any comments on mine; richardhenry.co.uk Tend to get good comments from those I know when they look at it, but . . . even with promotion, and I've just started a ppc programme, it is not bringing in the punters. The traffic is not bad, but something somewhere does not result in contact being made.

Regards

TL

[Richard Conyard]

Font size is far too small, especially the main navigation, also beige on white doesn't stand out much.

[SteveGibson]

The sentences on the home page are too long.

And they don't really say anything. THey're just asking questions you can presuppose the answers to (ie you can just assume they're on your site because they're looking for the services of someone in your field).

So, effectively, you've got nothing at all on your homepage.

Steve

[sbboy]

for one, your page take the bsckground my browser has for it's windows. It is currently somewhat mustard and your site looks very unprofessional tih this background. Also, the image arent great and you've used very basic text which oozes a lack of perfectionism??? You have a good concept with the header and the 'corporate relocation' text as well as the three stacked boxes. keep these and fine tune the other elements of the site. The text for the links is also ridiculously small!

[Coding Monkey]

I feel when dealing with any type of business, you should always present yourself as professional as possible, and you can do this in many ways. But with a website, you have literally seconds to impress your audience, with recent research showing that we make our assumptions about a website within split seconds. With yours, I'd say that is all lacking. Once again, it's the use of colours that are the significant let down in the design, but there are parts that just change without any notification of why. For example, on the home page I have your phone number, it disappears on "sales and letting" and reappears again on "database search".

I think you have a problem with the positioning of your headline, compared to that of the rest of the text, as it hovers above the option to sign-up to the newsletter, which is the next thing you would read. And with the newsletter, the text is too close together to give 1 solid reason to sign-up, which should be followed by the boxes to enter their details, not making them click to then do it, as it's just another step in the process. I also don't quite see why you have "contact tel" separated over 2 boxes, as the way it's laid out would make me assume that under "contact" you would have additional information, such as your address.

I don't mind going through somethings in more detail with you on the phone, if you want to get in touch for a no-obligation discussion, and I might be able to push you in the right direction.

[PlainText]

Looking at the copy, the opening paragraph is dreadful (sorry but it is). It's just waffle. You could lose it completely and you'd never miss it.

The second paragraph uses 4 and 1/2 lines for one sentence! That's way too long. Web copy needs to be short, sharp and to the point. Break it up into smaller sentences. Or better yet, pay a professional to write it al properly for you.

I haven't looked beyond the home page, but I suspect the rest of the copy needs major surgery if the home page is anything to go by.

[PlainText]

Actually, I just looked at the FAQs - again a lot of the copy needs trimming. Get rid of all the waffle about "it deoends" and "there are no hard and fast rules". Your readers don't want to read that - they want solid answers.

Why have you put in stuff about the pre-1980s lease laws? That's irrelevant.

This copy needs a lot of work. If I was looking to relocate, you'd have lost me as a potential client very quickly.

[PatrickH]

The most important things on the home page are the links (Contact, not least). The menu items are way too small - like a cakeshop with only small buns in the window.
Put some links in the left sidebar; make them more prominent; make the sidebar bigger. Prune the text.
Patrick

[earner]

LOL/previous posting "small buns in the window" - I love that.

Anyway - I haven't read everything above, but what I see I agree with.

My first impressions/dislikes were:
First thing I noticed was: I couldn't read it. Way too small. And with the words being in light grey I couldn't see the navigation items at all

Contact Tel - the two red boxes. The alignments/size/pacements in these boxes looked shabby and hard to read. I see what you were trying to do with the align right meeting align left, then stellping down, but it just jars the eyes

And as others all said - the lines are far too wide. Online copy column widths have to be shorter than paper-based. As a "quick fix" you could probably get away with bullet pointing that second paragraph

9 items on the top bar is too many. Max of 7 is recommended.

The graphic "to receive ..." I couldn't read. Too much in one box.

[nsdesign]

Your text on the page doesn't resize at all (this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding accessibility issues on the site) and the top navigation is far too small, but since it's done as graphics instead of just text (why?) also cannot either be resized....

[earner]

Yeah, I noticed the resizing problem, just didn't mention it.

I never have windows open full size, I always resize all my windows and move them around the screen as I usually have loads of sites loaded at the same time.

[chabrenas]

They've all said it - you need a good copywriter. The alternative is to spend the next month browsing SEM and web copy forums and blogs and learn a bit of the game yourself, but that's not what you're paid for.

A competent professional should make a huge difference in your PPC conversions in a couple of weeks. Then let him/her sort out your ads - we haven't seen those, but if they're in the same style...