Feedback on new website please!

[grangejoinery]

I have taken the plunge and had a new website designed and built. It's still under development and I wondered if a few memebers would take a look at it and let me have any feedback?

the address is temporary at http://www.enitiate.co.uk/grangejoinery/ many thanx in advance.

Rob

 

[Kev Jaques]

hmm, sorry, this is not good on a number of levels, even at this stage
So many coding errors/issues, lots of embedded/inline css (and replicated), lots of embedded javascript.

 

[ccg2007]

Hi Rob,

Just a couple of very quick comments...

Wherever you have links to 3rd party website such as suppliers or Hull Colour Pages etc i'd recommend the links opening in a new window, otherwise once they click they've gone and left your site which is not what you want.

I'd also put your contact number on every page so that visitors to your website don't have to specifically track it down if they would like to contact you.

Chloë

 

[Deleted member 27344]

There's more unnecessary code in those files than actual content.
No wonder they only charge £75.
Have you got your own domain?

 

[business9amuk]

Hello!

I work on the site for our buisness, Business9am - I haven't done much yet, but I do design other sites in Flash - and CSS - I can see theres alot of code-work going on in your site.

Personally, the navigation is quite nice (maybe change to Flash?) but the background is quite distracting, perhaps play about with it in Photoshop, if you need any help PM me

 

[IainW]

Hi Rob,

The responses you've had so far are not negative as in slating but they're telling the truth and it must hurt.
I'm afraid your site is poor in every conceivable way, from the design, the coding, the background, the SEO absolutely everything.
I know it's in the initial stages however the fundamental elements of the site are missing when in matter of fact they should have been discussed and implemented at the beginning.
Your keywords are for web design and hosting including CMS's this is sending a wrong message to Google and other search engines when it goes LIVE.

Quite a bit of work needs to be done, or maybe start again with a professional web company.

All points are constructive and are for assisting you - so don't take offence.

Kind regards
Iain

 

[Dibs_h]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The company was formed by myself Mr Robert Langley[/FONT][/FONT]

The use of the word myself doesn't look right.

Also [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]it's background not [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]back ground.


[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]p.s.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] I don't want you to think I'm going across picky or anything - but the thing that strikes me is that in looking at such a website - if there are spelling mistakes and grammatical mistakes involving something that has been "proofed" checked, etc. by so many of you & times - exactly what kind of mistakes are there likely to be on the job when you don't get a 2nd chance to correct it?
[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[steve prescott]

Do you do business nationally?
Or just locally.

If you're a local firm, I'd think about
whether you actually need a website
in the first place. Ask yourself:
how much business will it bring in when
compared with other marketing methods
such as direct mail, newspaper ads,
or a simple referral system?

How will you get people to visit the site?
Are there a lot of local web searches for
joinery companies? There might be no-one
looking for local joinery companies on the web...

If you do want a website, I wouldn't have
a flashy one. Just a page or two.

But you might be better off concentrating on
other marketing methods.

In fact you can use "web marketing" without
even having a website.

Just something to think about.

Best regards

Steve

 

[grangejoinery]

Thanx everyone for the feedback. I've passed that onto the people building the site for me and have made some changes regarding the grammer etc, so thanks for that. If members have any more advice then please don't stop posting as this is helping!

 

[Matt1959]

I'm using Firefox (is this relevant lol) and your site pages don't scroll properly - very jerky and the pages etc are hesitant in loading. For this reason I would exit the site straight away.

 

[david8765]

has this website been built from the ground up for you or has it just been hacked from another website?

Plus no one has mentioned much about the content and the one thing that struck me is you could use part of your site to give people a bit of free advice. Not only would that draw people to the site but also show you off as both helpful and friendly but also an expert in your field

 

[grangejoinery]

has this website been built from the ground up for you or has it just been hacked from another website?

Plus no one has mentioned much about the content and the one thing that struck me is you could use part of your site to give people a bit of free advice. Not only would that draw people to the site but also show you off as both helpful and friendly but also an expert in your field

The site has been built from scratch. The reason we don't have any content giving free advice is we don't provide free advice we provide a professional joinery service, if people want to do DIY they can go to B&Q for free advice, why would they look on our site?:|

 

[IainW]

if people want to do DIY they can go to B&Q for free advice, why would they look on our site?:|

You're missing the point,
David8765 is right - If you have a page with free advice you'll bring in more visitors because your free advice will be full of keywords which search engines will pick up on. Your website will have an increase in visitors and some will read the free advice and go, others will read it and think you're a credible carpenter which they will remember for when they will need you as possibly other carpenters don't offer free advice. Also a lot of people will read the advice and in the end just contact you for a quote because they'd rather someone else do it. So - you're missing a trick by not offering free advice.

Maybe have advice on choosing a carpenter, whats the best wood, how long a job should take - here you're giving free advice without giving anything away.

Iain

 

[grangejoinery]

I've taken all your advice onboard and made changes along with the developer to the website. We have decided for now not to do the Advice page, but may consider this later on.

please feel free to take alook at the website again and let me know what you all think as always best to get another persons perspective.

thanks
Rob

 

[IainW]

I've taken all your advice onboard and made changes along with the developer to the website. We have decided for now not to do the Advice page, but may consider this later on.

please feel free to take alook at the website again and let me know what you all think as always best to get another persons perspective.

thanks
Rob

Hi Rob,

Better background - an improvement.
Pictures loads slowly and badly, SEO is very poor.
Christmas special offer needs to go as thats finished.

A touch better but could be vastly improved.

I'm not attacking you Rob or being awkward. It just needs a lot of work.

Keep at it though
Iain

 

[grangejoinery]

Hi Rob,

Better background - an improvement.
Pictures loads slowly and badly, SEO is very poor.
Christmas special offer needs to go as thats finished.

A touch better but could be vastly improved.

I'm not attacking you Rob or being awkward. It just needs a lot of work.

Keep at it though
Iain

Hi Iain,

Your looking at the wrong site mate, I've had a new website professionally built and will go live next week, but for now it's at http://www.enitiate.co.uk/grangejoinery/ this address. I don't have any Christmas offers on the new site!

 

[Kev Jaques]

I still stand by my original post, nothing has really changed, not only that but they also have a links page to their clients sites so they can give backlinks (on "hosting" keyword), were you aware of that?. There is also what seems to be an invisible link to golfsoc.com at the end in the footer but this anchor has no closing tag.

 

[steve prescott]

I wouldn't worry about SEO and getting to
the top of the search results.

Hardly anyone is searching for "joinery"
in the UK, and "Hull joinery company" gets
absolutely zero searches.

So what few searches there are will be
outside your area. That means any organic
traffic you get will be useless, unless you don't
mind going to, say, Penzance to do a job.

Still, there are ways of using a website
as an effective lead generator, even in
a local area. I know someone who does this
and it brings a lot of business. Someone in
an earlier post hinted at it. But the idea was
thought not applicable.

Good luck

Steve

 

[Matt1959]

pages seem quicker to load now so thats good. But I still think you could do massively better with the text content as some of it doesnt read quite right. Also, in the navigation tabs at the top of the page, how about changing "service list" to "what we do" and "project list" to "past work". as it makes the titles less ambiguous. Your images are still heavily compromised imho is that they are so small, not enlargable and therefore there only as a gesture not as a feature that impresses which is a great shame as its good images that help sell a site. That said, I got a feeling these are the only images you have and when they are blown up, they look worse???

are your images scanned photos? are they being resized properly etc? is there something you are doing fundementaly wrong with the images that makes them look quite poor of were they not great photos to start with and are all you have?

no idea about the coding etc and seo and all that stuff......

 

[Matt1959]

Hardly anyone is searching for "joinery"
in the UK, and "Hull joinery company" gets
absolutely zero searches.





Steve

I'm not disagreeing but you need to be careful saying things like this. I too offer a local trade just like Grange and search stats for my trade are non existent but it only takes one customer to search and find the site to get a nice order. Over the last 3 years I have had thousands pounds worth of orders from people that are "not searching" (but they are, because my GA stats tell me albeit in minute numbers) Its not like online shops whereby you need 1000 visits a week. 5 visits a week is enough to make a site like this pay.

 

[steve prescott]

I'm not disagreeing but you need to be careful saying things like this. I too offer a local trade just like Grange and search stats for my trade are non existent but it only takes one customer to search and find the site to get a nice order. Over the last 3 years I have had thousands pounds worth of orders from people that are "not searching" (but they are, because my GA stats tell me albeit in minute numbers) Its not like online shops whereby you need 1000 visits a week. 5 visits a week is enough to make a site like this pay.

You're absolutely right. It does only take one customer to get a nice order.

So it's definitely worth doing. But not worth worrying too much about, because there are far more effective ways of bringing in local business.

Make a nice site, sure. But you'll probably find that other marketing methods will bring in far more business.

All the best

Steve