web site-honest opinion?

[Ian-pestcontrol]

I'm really new to computers and as I have said elsewhere 2 years ago I couldnt switch one on. After being ripped off with websites and promotion I, with the help of a friend created my new site.
Any comments most welcome, also there is one thing iv put on that i'm not sure about, just want to see if any fellow business owners comment on it on looking at the site.

Many thanks, Ian

home

[CCUK]

Hi Ian

Generally not bad but just a few things I would recommend:

1. You have no xml sitemap uploaded which makes it much harder for any of the search engines to index your pages. If you visit somewhere like this: Create your Google Sitemap Online - XML Sitemaps Generator it will generate it for you to download and install.

2. Your main page on your site just has a title tag of "Home". Ideally you want to put your products and services in there but try to keep it to around 60 characters in total (including spaces). Something like "Commercial and Domestic Pest Control | Lancashire | Manchester" could work well.

3. The font for your phone number at the top of the page is quite hard to read.

[Adam H]

I havent read anyone elses comments as i didnt want to be influenced by something someone else has picked up so this is my take cosmetic side of things, i wont comment on the SEO side of things purely because it could over whelm you to begin with :

1. Phone number, Should be clear font , aligned right and maybe a little bigger to reduce white space.

2. Get rid of the menu of locations at the top right, Its in the main navigation and it doesnt need to be there twice again reducing white space which isnt needed.

3. Under the writing ( where the red phone number is ) reduce the white space under it, not needed and its added scroll which could be seen as the end of the page on some screen resolutions.

4. The "we are listed" blue sign, shouldnt be there. Either put it at the bottom of the sidebar or in the footer of the site under everything else.

5. Ask your developer to remove his links at the bottom of the page and any other links, Unless you owe him something as a plug it could do you more harm than good.

6. Remove : Ian Smith Pest Control , just have the writting below it for the main header.

7. Rodents , insects , birds in the footer, Set a conditional to only show on the homepage, you have alot of category pages which have little content and the footer seems like the prime content on those pages.

As i said above that is just the cosmetic side of things, i could give you a list a page long for the SEO side of things but it all depends on what type of access you have and whether you would understand what im talking about.

[Ian-pestcontrol]

Cheers for the replys, some things I had already thought about so its good to have a second opinion.
I have full access but its a learning curve for me and i'm one step at a time.
I'm filling up the content a bit at a time.

I was worried about the picture of young jack on the front, I know it wont affect domestic customers but was worried it wouldnt look quite right to commercial clients.
Need to really work on SEO and carry on learning so all comments /info welcome!

[Adam H]

Originally Posted by Ian-pestcontrol

I was worried about the picture of young jack on the front, I know it wont affect domestic customers but was worried it wouldnt look quite right to commercial clients.

hmm i dont know really , I like to see the look of a small family run business sometimes. Things dont always have to be cooperate and boring looking and generally people understand that the service they get from a small business is often better than a company with loads of employee's, just live up to your reputation

[Ian-pestcontrol]

Thanks that was how I was thinking but just good to get a second opinion really. There are loads of pest control companies out there and they all pretend to be big firms, even the one man bands so i'm just trying to set myself apart, ie. the guy you see on the home page is the guy who will answer the phone then come and deal with your problem.

[jonathan]

Your headline/welcome picture isn't very welcoming.

You talk about disease and other nasty things. I would personally switch it to talk about the help you provide and the problem you solve.

Too many pages - the list of towns on the top doesn't add anything. It just clutters up the page.

People are also quite suspicious of things that jump about on screen. You are likely to be dealing with old folks and/or not experienced computer users. They equate things that jump around with virus's and other bad things. (My mum does anyway...)

You have no xml sitemap uploaded which makes it much harder for any of the search engines to index your pages.

This is not true. The search engines should be able to index a small site like this with no trouble.

The main problem I see on this site is the amount of duplicate content. Google may penalise you for this. It may also penalise you for using separate pages for the town names. Practices like this are regularly targeted in Google algo updates. Get rid of this as it adds no value to the site for either SEO or usability. A single additional paragraph on your home page stating that "we operate in Bolton, Blackburn, Bury, etc." will do the same job.

The image at the top of the screen is pushing the real content down the page "below the fold". This is bad practise.

You need to read up on Meta content and apply it properly.

Your site is OK but the SE optimisation is very poor. You need to read up on this too.

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[Ian-pestcontrol]

Thanks for the comments. I have got a small site that is at the top of google for 1 location, I want this one to get up there for numerous locations in the Northwest thats why I added the locations again at the top. So google could mark me down for this?

Should I get rid of all the location pages, not just one of the menus?
If I can get this site to do for a wider area what my old site did for one town i'll be cooking on gas. People search for pest control with 'pest control ......(add town/location)' these are the search terms I need to rank on. What more can I add?
I will add more content to each page and the blog. Does the blog on there help?

[CCUK]

Hi Ian

I would get rid of the town links on the front page and the separate pages for the towns, I'm not sure of the technical side but I know that Google doesn't like it.

Instead maybe create a separate locations page where you mention these towns a few times with some of the larger towns in your title tag for that page.

If later you feel you are losing out on a few key towns or areas then you could consider buying some separate domain names with "pestcontrol(townname).co.uk" and upload a landing page with some brief detail (not copied from your main site) and then with imbedded links to your main site.

That's what I would do anyway, but I would check this with one of the SEO or Website guys on here. I do my own design and know quite a bit but it is not my main business so I am maybe a little out of date...

[Ray Stewart]

I agree with the above comments about fonts and layout but the biggest yuck from my point of view is the way the site behaves in my browser.

On every page the navigation at the top wraps around itself and lower down the page the three columns overlap rather than adjusting themselves to the browser width. The text and the images both overlap and it looks horrible - even when the browser window is full page the text on my laptop is still overlapping.

In my browser (IE9) the link at the bottom of every page that says "Build a website with PageLines" has no image and looks really cheap. It should be removed asap.

I think you have the potential for a really different website in a busy niche with young Jack and your writing style - but tidy it up following the comments here, get the pages reacting properly to different browser sizes and I am sure it will start performing much better for you.

As a first effort though it is pretty darn good. Websites are not easy things to build

[Ian-pestcontrol]

What can I do about the browser? I only seem to have problems with internet explorer

[jonathan]

Originally Posted by Ian-pestcontrol

I will add more content to each page and the blog. Does the blog on there help?

Yes IF you write about problems your customers are having.

Along the lines of this is how to do such and such - If you can't or don't want to do that - here is my number...

So google could mark me down for this?

Definitely, yes.

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[Ian-pestcontrol]

stupid question but why? i quite like my location pages, I was goin to add content for each of jobs iv done in each area, along with pictures of the bigger jobs such as bird proofing, especially on well known buildings in the areas mentioned.
Why does internet explorer mess up my pages when people view them?

[Mark]

Just to add: the site is unreadable in places with IE8 - paragraphs overlapping etc.

It's probably an error with PageLines coding rather than IE8/9 being at fault. They are relatively modern browsers so PageLines coding should cater for them. Alternatively, why not hire a professional web designer?

The location pages as they stand at the moment will be penalised by Google because [I think] they're obviously link bait and duplicate content. I'd add unique content quick, as you say you're intending to do.

[Ray Stewart]

Ian - I was curious about the horrid little pagelines thing at the bottom of each page so I clicked on it.

I am baffled as to what pagelines is. You have your own domain and the engine running the website looks to be wordpress - so where do pagelines fit in?

Wordpress works brilliantly on its own and doesn't get any issues presenting correctly in all sorts of browsers and there are millions of free themes to choose from.

My suggestion - born of a few years experience with wordpress - is get rid of page lines and just build with wordpress alone. I bet it is no more awkward than using pagelines and has the advantage of being free.

There are also lots and lots of free plugins that will do all the clever little bits you will find handy. I didn't know anything much about websites but am quite happy with the site we have now.

Have a think. I know you may have paid out some cash for pagelines - but it really isn't helping you at the moment. It just preys on people's reluctance to dive into wordpress cold and have a play.

Why does internet explorer mess up my pages when people view them?

Unfortunately that is because you haven't built them properly.

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stupid question but why? i quite like my location pages

If you want your website to feature in Google then unfortunately you have to forget what you like and provide what Google likes. You can still do this and keep your visitors happy.

Look at your site from a visitors perspective and tell me what benefit anyone would get from seeing all these location pages with exactly the same content? The answer is that many of them will think "what's all that about?" and click the back button. Build your website for your prospective customers.

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Ian, regarding your location pages, have a look at this ... very topical ...

Eric Enge: Let’s switch gears a bit. Let’s talk about a pizza business with stores in 60 cities. When they build their site, they create pages for each city.

Matt Cutts: Where people get into trouble here is that they fill these pages with the exact same content on each page. “Our handcrafted pizza is lovingly made with the same methods we have been using for more than 50 years …”, and they’ll repeat the same information for 6 or 7 paragraphs, and it’s not necessary. That information would be great on a top-level page somewhere on the site, but repeating it on all those pages does not look good. If users see this on multiple pages on the site they aren’t likely to like it either.

http://www.stonetemple.com/matt-cutt...-quality-site/


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