Constructive criticism please!!!

[kayak]

Hello all,

This is my first post and here - I have been recommended here by a friend.

I have recently launched a new business and have had a website designed for the business, which was designed for users and to look nice - not for any SEO.

I would really appreciated if people wouldn't mind looking at my site and telling me what is good about it and what could really do with changing.

Recently I have changed the meta tags and added google analytics into the site to try and understand the progress of a user through the site.

I realise there is still a lot to be done (such as there are no alt tags yet).

I do not come from an IT background at all but I am aiming to carry out everything for now myself as I can't really afford it!

You can find the website in my profile, I would rather not insert it here.

Many thanks in advance for any help received.

John

 

[Ethernetworks]

Lose the grid on the header pic I say

 

[Page]

Grid fine for me.

But I hate those ever changing titles.

I would say okay on arrival and then be never again or once very ?? minutes.

 

[kayak]

Thanks for the criticism, much appreciated.

I especially agree with the changing titles - at the least they are too slow to come up when you change pages.

Unfortuately stuff like that is out of my technical ability - I can just about manage key word tags and basic text changes.

If someone could look at the website from an SEO point of view that would also be appreciated although maybe I should post in the SEO forum as well...!]

Thanks again,

John

 

[WorldSalon]

The grid is fine, but the changing titles should go, as they take too long to load after changing pages.

 

[Dawg]

The grid should go, and I think the header pic should be smaller: you are using a third+ of above the fold space on a pic that doesn't actually do much.
I'd personally lose the flash altogether, it doesn't add anything and it adds load time to each page which is a pisser.
And to be a real moaning minnie, and again it's just personal preference, grey as a background is, well, grey. It's OK for arty stuff and scruffy creative types but I'm less sure about using it for property, where the subliminal feel might be better clean, sparkly, crisp. Not grey.
HTH

 

[Matt1959]

just glancing at the site for 30 secs, on your home page you say your a local firm but you don't say where, so the comment is irelevant really! I know its on the contact page but thats buried.

 

[kayak]

Thank you again to everyone.

The grey had never crossed my mind but I agree when I think about it.

Adding the place name to the home page must help my SEO work I'm guessing too and I can easily add that in, so it will certainly be done.

The website was actually built off a template and I believe it was a very good price for what I have but I am already looking into making some improvements in terms of SEO, aesthetics and linking my software and website together.

Many thanks

John

 

[shallam]

I think you've buried away deep down in menus what most people are going to be looking for - the details of your properties.

The design principle is called Don't Make Me Think - so put the most important information (the property details) right where it is very easy to find.

 

[kayak]

So maybe some more obvious links, i.e. the word properties created into a hyperlink on the home page? I didnt really want the home page to be the properties page.

Thanks,

John

 

[INDIZINE]

The house pictures in the grid give the impression you are dealing with million pound properties but I see you are advertising smaller properties as well, so perhaps a range of pictures would be better if you are going to show images of properties on the home page.

 

[Fuzzy]

The grid should go, and I think the header pic should be smaller: you are using a third+ of above the fold space on a pic that doesn't actually do much.
I'd personally lose the flash altogether, it doesn't add anything and it adds load time to each page which is a pisser.
And to be a real moaning minnie, and again it's just personal preference, grey as a background is, well, grey. It's OK for arty stuff and scruffy creative types but I'm less sure about using it for property, where the subliminal feel might be better clean, sparkly, crisp. Not grey.
HTH

Who you calling a "Scruffy creative type" you dirty Dawg! I will have you know that being in my office today I am dressed for the occasion in joggers and a large wooly jumper!

Anyway, Hi MPM, I like the site, although really don't like the turquoise colour - yukky! To me you just need to change that colour - be bold!

 

[kayak]

The turquoise colour has come from the logo but is obviously in a lesser quantity - it was originally black. I got a bit of a shock when it changed but you know how it is when you look at your own site for too long - hard to tell if it is good or bad.

Would black be better or a bit too black?

As for the million pound houses, I've only been going a couple of months give me a chance! In all seriousness, I take your point but I don't want to make it look like I am offering a bad service just because I offer some cheaper accommodation.

Thanks all

 

[Fuzzy]

The turquoise colour has come from the logo but is obviously in a lesser quantity - it was originally black. I got a bit of a shock when it changed but you know how it is when you look at your own site for too long - hard to tell if it is good or bad.

Would black be better or a bit too black?

As for the million pound houses, I've only been going a couple of months give me a chance! In all seriousness, I take your point but I don't want to make it look like I am offering a bad service just because I offer some cheaper accommodation.

Thanks all

I'm loving black, but it's all a personal opinion eh ?!! We are having our site re-designed in black, Earl posted a really interesting link to colours and websites and I cannot find it for the life of me . Of course I didn't listen to a word the study said

 

[Matt1959]

As for the million pound houses, I've only been going a couple of months give me a chance! In all seriousness, I take your point but I don't want to make it look like I am offering a bad service just because I offer some cheaper accommodation.

I don't know what others think and I'm no expert but arn't you falling into the trap of portraying an image that doesn't match the reality? If you were into million pound houses, fair enough but theres nothing wrong with the lower end of the market and if you make it look too posh, it'll put those people off. I guess the key is to be true to your business image.

digressing, I hate awaiting images!

 

[Dawg]

I'm with the clean, minimalist feel.

I just think it says you are classier.
Pic higher, so more content above fold; I took a couple of gridlines out around the logo, they could all go..


(As I said, grey is for scruffy creative sods)

 

[jamie1183]

Hi I just wrote a really long post to help you with you SEO and lost it we had a bloody power cut before I had finished I will start again.

 

[jamie1183]

Basically to sum up what I said you can do about 4 things to help improve your sites SEO.

Change the title: The Company name is best to be at the end, put the main key Phrase first, choose a key phrase that will start to get you traffic but not too competitive.

Secondly you need to generate good links to your site, do link exchanges with sites with a good google PR to find this out download google toolbar.

Also go through your site content and link any relevant words to pages, eg.
if the word property is in your content and you have a page called property, Link It.

• Make sure all your images have
relevant Alt Tags.

This is also a good thing to do, add Title to all of your links, to do this you simply ad a little code to the link, the code is eg. title "Property" This will display the word Property when the mouse scrolls over the link.
Add the title code within you link code eg.
<a href="property.html" title="Property">

Finally make sure your website content is well written and informatice with your main keywords featured as much as possible.

Also if you have not already done so, setup a google webmaster account and submit your site and make a google sitemap this does seem to speed google up in listing you.

Hope this helps you.

 

[jamie1183]

Also just add my opinion on the design, I would lose the Green background and go for white or maybe light grey.

Also the flash header becomes quite anoying, takes time to load and to be honest does not help. I would go for a clean simple header design as an image, I am not a flash fan to be honest so maybe someone else mite love it.

Just my opinion as a Web Designer.

 

[jianway]

Hi John,

I'll have to agree with a few comments other people have made and add a few new ones. Please forgive me if I'm being blunt in places.

1. Website design is too colour have and it should be clean and crisp with light background for easy reading.
2. Too much space is taken up by the image, on my laptop text starts halfway down the screen.
3. Logo text (MPM) should be smoother; it's hard to achieve smoothness when you're working with outlines with high contrast.
4. I think that the website would be better of without Flash that takes time to download. You can easily replace it with images which you can manage yourself. The same goes for the navigation; it can easily be done with html/css with some nice effects applied to it.
5. Website is built using table structure rather than div/css for layout/presentation which will make it harder to update without breaking the code. There are other reasons why you shouldn't use tables for website layout, but that's a whole old story.
6. Secondary navigation (i.e. section navigation) could be improved.
7. Scrolling text is distracting.
8. Properties page design could work better if there were not distracting borders for each property.
9. "Awaiting photos" graphic is very messy and distracting.
10. You could create property search form and make it available from every page.
11. My guess is that you may also need simple content management system to help you update properties and the rest of the website without having to battle with the code.
12. Title tag for each page should reflect what the page is about. At the moment you have 2 generic <title> tags.
13. You could use header where the logo is to display your phone number or your strap line. There is so much unused space at the top.

All the best
Jasmina

 

[kayak]

Thank you all - blunt is good, no point beating around the bush if I have asked for some help!

These things that I should change are really helpful and I am going to make a list of things I can do myself, i.e title tags etc and things I can't do myself such as the design work.

As I mentioned before the website was done off a template making it very good value for money (I think!?), but at the same time limiting in terms of how the website looked.

In terms of 'table structure', does this mean that another web developer would find it harder to make some of the changes that have been mentioned in the above posts?

Just so you know - in theory I can edit all of my website but I can't write HTML code, so I can't. I have a program for uplaoding the properties but again am very restricted on the 'look' of them. The properties page is probably my least favourite part of the site, as there is no ordering, no search, and 4+ rooms is a too smaller category. However, those changes will have to wait until I link my website to my software using a SOAP interface as otherwise I will be paying to make two lots of changes.

In the meantime, I am goign to make some simple tag changes, alt tag insertions, and try and create some internal hyperlinks - I am sure I can learn how to do that.

Basically, as a new business I have no money but still want to offer the best possible website and I am sure I can make some changes with no or very little money.

Thanks again,

John

 

[kayak]

Another point,

I have a google webmasters account, and made an site map using their instructions and have added the google analytics script into the main pages too.

Thanks,

John

 

[kayak]

Can anyone recommend a free website editing package?

I use a free version of page breeze and it crashes so much and all I am trying to do it edit the alt tags!

Many thanks,

John

 

[Dawg]

NVU is meant to be OK

 

[kayak]

Thanks - I downloaded NVU and it looks really good, and has an auto publish button which saves having to use ftp upload.

However for some reason it chops off the green colour from the side of the page leaving a thin strip and filling the rest in white.

It is nothing to do with my editing but I can't see what I am doing wrong.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks,

John