web design question

[sunama]

Tell them to use better Anchor text than 'Home' for the menu too - maybe a well keyword for your site.

I was thinking of doing away with 'Home' on the menu. Clicking on the company name at the top of the page would send the user to the home page, thus allowing me to get rid of 'Home'.

One question: what would be the point of getting rid of 'Home' in the menu?

I've noticed that large corporations usually don't have 'Home' in their menus, so there must be something to it.

 

[sunama]

Thanks for the advice. So now your good self and suarve, are both suggesting the removal of 'Home' from the menu.

I've always thought of having 'Home' in a menu as necessary, however, I've noticed that as the internet matures, many websites are doing away with this and allow the homepage to be reached by clicking on the company name.

I can see that there can be some confusion with what 'Home' actually refers to.

Anyway, where possible, I shall be incorporating the advice in this thread into the next version of the site, which should be complete in the next few days.

Many thanks.

 

[sunama]

Thanks for that.

 

[sunama]

Right. We've moved through a few more versions of the homepage and we have:
http://ugsoftware.org/transport/home1.8.html

'Home' has gone and so has the logo.

I'm happy with what we have and now the other pages shall be worked on.

Of note is that the web company is very quick with their updates and the reason why its taken such a long time for us to reach this stage is the fact that I am extremely busy. In general, any alterations requested by me are carried out and delivered the next working day.

 

[sunama]

I just checked. Its working fine for me.

 

[sunama]

Looks ok, I guess fine for what your needs are, the title text seems extremely generic, I hope you'll be getting some kind of logo in there.

Personally I'm not sure on the cheesy American looking couple with the pick up truck in the main image, firstly it looks too American and secondly I assume removals aren't done with a pick up truck.

The other images look good, that one just throws me off again it looks too generic.

The funny thing was that all the other images were chosen by me. The main pic (of the couple) was chosen by them.

Its a good point about the pick up truck though.

Logo shall be added at a later date.

Right now, all I want is a functional website that doesnt cause us embarrassment.

Thanks for your critique though and I might look for a more suitable main image.

 

[sunama]

When I had to outsource a small site they had a tendency to cut corners and simply use an image, where there should have been text. E.g. your yellow box at the top should contain a background image and the writing to the left should be text.

I've asked them whether we can have text instead of images, in some areas and they said I could. So this isnt an issue. The problem is that by default, they will use images, unless I specify that I would like text on images.

Latest version:
http://ugsoftware.org/transport/home1.9.html

 

[sunama]

One thing they did say is that if they use text instead of 'text on images', the smoothing effect that photoshop is able to generate for the images, will be lost. This means that if we use text instead of 'text on images', the look of the website won't be as asthetically pleasing.

This concerns me, so I decided to leave the (company name, phone number, email address) and the menu, as images - bear in mind that all this information (including the text in the menu) is written on the same page, elsewhere, in text.

Everything in the footer (except for the copyright notice) will be in text.

 

[sunama]

From an SEO point of view, repeating key terms (obv. wiothout spamming) is good and better than just styating the word once.

I was unaware that repeated terms are better. I shall bear this in mind.

Make sure they get all the links titles and alt text spot on now

Will do.

At the end of the day, I guess it depends on what you want your website to do - be a tool used for gain business or purely as a basic web presence.

Getting search engine hits is important.

EDIT: just out of interest, why wouldn't you make the copyright notice text? Seems wird to have it as an image.

I was only thinking in terms of search engines, and I'm not bothered at all whether or not a search engine picks up our copyright notice.

Thank you for your advice - it's very much appreciated.

 

[sunama]

HTML version 1.0 is now up.
http://ugsoftware.org/transport/site/html/index.php

I've asked for some changes to happen, starting Monday. However, one issue I'm undecided on is the text size of the site. To my eyes, the text is very small. Should I ask them to increase it?

 

[sunama]

First off, thanks for the analysis. I've made a note of your points and I shall put these to the developers and see what they say/do.

I've already ran through some alterations which need to made. These will be submitted tomorrow, so they can work on the changes on Monday (India are 5hrs ahead of us).

The total cost of the website is around £240. We paid 50% before the job started and the remainder shall be payable after the job is complete.

One thing I am finding is that when issuing the alterations, it can take many hours to detail the changes, in photoshop, ie. I have to put in arrows pointing to stuff and ask them to make a specific change.

The very first version of the homepage was:
http://ugsoftware.org/transport/home.html

So, as you can see, after many alterations, we've come a long way.

 

[sunama]

Another question: What did you think of the text size of the whole website - does the text size need increasing?

 

[sunama]

Yeah thats what I was thinking. The text does seem very small.

Another question, what company do you work for Suarve and do you freelance? I've noticed that you take the time to look for these things and seem to know your stuff.

Right now, my company is just taking off, without any advertising (believe it or not) and we are looking to get turnover somewhere in the region of £10k, for December. Its quite possible that within a year or so, once our turnover hits a decent target, we are going to seriously revamp the website (sounds strange when we are still in the process of building the first, initial website). I would very much be interested in getting a quote from you, when its time for us to carry out the website upgrade.

 

[sunama]

I went to your blog and somebody posted up their site.
http://www.greencleansolution.co.uk/?p=services

That site certainly looks very nice. I would've liked to have my site with a similar design, unfortunately, we are not ready to splash the cash, just yet.

 

[sunama]

Wow. So the cleaning website is yours?

 

[sunama]

It's a massive coincidence that you we happened to comment on your website and you happened to read this thread and then comment. Big coincidence.

When did you launch your cleaning business and how is it doing?