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Old 22-04-2009, 08:30 AM
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Default Room for improvement?

The website: Brierley Hill Web Design, Ecommerce Solutions & Domain Hosting

Tell me what you like/don't like about our website, all feedback and suggestions welcome. I want to do something with the web design/ecommerce solutions/domain hosting pages as I think it probably needs to be cut down, but not sure the best way of doing so?

We get a lot of visitors each month and a few enquiries via our website but I want to increase this number, so any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sam
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Old 22-04-2009, 08:31 AM
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That's weird, I typed in the URL in my post above and it's put the same text as in my signature? LOL!
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Old 22-04-2009, 12:49 PM
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It's an automated feature which picks up the sites page name/keywords apparently. Good for SEO. You can override it if you want by going to edit then inserting the URL where the text is.
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Old 22-04-2009, 02:35 PM
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Hey,

I'm from Hereford originally so when I noticed you're a company that offers services in Herefordshire I instantly like you. That said I'll try and be as unbias as possible!

Conceptually the site is good, I like the way that your latest work is one of the first things you see, and I like the fact I can get straight to the information I want from the homepage.

Not sure about the transition effect moving up and down, it can get a little annoying by the time you've gor to the 4th tab!

I think the portfolio shows all the information it needs to but the design is quite retro (dotted border around tables!). Nothing wrong with retro but the look and feel of the portfolio doesn't quite fit in with the homepage and I think that might need looking at.

Love the idea of a local page for every town in particular. Good from an SEO point of view and local companies like working with local companies. Oddly enough I chose Hereford to sample it and the first thing I see is a website that has been created for Worcester. I'm sure when you've got more work in your portfolio you'll change this but for now it might be worth taking out. In my eyes if I click Hereford I want to see work you've done for Hereford.

Glad to see it passes validation tests too and the code has been constructed quite well in general.

I agree that your pages need to be cut down. I love the 'history of a website' thing you got going on on the web design page, but thats because I'm in web design. I'd imagine most potential customers just want to know what you can do for them, why they should choose you and how much it would cost.

It's always good to show your knowledge so maybe you could create a link to go to a page dedicated to the ins and outs of website design as opposed to having it within the main content.

Hope those pointers help!
Cheers,
Matt.
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Old 22-04-2009, 05:24 PM
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What's with all the hidden spammy town names?
Whoever old you that was a good 'trick' obviously has no idea.
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Old 22-04-2009, 07:02 PM
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Hi Matt,

Thanks for the review!

Quote:
Originally Posted by bluestagstudio View Post
Hey,
Not sure about the transition effect moving up and down, it can get a little annoying by the time you've gor to the 4th tab!
So you reckon it would look better if they were static tabbed boxes with no transitional effects?

Quote:
Originally Posted by bluestagstudio View Post
I think the portfolio shows all the information it needs to but the design is quite retro (dotted border around tables!). Nothing wrong with retro but the look and feel of the portfolio doesn't quite fit in with the homepage and I think that might need looking at.
Yes I agree. Table borders are on my to do list.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bluestagstudio View Post
Love the idea of a local page for every town in particular. Good from an SEO point of view and local companies like working with local companies. Oddly enough I chose Hereford to sample it and the first thing I see is a website that has been created for Worcester. I'm sure when you've got more work in your portfolio you'll change this but for now it might be worth taking out. In my eyes if I click Hereford I want to see work you've done for Hereford.
That sounds like a good idea, and logical too! I'm thinking for the towns where we haven't done a website for, maybe have some sort of slideshow effect for the 'WEB DESIGN/ECOMMERCE SOLUTIONS/DOMAIN HOSTING' blocks (or would it be better to just have them as static blocks as per your first suggestion?).

Quote:
Originally Posted by bluestagstudio View Post
Glad to see it passes validation tests too and the code has been constructed quite well in general.
Thanks!

Quote:
Originally Posted by bluestagstudio View Post
I agree that your pages need to be cut down. I love the 'history of a website' thing you got going on on the web design page, but thats because I'm in web design. I'd imagine most potential customers just want to know what you can do for them, why they should choose you and how much it would cost.

It's always good to show your knowledge so maybe you could create a link to go to a page dedicated to the ins and outs of website design as opposed to having it within the main content.

Hope those pointers help!
Cheers,
Matt.
Might have to have a little think about this part. I want our visitors to not get bored which I suspect they might do when going through a page with a lot of text!
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Old 22-04-2009, 07:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PointandStare View Post
What's with all the hidden spammy town names?
Whoever old you that was a good 'trick' obviously has no idea.
They aren't hidden spammy town names, and it isn't a 'trick' - it's called long tail SEO. Rather than try to get to the top of Google with say "web design", we can have a better chance of using long tail keywords/phrases that are relevant to our geographic location and what we do.

Some examples where you can find our website on the first page:

brierley hill web design
bewdley web design
halesowen web design

The evidence in our website log files suggest that people search for things like "<town> web design" rather than just "web design" so we must be doing something right.
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Old 01-07-2009, 04:21 PM
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Update - I have made a few minor aesthetic changes recently...
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Old 25-08-2009, 08:42 PM
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The background and very top looks great, but (no offence) the colours clash. Also the laptop doesn't look good, maybe a nice stylish logo or something else would be better than the laptop.
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