Totally re-vamped site

[Majjie]

Hi everyone ... this is my kitchen design website. I've been using the same domain for about 3.5 years and this is the second complete re-vamp it's had.

Advanced Kitchen Design

The first version just sold my design services to people who already knew about me ... the second version was a more serious marketing attempt with a custom built blog and I managed to get it to the top two or three pages of Google for the search term "kitchen design". It also developed into much more of an information site, not just selling my design services.

This third version is a much more serious effort. It was designed by Amanda Vlahakis of Truly Ace and built in Drupal by Alfred Armstrong at Likemind Web Services. It's hosted in the UK. When it's finished Nikki is going to do some SEO for me.

The outstanding bit that isn't finished yet ... is the shopping cart ... so you can't currently buy my kitchen design guides. There will also be a "Majjie's Shopping Page" which will have kitchen accessories for sale as well as affiliate links to sources of kitchen accessories ... each product probably featured as a review.

I'm also hoping to get businesses to pay to be featured on the Kitchen Brands, Kitchen Retail Suppliers and Good Kitchen Fitters pages ... whilst being very picky about who appears there.

What I'm after is some general feedback on how the site looks. Is it too salesy? Not salesy enough? If you were a kitchen brand would you want to be featured ... and if not why not? If you were thinking of buying a kitchen ... would you want to come back and visit again?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Printing&Postage]

For some reason, Google Chrome isn't displaying the smaller font correctly - not an issue in IE or Firefox though.

I'd say put more emphasis on the visuals of your designs.

Maybe include some elements from the kitchens as icons (either photo's or technical drawings)

Will

[Majjie]

Thanks Will ... it's good to have some feedback. I presume nobody else has bothered since I already have all the specialist help I need.

Unfortunately/fortunately - depending on how you look at it - I've been snowed under with work recently and haven't had time to work on the new site.

I think you could be right about the pictures making the site more attractive - the most popular page is the gallery - I just wonder whether the people looking for pictures are browsers rather than potential customers.

Thanks very much for looking, though ... and I will look into the font issue.

[bluestagstudio]

Hi Majjie!

I presume nobody else has bothered since I already have all the specialist help I need.

Oh ye of little faith! I'd never turn down a chance to pick faults in a competitors work... (just kidding)

I've had a quick look at your website and, in general, think it's good.

Your kitchen designs appear to be sleek, professional and modern, and it's good to see that this has been fed through to your website design too.

There are a few things which I picked up on though...

I'm not sure if I've missed the point here but I'm assuming that you are looking to sell kitchen design services through your website and these points are based on that...

1. Your homepage consists of a lot of boxes. News, Blog, What's New Here, Introduction and Twitterings.

There's too much going on here. Rather than link to things like the Blog and Twitter why not link to your services?

Distracting your visitors, potential leads, with things like Twitter could end up driving them away from your website altogether! (I've been meaning to sign up for a while and nearly clicked on a twitter link myself before remembering I wanted to do this review)

2. The fonts on your website are really inconsistent. Some paragraphs are centred, some not, some have indents, some don't. Font sizes tend to change throughout the website which can make it a bit of a headache to read.

3. You have lots of links to your/some suppliers (Crown Imperial etc) which, again, takes people away from your website. I don't know your industry and whether you get any benefits from doing this, but if someone clicks on that link they'll be gone from your website and may not remember who you were if they wanted to come back to you.

4. You have a Home link above your main header as well as a couple of centimetres away on the left! Removing this will make things look a little cleaner.

5. You have a 'Good Kitchen Fitters' link - there's nothing in it at the moment so I would ask your web guy to take this off for now. Your disclaimer says you get no benefit in recommending other suppliers or companies - and I'm not sure what benefit your visitors will get.

That said, if you were to provide this information to somebody AFTER you've designed their kitchen that would be useful. There is a business risk here though surely, if someone has a bad experience with a fitter they could blame you for recommending them.

6. Just to be REALLY picky, the website doesn't validate with W3, your web developer will know what this means and why it's important. It's not far off but a couple of sloppy mistakes.

Apart from that, I really like it and your web developer has done a cracking job.

Again, sorry if I missed the point. I'm not entirely sure if your website is meant as an information resource or to promote your services.

Hope that helps,
Thanks,
Matt.

[bluestagstudio]

oh! one more thing.

love your logo!

[Majjie]

Sorry Matt, I've been really busy and haven't had time to visit for a while.

I'm really grateful for your feedback and will make an effort to make the front page look less busy. I think that's probably more about the content than the number of boxes.

Actually the idea is that I do benefit from the suppliers listed on the site ... and it's an information site partly to attract them to it. Obviously I haven't explained that very well! And I still haven't had time to get more listed.

It's also an information site to attract visitors - who are just browsing - who will then also visit the shop (which isn't there yet!). It seemed a waste to get a lot of browsing visitors who weren't really interested in my services ... and not do anything with them. I take your point about emphasising my services more, though.

The logo was designed by Amanda ... I like it too!

[bluestagstudio]

Hello Again!

Glad you found some of that helpful! I actually really like the site and I didn't mean to come across as overly critical.

Would be good to see the new clutter-free homepage so let me know when it's sorted!

Providing useful information to get visitors is a good thing, and if you're able to link relevant parts of your content to your shop and services that would be ideal, and it might just turn a browser into a buyer if they're presented with a product that matches the article they are reading.

I'm in a much better mood today than I was on May 8th! Must be the sun!