View Full Version : Any help or advice Please
wheelie
12th May 2005, 22:57
Hi all,
We are currently looking towards promoting our business and looking for our own clients locally. Up to now we have only worked with
established competitors taking overflow work from them. Problem is work is now scarce from them, due to expansion and monopolising. To cut a long story short we are now competing with major national players, who no longer require our services. We pride ourselves on quality of work and reliability, but have no experience of sales, marketing etc.
We use our website as a source of information and refer all contacts to it, as it is our only 'salesperson'.
We urgently need feedback on the website, on the promotion of the business as a whole and help with sales. In fact any comments at all will be appreciated. Be as critical as you like as long as comments are constructive and not personal. LOL.
Oh forgot to mention we are skint.
Thanks in advance.
Simon
www.wheelie-ads.co.uk
c2webdesign
13th May 2005, 08:05
Simon,
The site is colourful and bright but if your business is selling advertising space, I'm not sure businesses would respond.
Your promoting a professional service, giving exposure to local businesses but if your website looks like this it may give a bad representation on the service you may provide. A website appearence can have an adverse effect on the perception of your business.
Ideas:
- Centre the page, instead of crammoing to the left
- Add an enlargement option to the photos on the photos page instead of one large photo (which will take longer to download)
- Work on the logo
- Add ALT tags to the images
- Sign up to my free search engine optimisation newsletter at http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk
Good points are that I was able to see what you do within 3 seconds of entering the site. Plus the text you have used is very concise.
I would consider a make-over though, which certainly wouldn't hurt your appearence.
Hope this helps,
Dean
C2 Web Design
http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk
Web Design | Online Marketing | Search Engine Optimisation
Unfortunately I have to agree with Dean - the website looks very amateurish and certainly wouldn't convince me to part with any money. If your website is your main "salesperson" as you put it, then you really need a properly designed website.
I must admit I looked at all the photos so I could get an idea of what you did, and if you asked me what it was that you did from that I wouldn't be able to tell you. The example ads in the photos are barely visible, and the photo quality is very poor.
You also seem to have a different font size and type on every page, which is a typical example of bad design. Standardise the font, colours, navigation (which you have done) throughout the site.
Finally, either dump the logo or get a new one professionally designed. It doesn't do anything for your business as it is now.
One point I've made a lot in the past and should make again here, is that if you want your website to sell your business you cannot afford to design it on no budget (unless you are a proficient designer yourself of course). It's a mistake I've seen time and time again and the complaint is always the same - why aren't I getting any sales? The answer is so obvious, yet for some reason people refuse to spend any money on doing it right. It doesn't have to cost a lot - your site could probably be redesigned with a new logo for about £500, and you're almost certain to see a total change in attitude and sales from your potential customers.
Hope that wasn't too harsh, but good luck!
buying_it
13th May 2005, 09:53
Have you considered using your advan downtime to advertise your own company?
If you are short of clients - have your own banners printed and drive them around :-)
Other than that - I must agree with the other posts. I redesign of your website is in order.
The basic information you have is great - but you need to major on making it simple for people to use and buy from you.
If I am a prospective new customer - what steps do I go through to purchase your service. I phone you up and then what happens.
I think it is fairly simple and all the answers are already in your site - just a bit spread out.
Andy
wheelie
13th May 2005, 11:25
Thanks very much for the response. The comments and advice are exactly what we need. I agree with all of them, and we are currently looking into the improvements, but would like as much feedback as possible and opinions before we take action.
Keep the help rolling in please it is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again, Simon & Debbie.
www.wheelie-ads.co.uk
wheelie
18th May 2005, 18:39
Hi All,
Following the recent advice given, all appreciated, we have decided to update the website. At present we have the home page done and are working on the rest, intending to keep the basic layout throughout. Please feel free to give comments, on what we've done so far.
Many Thanks,
Simon.
Rob Holmes
18th May 2005, 18:57
Simon,
Your site looks a mess in Firefox you may want to design it for firefox too?
Rob
Hey there,
You really need to sort out your site on first site it just turns any potential client off. It looks terrible on firefox not check it on Explorer.
RSL
CG Effect
3rd June 2005, 13:32
What is fire fox?
Why do people use it?
Just some questions from me.
Rob Holmes
3rd June 2005, 13:36
Firefox is another browser similar to Internet Explorer
People use it (arround 10 % of people on our sites) in preference to IE.
IMHO it is MUCH better with less security issues and not connected to Microsoft.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
I like the multiple tab functions so I can have multiple sites in 1 window, the look and feel are good for me too. It has a great bookmarking system and theres even a googlebar for it too.
Rob
CG Effect
3rd June 2005, 13:50
So what causes problems for Fire Fox on some websites?
Sorry to go abit off topic.
buying_it
3rd June 2005, 14:00
Where most problems come from is using a website design tool such as frontpage or (god forbid) Word.
Frontpage & Word are microsoft owned and bred and are designed to work with Internet Explorer (and nothing else).
The simplest way for a novice web design person to avoid compatibility issues is to use a simple web editor such as Namo WebEditor and stay away from any Microsoft offered web editors.
If you want to PM me I am happy to talk about the nasty technical details of what causes the technical problems - but it gets very technical very quickly!
Andy
Put basically Firefox is designed to work to an industry standard that Microsoft tries its best to ignore, because its Microsoft.