Not after a complete review...

[mugatea]

I would like to know people's opinions if using bullet points through most of the homepage (in desktop) works or not. I dont know who else to ask really.

https://www.bdws.co.uk/

 

[Kelly Drewett]

Bullet points are easy on the eye, but I am not sure that yours make complete sense. Bullet points should relate to each other, as a list.

The first, "AS SEEN..." could maybe go in a circle shape or something to stand out. Above the title.

The next 5 points make sense, but could maybe reworded slightly, shortened in fact. Remember people hardly read, they scan. I do like them as bullet points though.

Then I see the last bullet point, taken out of the list and put in as a larger font and different colour. As this is not a list item.

 

[mugatea]

Thanks, what about the rest of the page? I might try moving the "as seen" above title. Yeah, I know people scan thats why I'm playing with bullet points.

 

[BustersDogs]

I think that's too much information for customers to want to read. Do you need to go into that much detail about your walk times? Your bullet points are features of what you do, ideally your website would talk about the benefits to customers of the choices you offer.

This sentence "There are three group walks per day to choose from: Morning, lunch and late lunch…" is really all you need! The website's job is just to make people contact you. The information about walk times and where you go really is something you would want to be discussing on the phone when you've got your enquiries.

 

[mugatea]

well i used to display other services i offered but i dont want to promote them anymore. I added the time of the walks to the page to fill that gap from the other services.

 

[Nochexman]

Looks good to me.

This might seem self serving, but it would be better if customers could book in and pay for walks from your website.

 

[Peter Bowen]

Hi Jamie.

it’s a beautiful website. It’s hard to get pictures right on a website but I think you’ve managed to capture the spirit of exuberant dogs with the images you’ve used. Did you take those photos?

A couple of thoughts.

@Kelly Drewett made the good point that bullets are traditionally used to list things that are somewhat related. I don’t think that they make the page more readable in this case. Traditional paragraphs might be better.

The hierarchy of the page isn’t quite clear. You’ve shown the dog walking section which lists features that apply to all of the walks in exactly the same way that you’ve listed the morning, lunch and late lunch walks.

You might consider adding a field for a phone number to the enquiry form at the bottom of the page.

The “Owner of …” text in the testimonial section is very hard to read. It needs better contrast.

These are minor points but there is no reason not to get them right.

 

[mugatea]

yeah I did take the photos, thanks! Thanks for the tips!

 

[Awinner2]

Your phone number colour needs changing as it hides against the background. And you should utilise a cookie plugin i.e. EU Cookie Law to give viewers cookie information and the option to not allow cookies, as required by EU Law. Otherwise nice site.

 

[mugatea]

I've got a privacy & cookie policy at footer. I'll try to change phone colour.

 

[Awinner2]

Yes you do have the privacy and cookie link at the bottom of the page but best practice now says you should have a small popout bar re cookies as the visitor comes to the site. The plugin I suggest does that automatically. Why now install it and test it out? You can always delete it if you don't like it

 

[Alan]

Fortunately, GDPR will bing to the end the stupid unnecessary Cookie pop up ( recitals 21 and 22 ) and infact say that there are negative as they overload the user with requests from every website - instead the onus goes to the browser - which is where the selection of opting in should be.

Regarding use of bullet points on your home page, you seem to be using them instead of paragraphs. Bullet points should be summary and ideally only 3 or 4 within each section and contextually complete a stem sentence
e.g. Lunchtime Walks (ignore my poor copy I'm not a copywriter )

Your dogs can enjoy lunchtime walks. These these lunchtime walks take place:
• Split between Boden Boo and the beach.
• Or at the beach with some really fun and exciting dogs like Lexi (pictured).
and are lots of fun and play (sic) their doggy pals with fun treks along the woodland paths of Boden Boo.

 

[mugatea]

They were paragraphs but I changed them as I wasnt sure if people would even read them. I like your example, thanks, I'll try that out.

 

[BustersDogs]

well i used to display other services i offered but i dont want to promote them anymore. I added the time of the walks to the page to fill that gap from the other services.

Is there any reason why you need to have a large/long webpage? Your website's job is to make people contact you. If you list every fine detail of your services people have no need to phone you, which loses you the chance to make a sale. They might decide none of that is any good for them, and speaking to them allows you to persuade them that you can do what they need.

 

[Alan]

I do agree with the above ^ temptation is to try and put a lot of text on the home page for SEO but that is not required

e.g. modifying my example

Would your dog enjoy lunchtime walks?

• Boden Boo
• Fun on the beach

[button]Contact me to find out more[/button]

What about SEO, well write a page about Boden and why it is good for lunch time dog walks and link back to the home page
and a page about the beach and why it is fun for dogs and link back to home page

 

[Peter Bowen]

You've had some great suggestions here. It might feel a bit overwhelming to try and implement all of them at once.

Can I suggest one thing to start with if you're tinkering with the site. If you check your analytics you'll probably find that you lose most of your visitors in the first few seconds. Studies have shown that you've got less than three seconds to save or lose your visitor forever.

You've got this perfect headline "DOG WALKING FOR BISHOPTON & ERSKINE" which almost pops out, but just doesn't quite make it because it's overwhelmed by the dogs, and it's proximity to the rest of the text overlaying your header image.

This headline - the only thing your future customer has time to process in the first few seconds - should be so prominent that it sears itself into your visitors brain so they know if they're looking for dog walking in Bishopton or Erskine they're in the right place.

Aside: if you're after some other suggestions on improving the number of people who fill in your enquiry form you may find this article I wrote useful: https://pete-bowen.com/landing-pages .

It contains almost everything I've learned about convincing people to fill in enquiry forms, in plain English. I wrote it as a recap after the millionth person filled in an enquiry form on a site I built.

 

[mugatea]

thanks for the suggestions, I'll edit the bullet points, but I cant be ars*d making new pages, the homepage and services page will just have to do.

 

[Alan]

Obviously you have too much work coming in. You could always employ staff

 

[mugatea]

lol, been there done that. prefer being a one-man show

 

[mugatea]

Ok thanks guys, I'm a lot happier that I was before and although it's not perfect I think its better than it was before.