VentureNavigator

7 Answers

1. Hi Angela,
   
   It's easy to use, but I found it difficult to read - small font and white text on lilac background!
   
   Lee
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   Answered by Lee Longstaff, June 2008   -  Contact this person
2. Hi Angeal. I had a quick look at your site and have the following feedback.
   1. The text at the bottom in white on purple is unreadable.
   2. Overall the site had no visual clues for navigation with no rolovers when you rolled over a link other than the mouse cursor changing shape.
   3. Because of the lack of images to convey your message I was not drawn in to read the text. The bullets are ok but rather like a boring powerpoint presentation it did not hold my interest - in fact I cliked on three pages and left the site within a short period of time.
   
   I have learned many lessons on web sites with over ten years experience. You need to follow some simple rules:
   1. A picture speaks a thousand words
   2. Offer your viewers something - maybe a report/white paper so they feel compelled to log in and give you their information because you are giving them something.
   3. Make your colour shcemes more redable - if you are going to have very small print like the footer of your home page, then make it black on white or white on black.
   
   FInally you need your company address and reg details on all pages in the footer, you need a contact phone number clearly displayed on all pages and not just the contact page.
   
   I hope this isn't too dismissive. Regards Jon
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   Answered by Jon Pickles, June 2008   -  Contact this person
3. "What they said" ... plus ...
   
   I could be wrong, but... I cannot see any tags in your site to help you in Search Engine Optimisation - there seem to be no keywords, descriptions, titles, etc - you should have all of these meta-tags in there.
   
   You might have the best site on the planet, but no-one knows you are there - the Search Engines won't treat you too well if you don't have these other bits to help.
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   Answered by Jackie Campbell, June 2008   -  Contact this person
4. Hi,
   
   My main comment, which I often make to people, is that your front page is your shop window. Yours is currently text heavy and doesn’t work hard enough to sell your services. Try to communicate in the most succinct and punchy way, what you do and why you are better/faster/cheaper/more efficient than anything else out there. Drop anything else from the page. The only exception being the offer of a free consult - it’s the call to action that will bring you business
   
   If you are not using an analytics program for your site then get one sorted out. You can’t go far wrong with Google Analytics which is totally free. You can then look at your bounce rate (what percentage of people leave your site directly from the front page) and see if you can improve things. You will learn much more beside.
   
   From a design point of view, avoid small (size 1) text for the main body - it makes for hard reading as others have mentioned. It does not all have to be black and white – pick up colours from your templates to use as accents and break up the page. Get a few stock images to create a bit of interest. You don’t have to pay for them – services like www.morguefile.com will let you use their images for free.
   
   Another respondent has mentioned Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). There have been some interesting questions asked about this on VentureNavigator already that are worth reading. You can sort out the basics very easily. (the white text that appears in your footer is roughly what should be in your meta description for example).
   
   Regarding a comment made above about full address, reg number, vat & contact in all footers, this is not the case. It must appear somewhere in full on your site – a contact us or legal page is adequate and you have this already. It must appear in the footer of all your email communications however – this is often where the confusion occurs. There is a good guide here: http://www.out-law.com/page-431
   
   Hope this helps!
   
   Phin
   
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   Answered by Phineas Wenlock, June 2008   -  Contact this person (Edited on 2008-06-18 15:57:17)
5. Dear All,
   
   Thank you for taking the time and trouble to provide feedback.
   
   I had suspected what you have confirmed!
   
   Thanks again
   Angela
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   Answered by Angela Bradford, June 2008   -  Contact this person
6. Angela,
   
   I would add a couple of points to the previous comments:
   
   There is a title element in the page but it is just "Mortimer & Bradford" - expanding that would help with search engine optimisation. You don't need keyword and description meta tags for search engine optimisation. Because of misuse they are ignored by the major search engines so there is no advantage in including any.
   
   The footer text has already been mentioned as being unreadable at that size. Another difficulty with it is the font-size is specified using absolute values which means that it can't be resized in Internet Explorer.
   
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   Answered by Richard Morton, June 2008   -  Contact this person
7. I'd disagree that Meta tags are no longer important. Keywords may now be unimportant for the major search engines but Descriptions should not be ignored. Meta descriptions can make sure the description line in search results is clear, rather than a sample derived from the page content. This impacts your click through rates. Why work hard to rank for keywords and then not bother to optimise your click through?
   
   
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   Answered by Phineas Wenlock, June 2008   -  Contact this person (Edited on 2008-06-23 16:45:42)