First website, advise on design please.

blastman

blastman

blastman

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hey all,

I've recently setup a remote support company and have built my first website (woop woop!!)

It's not finished but I'm very keen to get some advice and crit form people 'in the know' so if you have a spare 5 minutes I'd be very grateful if you could have a butches and tell me what needs changing and why.

Thanks in advance

:)

Linky
 
Left and right columns are too narrow, and the gap between the columns isn't big enough.

I'd also have the menu at the top of the pages instead of at the bottom, and possibly make the buttons in to graphic images to make the page look a bit less dull.
 
blastman said:
hey all,

I've recently setup a remote support company and have built my first website (woop woop!!)

It's not finished but I'm very keen to get some advice and crit form people 'in the know' so if you have a spare 5 minutes I'd be very grateful if you could have a butches and tell me what needs changing and why.

Thanks in advance

:)

Linky
Click to expand...

I'd possibly consider changing the title, or reverse the order of the words.

It gave me a shock when I clicked it and had to think twice about closing it quick or not. :p
 
Hi,

It's not bad for a first attempt. Personally I don't think it's good enough to be a company facing site for the following reasons:

I'm not keen on the navigation and the right hand side column looks too 'crushed'.
Whatch your markup also. If you're naming a standard, make sure you adhere to it:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

^ Thats your index page.

Logo and header are neatly done and look very eye catching with simple colour sets.

What I'd like to see different is the amount of info on the page. I'm scrolling like a mofo here so try and cut the content down or navigate it around so that readers want to click links. If a reader doesn't find all the information they want in the first two paragraphs they'll be clicking the back button quicker than you can say "refresh".

Place links to site content within your paragraphs too as this helps SEO.

All in all, not a bad attempt, you should be pleased. :)
 
thanks for the kind words guys :)

So in conclusion..

1 - make the side columns wider. - this will cause issues as the header and footer as the page is set to their size and I can't change them as I had them made for me.

2 - Too much text on the first page - I've added loads in the past few days as I was thinking about google and keywords and that. Do you think I've over killed it??

@orderoftheflame
3 - Changing the title - I set the page title to include the keywords I wanted google to use. Do you think I've created a monster and anyone coming to the site will think I'm giving out viruses and not fixing them??

4 - Move the nav to another location or make it wider so the text doesn't look crushed. - I could stuck it under the header in a line, would that be better?

@Lucero
5- Markup - Sorry mate, I haven;t a clue what your on about :) I've looked at the link you've given and I'm guessing that it's showing me errors in my code. could you explain what you mean a Little more please?

Cheers for all the replies, please keep them coming and I'll get to work on some of your suggestions.

:)
 
To me it does not look professional enough for a service of this sort. But hopefully with the advice you have been given it will look better. It kinda reminds me of those fake anti-virus sites you get sent to.

Also I think the core problem with this website is that its not made for the end user your customer who does not have much computer experience, everything is everwhere, testomonials are important for a service like this make them stand out.

Wish you good luck, pretty sure will look ace when your finished with it.

The w3 html validator makes sure all your code is up to the standards and rules that it should adbide by. But 14 errors, 3 warnings is pretty low, overclocks has 59 errors and 5 warnings. If it works on all common browsers then I wouldnt worry.
 
You need to spell check your customers letters. They also look a bit like fakes you have written yourself! :eek:

The main body text needs work, "If the your issue is fixable" for example.

and 'I Need help with my computer?' isn't a question!
 
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I feel I am quite qualified to comment on this as I do web design and work in IT support (not exclusively remote support). The site is terrible, the design is terrible, the content is terrible, the spelling/grammar is terrible.

I'd scrap the entire thing and start again. I'd consider using a Joomla CMS to get a better design. PM me if you'd like an example of what you can do with Joomla
 
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Agreed, as another professional web developer and IT specialist, I would have to say its not looking great. Again, I would just start over, maybe see about getting some professional design done / development done. Depending on your budget I would either go for www.freelancer.co.uk, or try a local digital agency.

Just because you can build a website, doesnt mean you should. Theres a lot of things to consider both design and build wise, and when you want to present your company in a good image, its definitely worth paying someone to do it right!

Your average internet user see's all IT roles as the same thing, therefore if you are running a business even remotely IT related, and your website sucks, its going to make it look like you dont know what you are on about. If they cant trust your website, they cant trust your company.

Sorry to slate your first site dude, if this was a personal website I would say good effort, use some of the tips above to improve things. But because its your company, and one would think fairly mission critical that you had a good image, I would wipe the slate clean and start again.
 
First of all well done on your first website. I am nowhere near as qualified as these guys but I'll give my opinions anyway. With regards to what should be changed I feel that the content area is way too busy. The side columns are unreadable because they are too narrow. For that page width I think 2 columns is best.

The links' menu should take up less vertical space. Shorten the links e.g. 'how to contact us' should just be 'contact us' and similarly with about.

Some of the headers are underlined making them look like links which is confusing.

Don't get down from all the criticism - keep at it!
 
i agree with others, for a IT company it looks unprofessional, header looks like it was compressed on lowest quality setting, site is to narrow for the ammount of text in it and it needs proof reading.
 
bibalasvegas said:
With regards to what should be changed I feel that the content area is way too busy.
Click to expand...

This is the key problem. There's far too much text crammed onto it, it's all in the same font, there's barely any white space and the centre alignment makes it look even more cramped. I'm not inclined to read any of it because I feel like I just opened five spam emails at the same time - my eyes just don't know where to go. I'm a computer-literate person; your customer base is probably not, and is going to be very confused.

The balance between content and white space is really important on the web, especially on your home page. People don't like reading large blocks of text off a computer screen; they want the important points presented to them clearly, and they want your site to give them visual clues about where to look next.

Also, there are a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't mean to be harsh, but I wouldn't want to see you go live with that site. It looks like the result of an explosion in a magnetic letter factory.
 
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