New website launch http://dev.mobilewebsitepro.com/igas_enginering/

[igasengineers]

Hi thanks for taking the time to have a look at our new website (currently on a temp link as not launched yet I would appreciate any advice and peoples opinions on what could be changed and any improvements that I could make?

 

[fisicx]

It's not very good at all. The company that built have created a monster that fails at just about everything. It should be mobile first for everything but your site only scores 30/100 with google, doesn't work well on a phone, has confusing navigation, poor content and weak calls to action.

I could go one but there is so much wrong with the site I just don't know where to begin.

And the site has just crashed....

Don't pay Smeg oweb anything - cancel the contract and find someone in the UK who knows how to structure a site properly.

 

[igasengineers]

Thanks for your very honest opinion. I tested the site on google as well and saw the same result that you mentioned (although it says it is 96/100 for mobile friendly its 30/100 for loading speeds on mobile and desktop. It does give a detailed description of how to fix the problems and a lot of it seems quite straight forward. My question is how does the site look and feel and navigate for the customer? You mention the call to action but there are a lot of features that allow the customer to engage so slightly confused about what you mean there? Also what would you opinion be on what to do to make it better? Many thanks

 

[fisicx]

Look at your hompage. On the big (and pointless) hero image is says you are 24 hour local but doesn't say where. It says Plumbing & Heating Professionals but the image looks like some industrial unit which suggests B2B not B2C.

Where's the phone number so I can call you in an emergency?

The whole site looks a mess. The navigation has far too many links and doesn't tell me what you do.

Look at this page: http://dev.mobilewebsitepro.com/igas_enginering/services/boiler-servicing/

Why are you telling me all that guff. Can you fix my broken boiler? Where's the phone number to call? I have to scroll a long long way to find it only to discover it's a 0800 and I still don't know if you are local to me.

To be perfectly blunt, this site needs chucking out and starting again. It's slow, badly coded and just doesn't do your business any favours. It looks like SMEG have just bunged a load of stuff on hacked wordpress 2015 theme and left you to do the rest. If they had spent some time on a bit of planning you might have got a decent site - but that's not how these cheap outsourcing agencies work. I'd put money on the site being built in India, which is why it's so bad.

 

[fisicx]

Keep it really simple: tell me what you do, where you are and how to contact you.

Put your services on the homepage and link each one to a separate page that has more detail about the service. Link from this page to examples of your work and testimonials.

Make sure every page has your local telephone number in the header and footer and at the bottom of the content along with your email, address and a contact form.

And ensure the site works properly on a mobile phone

That's all you need to do.

 

[fisicx]

To clarify what I meant about the theme. Wordpress launches a new theme every year the latest being 2017. The developers of your site have used the 2015 theme. Which means you didn't get a bespoke theme, you just got a hacked 3 year old theme.

And because they are so poor at building a site that they have just added a load of plugins which aren't even properly configured. Which is why your homepage is 7.1Mb

 

[igasengineers]

Again thanks for the advice. I agree the telephone number could be higher up (there is a local number as well as an 0800 so don't see any issue there... a lot of our older customers like the 0800 number and so that's why we have it. Also there is a great big map on the homepage showing where we are as well as a short description of who we are, what we do, and where we operate. It seems as though Uk web designers have something against Indian web designers. The fact is I asked a dozen Uk designers and a lot of people want you to have a basic design without any custom built pages specific to an individual and a lot of it is just standard template design. If you look at the quotation system we have created we asked numerous uk web designers to produce this and most said they couldn't or wanted £5,000 as it's a "custom job" Also a lot of the Uk designers want to to charge annual fees and charge and arm and a leg anyway. If it were easy to find someone in the uk that charges a reasonable price trust me I would have.

 

[igasengineers]

Oh I see so how can it be changed over to 2017 then?

 

[fisicx]

Also there is a great big map on the homepage showing where we are as well as a short description of who we are, what we do, and where we operate.

But you have to scroll a long way to find this information.

The fact is I asked a dozen Uk designers and a lot of people want you to have a basic design without any custom built pages specific to an individual and a lot of it is just standard template design.

And that's because basic works. However, you have spoken to the wrong designers - doing custom pages is easy.

If you look at the quotation system we have created we asked numerous uk web designers to produce this and most said they couldn't or wanted £5,000 as it's a "custom job"

Again, you spoke to the wrong designers. That sort of thing is easy to build. However what you have isn't a quote system, it's just a simple form. And the UX is poor on a phone. There are free plugins you can get for wordpress that would provide a live quotation. For example: https://wordpress.org/plugins/calculated-fields-form/

Or I could build you a really smart plugin for a few hundred.

Also a lot of the Uk designers want to to charge annual fees and charge and arm and a leg anyway. If it were easy to find someone in the uk that charges a reasonable price trust me I would have.

Nobody I know does this. For example, I charge a one-off fee for the website build and that's it.

Oh I see so how can it be changed over to 2017 then?

No it can't.

What you need is theme optimised for mobiles and tablets not an outdated one that was build for desktops. It's what Google is looking for and what most of your visitors will need.

It seems as though Uk web designers have something against Indian web designers.

And reason is because they build sites like yours: badly coded, slow, cumbersome to use and poorly responsive. Over half my work comes from people who need their site fixing after being developed overseas.

Try to use your site on a phone - I can't even get the menu to work properly.

 

[Alan]

In fairness some sites developed overseas are good, or excellent. But lots, especially purchased on price, are not.