What do you guys think of the site?

[sysuser786]

hi guys,

hope everyone is doing well :). Would be grateful if you could take a look at the screenshot below and tell me what u think of the site i made...does it look good???



http://i43.tinypic.com/f0zo9h.jpg

[CodePHP]

Hello sysuser786, I too am based in Bradford, Yorkshire.

The design has great color scheme, set out well. I like that the content is not cramped, the main menu with one letter highlighting is effective.
This seems a very professional website from the screenshot.

The only faults i can pick with the website is the right menu terminology id of expressed your services differently
IT Consultancy (Small Business) -> Small Business IT Consultancy
Setting up Software & Installation -> Software Installation
Computer and software tuitions -> Computer Tuitions
Parental Control ....... -> Parental Control
Networking Solutions .... -> Networking Solutions
.. This to remove the bloat around your services, you can use alt tags for more description and the individual webpages themselves. Links with Service Names and descriptions will preform less effectively on search engines than the service names themselves.

Its a very effective webdesign.

Regards,
Adam Hosker
CodePHP.co.uk

[PointandStare]

I thought site reviews were only in the reviews section and for full members?

Rules? what rules?

[sysuser786]

@ codephp - thanks so much for that review. Your right in saying that the word is too long. I will correct the necessary issues u have mentioned.

@ pointandstore - thanks for letting me know, but I didn't know there was a Reviews Section..for now i will stick here (unless a mod can move this topic, but in future i will post in review section.

@ CodePHP - you have a PM mate

[MattyB]

I didn't see the top menu (white background), I think I'd expect it under your masthead.

Currently there's too much of a gap between the menu, and the content, think of your poor users little arms.

[Comspec]

I like it mate, but would prefer you placed it onto some hosting where I could click around on it to see. Agree with some of the comments above.

Is the header too wide, or what is going on there?

If you don't have your hosting sorted yet, I'll put it onto mine for a while if you like.

[sysuser786]

thanks for all your help guys. The menu is there and when i hover the mouse over it, each buttons turns maroon colour. The gap in my opinion seems ok, but i could be wrong.

Comspec, thank you for that generous offer...i already have hosting, but i've taken the site down due to google picking it up and also coz i'm not ready to host it :(

Also comspec, i have sent u a PM.

[MattyB]

thanks for all your help guys. The menu is there and when i hover the mouse over it, each buttons turns maroon colour. The gap in my opinion seems ok, but i could be wrong.


No Dude, I did see it eventually, but I'm on about usability.

Two points.

1. Main Nav is hard to find - You only have a 4 second window for someone to size your website up and then carry on googling, so you want things to be easy.

2. If you were surfing your site, and you wanted to move to the next page, your mouse has got a far greater distance to travel, than if your menu was tucked under the mast head.

I might be wrong - I'd like other peoples opinions on this, because quite frankly I could have usability wrong, and I could be telling people the wrong things.

It might be fine where it is, but I suspect not.

Hope this advice helps anyway.

[sysuser786]

ok..here's the 1st page of the site...i think all links are broken, but it gives u an idea:-

http://yorkshirepc.equiphase.net/

[Admiral-Design-Print]

I agree with the other views that the main navigation should be under the masthead.

The masthead is very big (and probably too deep - you want as much content as possible to appear "above the fold", especially if you are planning on doing any pay-per-click advertising.)

I think the "Our Services" navigation at the right hand side would be better if you left aligned the items within that column, rather than centred, as it will be easier to read and pick out the item the user wants.

Your tagline might be better with less space between letters, as it's quite hard to read like this - if you don't want it to stand out so much you could make the letters closer and larger, but in a darker colour (say, mid-grey or a dirty version of your orange colour so it doesn't fight with the other elements in the masthead.)

Like the font you have chosen for the page - very fitting for an I.T. company... Good luck!

[sysuser786]

thanks for those opinions matty and admiral. I have sorted a couple of things which are:-
the side-menu wording has been shortened and left-aligned.
The header background has been slightly lightened
the header tagline greyed

Unfortunately, i don't know how to move the menu down as i'm not familiar with the css. I tried it, but it messes up the whole layout and text.

Anyway, pls take a look and let me know.

[PointandStare]

Why have you underlined the nav elements?
Normally it's used to indicate keystroke shortcuts. You don't seem to have grasped that feature.

Anyway ... it's a free template so you'll need to do some work to make it a bit more unique.

[Comspec]

I agree with the comments about the header - it is too 'in your face' and takes away from your messge tbh. Cut the size of this, and make it a little less prominent. It is a slight effort to get your message at all the way it stands.

Nice enough job though, and will look professional when you have it completed. Good luck.

I'll email the other stuff we were talking about later tonight.

[sysuser786]

many thanks comspec mate...ur a star.

After everyone giving me advice, i decided to take a gamble and played about with the css and html files. I have managed to:-

make the header & logo smaller
move the buttons under the header
changed some colours to try and make it look in place.

I don't know why, but something seems to be out of place...is it the colours??? If so, what would anyone recommend?

http://yorkshirepc.equiphase.net/

[Comspec]

Much neater mate, well done.

The colours seem to be such that all the headers/menus etc are very prominent, yet your actual content is very much in the background. at least thats what I think it is that gives me the feeling something is wrong anyways :)

Email being worked on now mate, while I have a coffee.

[MattyB]

That's the trick, your eye can train on any part of the relevant part of the site now.

And well done to your self, not bad for some one who doesn't know that much html/css - and can take constructive criticism on board and make it work.

Good luck with the site - now you needs lots of links pointing to it to get it indexed and push up the serps.

But thats for another post.

[Bradley]

Hi,

I had a quick look at your site, the design looks good but it could still have a better look & feel with very easy friendly navigation on either side.

I feel a header & footer can still be more effective!!!

Are you thinking of re-design, if yes we can help, I work with a pool of some extremely experienced designers & developers with a competitive & cost effective pricing.

We are a Kent based company.

Regards,
Bradley
Chilliapple Ltd

[sysuser786]

@compsec & mattyb - thanks for ur generous comments. At least I know it looks much better than before. My only issue is eithier the colour scheme seem wrong or the header needs some sort of a gap at the top???

@ comspec - did u send that email mate, coz i neva received it...thanks!

@ bradley - thanks for ur offer, i'm not working at the moment mate, so i'm totally broke :(, so unless we are talking an extremely cheap site or maybe even alter the one i already have, otherwise i wouldn't be able to afford or go for it...

[sysuser786]

well guys...i think my reluctance to not allow anyone else do a site for me has definately paid off!!!! I've managed to add a contact page and all the contents and i hope you like it too...if u can, pls chk the links for me and the contact page works, so pls email me using the form...i'm feeling so happy :)

[Easy Credit Mobiles]

Its certainly getting there, i like the overall look.

For whats its worth, i would consider rewording the following to something else. Not quite sure what at the moment...


This could be used for many other criminal activities such as ID FRAUD, PASSWORD SNIFFING, damage to your precious data.
Imagine all your photos, documents, videos, and files GONE! Worse of all, they wouldn't even need to come to your door step!

[MattyB]

I see what you mean with the colour scheme.

Here's an idea. Make your main text area (such as how can we help, Yorkshire PC is a blah blah blah) a lighter grey, but not white because of your right hand nav.

But at the same time, allow the background to remain as it is, or set it to be a darker colour.

Things to do....
Links in your footer aren't done yet - terms and privacy policy.

Polish
Now, here's just a little touch, have a favicon.

It makes your site stand out that little bit more in your tabs and bookmarks. No other reason, but it adds a little bit of umph to it all.

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/

This program allows you to upload an image and spits out a fav icon for you.

The all you need to do is upload it to the root of your site as favicon.ico and add this to your code in the header (near title tag).

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />

This is just my personal opinion, it's just for adding a little polish.


Matt
www.bankeyfields.co.uk (http://www.bankeyfields.co.uk)
www.adaptive.co.uk (http://www.adaptive.co.uk)

[MattyB]

I forgot to say.

The link on your Home link is index.html.

You need to alter that link to be <a href="/"> rather than <a href="/index.html">.

The reason why is the search will treat your proper home page ( / ) and ( /index.html ) as different pages with duplicate content and mark you down when it comes to search engine result rankings.

Only do this on your live version though, as it makes testing your local version hell.

[Easy Credit Mobiles]

I see what you mean with the colour scheme.

Here's an idea. Make your main text area (such as how can we help, Yorkshire PC is a blah blah blah) a lighter grey, but not white because of your right hand nav.

But at the same time, allow the background to remain as it is, or set it to be a darker colour.

Things to do....
Links in your footer aren't done yet - terms and privacy policy.

Polish
Now, here's just a little touch, have a favicon.

It makes your site stand out that little bit more in your tabs and bookmarks. No other reason, but it adds a little bit of umph to it all.

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/

This program allows you to upload an image and spits out a fav icon for you.

The all you need to do is upload it to the root of your site as favicon.ico and add this to your code in the header (near title tag).

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />

This is just my personal opinion, it's just for adding a little polish.


Matt
www.bankeyfields.co.uk (http://www.bankeyfields.co.uk)
www.adaptive.co.uk (http://www.adaptive.co.uk)

That is a pretty cool trick

[sysuser786]

thanks easymobile...i will look into rewording that, but not sure myself what to replace it with.

@ mattyb - thanks for that..funny enough i already had designed the favicon a week ago...but one thing i don't understand is that do i need to place <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> into all html pages or just the index page? Also you said place it near to the title, but does it matter which line i place it after?

I will give the colour scheme a try, but just don't wanna go over the top with this. I'm more interested in choosing the right keywords in order to push the site ranking higher for SEO.

[Easy Credit Mobiles]

I have just added an favicon to mine and only added it to the index page, i placed it just before </head>

[MattyB]

thanks easymobile...i will look into rewording that, but not sure myself what to replace it with.

@ mattyb - thanks for that..funny enough i already had designed the favicon a week ago...but one thing i don't understand is that do i need to place <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> into all html pages or just the index page? Also you said place it near to the title, but does it matter which line i place it after?

I will give the colour scheme a try, but just don't wanna go over the top with this. I'm more interested in choosing the right keywords in order to push the site ranking higher for SEO.

Put it on every page mate, will look odd if you don't.

That was me testing your contact form.

[sysuser786]

brilliant guys...thanks! yeah the contact form seems to work perfectly...now its the favicon to be sorted. Its a brilliant feeling when things start moving along.

[sysuser786]

ok guys...just added the favicon line to the index page and it ain't working

[LittlestHobbo23]

i'd put the mainnav on the left but ts clean and too the point

[MattyB]

Hi sysuser786

The right menu, looks a little odd, as it doesn't fill all of the white space. Maybe if it stretch across.

Sorry if that sounded picky, it's easier this side of the fence.