Website Review Please - cranes / lifting

[Mattymoomoo]

Hi All,

Whilst ive been a member for a long time, ive not actually been in the position to need a website reviewed.

Would you mind taking a few minutes to review my website to highlight any glaring issues or points of concern.

Note this is a B2B and about cranes/lifting - so its not necessarily for the layman and I suspect that it is unlikely that a buyer of our services will need education on what we do.

Sedge - Your Lifting Specialist Firm | Sedge

Discover unparalleled lifting and machinery management with our expert services. Specializing in reducing risk and streamlining administration, our 24/7 management system ensures reliable operations.

sedgeworks.com

Cheers,

Matt

 

[Paul Carmen]

What is the goal of the website?

 

[Mattymoomoo]

What is the goal of the website?

1) To give credibility/understanding about what we do and who we are; &
2) to attract and direct people to us when they have an issue & or want a quote for equipment

 

[Mark T Jones]

One non technical point - give full company details - not only legally required but essential for trust.


Overall, it's a bit 'soft' and woolly IMO.

Not absolutely clear on what you do (repairs and maintenance of lifting equipment??), or what sectors you are targeting.

It's probably OK as a back-up resource, but not one for lead gen.

 

[fisicx]

1) To give credibility/understanding about what we do and who we are; &
2) to attract and direct people to us when they have an issue & or want a quote for equipment

And therin lies the problem.

Your credibility comes from the work you do, the respect you gain from clients, referrals and testimonials. None of this can be seen on the site.

I'm not even sure what it is you do. None of the links on the homepage lead anywhere useful. And most annoyingly they open in a new tab.

What sort of cranes do you support?

• Big Carl can lift 5000 tonnes. Can you fix this?
• I've got a bottlejack in the garage. Can you fix this?
• The builders next door have got a cherrypicker. Can you fix this?

If you want attract people to the site you need a marketing plan. You need to know who you are targeting, how they research lifting providers, where they do their research and what are their needs.

You then need to sort out how you are going get people onto your site. Direct marketing, advertising, Google searches, industry contacts and so on.

You then look at structuring the website, creating the content, building the internal linking, adding trustmarks and calls to action. And then right at the end sort out the look and feel of the site.

Don't use zyrosite - it's junk. Pay for someone to help with the marketing plan and site development. In just the same way you want clients to pay you to sort out their cranes not try and do it themselves.

 

[Mattymoomoo]

And therin lies the problem.

Your credibility comes from the work you do, the respect you gain from clients, referrals and testimonials. None of this can be seen on the site.

I'm not even sure what it is you do. None of the links on the homepage lead anywhere useful. And most annoyingly they open in a new tab.

What sort of cranes do you support?

• Big Carl can lift 5000 tonnes. Can you fix this?
• I've got a bottlejack in the garage. Can you fix this?
• The builders next door have got a cherrypicker. Can you fix this?

If you want attract people to the site you need a marketing plan. You need to know who you are targeting, how they research lifting providers, where they do their research and what are their needs.

You then need to sort out how you are going get people onto your site. Direct marketing, advertising, Google searches, industry contacts and so on.

You then look at structuring the website, creating the content, building the internal linking, adding trustmarks and calls to action. And then right at the end sort out the look and feel of the site.

Don't use zyrosite - it's junk. Pay for someone to help with the marketing plan and site development. In just the same way you want clients to pay you to sort out their cranes not try and do it themselves.

Thanks, this is really helpful.

Apologies for the links not working on the images. This was an oversight - they didnt need to lead anywhere.

I agree that I probably need to pay someone to do this, im just very aware that my budget probably wont extend to paying someone to do a full marketing plan and website design/development. Happy to discuss with anyone who does this professionally.

Re getting people to the site, unfortunately for me, I suspect that it is cold calling...I could probably cover all local businesses in a week or two.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[antropy]

A few issues:

• Random use of capitalisation - sometimes you use all lowercase, sometimes Title Caps etc.
• I personally hate how stuff fades in as you scroll.
• It's just not that clear what you actually offer? Do you rent cranes? Or are you consultants selling your time?
• The phone numbers aren't clickable and are randomly spaced e.g. "0773 8087124" - no one splits a number after the first 4 digits, it's always 5 space 8.
• The email address isn't clickable.
• The contact form doesn't auto-fill.
• At the top the phone number is prefixed by "Ph:" a phone icon would just be much better.

That's enough for now.

Paul.

 

[fisicx]

Re getting people to the site, unfortunately for me, I suspect that it is cold calling...I could probably cover all local businesses in a week or two.

And what exactly are you offering in that call? Maintenance, repairs, installation, training?

You don't make it at all clear what type of lifting kit you cover.

But lets us suppose you call Fred in his workshop. Do you even know if he has a crane? If he has a crane do you know if he already has someone do the maintenance? It's quite likely he will just put down the phone in the same way you would put down the phone if I cold called and offered to give your van a service.

And do you just do local? Where is that? Doesn't say on the site.

You can do most of the research yourself. Once you have a better idea who you are targeting you can then pay someone to help build the site.

 

[YasmeenLondon]

Lots of very helpful comments and I will do my best not to repeat them:

The white text on beige background in the website header fails accessibility tests (colour contrast)

The button in the header (your phone number) feels like its clickable but serves no purpose, personally I would replace it with something that has a well though out call to action.

Your hero text should clearly explain who you are, what you do, and the value of the product or service you’re offering. Major bonus if you use keywords that your target market uses when searching for similar services. “Supporting Your Uk Lifting Needs” satisfies none of the requirements.

Do not set internal links to open in a new tab/window, external links only.

Add your pages in the footer.

What do you count as a conversion on your website? A contact form submission? Because even if I wanted to give you business, I am not sure how. You have to make it dead simple (and obvious) for your target audience to take action.

It helps if you know your target market, have an idea of what problems you solve for them and then create a user journey or path, nudging the user to a conversion. Put yourself in the customer shoes, what do you look for in a website offering similar services? Or you can take a look at your competition and try and understand the strategy behind the design.

Very thin content on the website, you are assuming your users know everything and are ready to buy, this is never the case, you need more write-ups, more pictures, more reviews etc.

In the about us, put the FAQ at the end, people expect to read about the team and the company in the start.

Do you have a business address? Put it in the contact page & website footer, gives you more credibility.

I clicked on the lifting charts page and didn’t understand anything, this is not an issue since I am not your target market, but it would make sense to ask someone in the same niche if this page makes sense to them or whether it requires a bit more writeup/description.

All the best.

 

[Mark T Jones]

I agree that I probably need to pay someone to do this, im just very aware that my budget probably wont extend to paying someone to do a full marketing plan and website design/development.

Here, free of charge, is my universal start-up marketing plan template:

1. Who is my ideal/perfect customer? ('anyone who...' isn't part of the answer)
2. What problem am I solving/desire/need am I meeting?
3. How am I different from the others? Hint - every one of them will be saying 'great service' 'experience' etc - It needs to resonate as different, but could be as simple as location.
4. At what point to they want/need me?
5. Where do they hang out - physical or virtual - and where do they turn to for advice?
6. How do they find & contact me?
7. What next.

The first 3 are critical. The more thought you put into this, the more obvious the rest will become.

(c) Copyright - someone who ****ed up trying to target 'anyone who...' for too many years.

 

[Mattymoomoo]

All really helpful.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Kay Mankoo]

Hi, I've just come across your forum post.

A few things I wanted to point out:

1. Your menu links in the header are not clearly visible. They tend to get lost, and different screen contrast/brightness settings will cause issues. Make the links more obvious.
2. Your phone number is a call to action, make it stand out, and look different to the rest of the links in the menu. (The hover effect is how the number should look, white on black)
3. Your contact form needs to have name, phone and email as required fields. At the moment I can type anything in the comments text field, and submit the form, which is pointless.
4. Some branding (colour palette) would be a good idea. Make it more vibrant if possible. Think hardware, tools, building site stuff. At the moment it does look quite dull.

I hope these points help!