site review

swordsinfo

Hey guys been awhile since i posted anything - would like some feedback on new website all crit welcome http://karl.swordswebdesign.com

Not sure if it needs more images or not thought the layout worked well for the info but too close to it now to see if its good or bad. Please let me know good or bad bits.

Its is blocking search indexs at the min so its just raw reviews im looking for

Cheers
B

condra

Very good. Subtle, elegant, suits the niche.

My only, very minor complaint, is the lighting effect on the Kinsealy Grange logo, which masks the word Grange a bit. Still, it's very eye catching.

Great work. Hard to fault.
Now don't forget SEO!

swordsinfo

Thanks for the replay its their logo so Im against making changes to it but will try to enhance it as mentioned. As for SEO i wouldn't say i'm top of the class but it should be pretty good at present is there much you find wrong with it in its structure?

condra

I think the structure is great. I would possibly make the email address up top a mailto link.

Also, the lessons start at 25 for children and 35 for adults. This is very reasonable so I would try to get that message across on the home page in the main gallery.

Actually, while were on the subject of the gallery, a friendly smiley pic would be much more welcoming than a guy in a cap looking into the distance.

Finally, I would consider integrating with social media, allowing people to share your site to their friends on Facebook and Twitter.
This is easily done with Share This:
http://sharethis.com/

swordsinfo

Cheers thanks for the info - will apply all mentions above this eve and see what happens.

The Guy in the cap is Karl, i took a few pics ages ago so he wants to do a new round of them anyhow - want to get some action shots if possible - i'll take some abstract ones too jsut in case i can find use for them.

Cheers again for the help - never used share this but will check it out for other projects as he doesnt use social media for his business jsut yet.

Thanks again
B

condra

You're welcome. One quick thing about Share This though (and AddThis), you don't have to involve yourself with social media to reap the benefits of it.

The share buttons simply allow people to link to the website quickly and easily on their own Twitter/FB pages.

This main page on this site is a good example:
http://www.fakeword.com

Believe me, it's a very simply and powerful method of generating traffic for niche sites.

Best of luck with the website. It's definitely one of the best looking sites I've seen in the site review section here.

swordsinfo

ahh im with you - ahhh aye that could be powerful - does it intergrate with wordpress do you know? Will have a look at that later for my own site too

Cheers
B

condra

it does indeed integrate with WP. They give you the code, you just have to paste it.

best of luck

VMotion

Hi,

If you take a look at the menu, the Home button doesn't have a left border whereas the Contact us has the right. So we either put both or take out both.
The slider. The width of the container is 1000px and the width of the images is 658px and images are aligned to the left. I can see empty space on the right and it doesn't match the slide. Either reduce the container or enlarge the images.

The grey footer area. Vertical dash-lines separating sections should be of equal length.
The black footer area is too tall for the amount of content that it contains.

Hope this helps.

tricky D

There's still a lot of work needed for this site.

Core marketing content is missing eg. testimonials/success stories for one. Some of that content is alluded to but not followed through.

If you've ever had the misfortune to have to listen to golfers talking week in, week out, you'll know that they focus on 2 particular matters. Only one of them is addressed in the content and not very well at that. The other isn't mentioned anywhere.

I'd approach the main content area of the homepage differently.

The information architecture could be improved and streamlined.

As already said, the photos don't work.

You and Karl need to get better into the shoes of your potential clients and think in terms of what each of those client markets need and want so they can make a purchase decision.

Other matters:
No mailtos for email addresses.
Make the form layout a regular left aligned one.
Fix the Google map so that it centres properly on the facility, not a few hundred yards to the NNW.
The dropdown menu is displaying under http://karl.swordswebdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/karl-herbert1.png. Z-index fix probably needed.
Some links are broken (at the end of main content of About Karl page).
Some phone numbers aren't formatted well, no spaces.
No meta descriptions used afaics.
Spelling mistakes on the homepage.
Kinsealy has one 'l' only.

swordsinfo

VMotion wrote: »

Hi,

If you take a look at the menu, the Home button doesn't have a left border whereas the Contact us has the right. So we either put both or take out both.
The slider. The width of the container is 1000px and the width of the images is 658px and images are aligned to the left. I can see empty space on the right and it doesn't match the slide. Either reduce the container or enlarge the images.

The grey footer area. Vertical dash-lines separating sections should be of equal length.
The black footer area is too tall for the amount of content that it contains.

Hope this helps.

Cheers for the input was aware of the slider container hugging to the left. Didnt think of the right order on the contact us all of the above are now solved and updated many thanks for your input.

swordsinfo

tricky D wrote: »

There's still a lot of work needed for this site.

Core marketing content is missing eg. testimonials/success stories for one. Some of that content is alluded to but not followed through.

If you've ever had the misfortune to have to listen to golfers talking week in, week out, you'll know that they focus on 2 particular matters. Only one of them is addressed in the content and not very well at that. The other isn't mentioned anywhere.

I'd approach the main content area of the homepage differently.

The information architecture could be improved and streamlined.

As already said, the photos don't work.

You and Karl need to get better into the shoes of your potential clients and think in terms of what each of those client markets need and want so they can make a purchase decision.

Other matters:
No mailtos for email addresses.
Make the form layout a regular left aligned one.
Fix the Google map so that it centres properly on the facility, not a few hundred yards to the NNW.
The dropdown menu is displaying under http://karl.swordswebdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/karl-herbert1.png. Z-index fix probably needed.
Some links are broken (at the end of main content of About Karl page).
Some phone numbers aren't formatted well, no spaces.
No meta descriptions used afaics.
Spelling mistakes on the homepage.
Kinsealy has one 'l' only.

Like i mentioned before the main area of concern is the design at present - linkage and spelling need to be addressed as these are not final versions.

Good catch on the gmaps - can be a begger at times to get it on the button.
Mailto get it sorted now
Linkage will have a look as they only on the homepage.
Meta Desc Im not sure if I can get wordpress to generate these on a per page basis put will check and revert.

You can be my dictionary if ya want cheers for the input as always very helpful indeed.

B

p

Agree with many of the comments. One small thing. You should always make sure you can see the eyes of your subject, unless you've a really good reason not to. It's just weird.

swordsinfo

p wrote: »

Agree with many of the comments. One small thing. You should always make sure you can see the eyes of your subject, unless you've a really good reason not to. It's just weird.

Why the eyes ??

tricky D

Psychology, afterall they are called the 'windows to the soul' for good reason.

swordsinfo

swordsinfo wrote: »

p wrote: »

Agree with many of the comments. One small thing. You should always make sure you can see the eyes of your subject, unless you've a really good reason not to. It's just weird.

Why the eyes ??

Would him swinging a club not be more appropriate. He is a golf instructor after all.. ill heh a pic of his head any how. Meeting with him this eve and will discuss all points made.

biko

I recommend using tools like http://validator.w3.org/ and Firefox Accessibility Evaluation Toolbar
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/accessibility-evaluation-toolb/

Report from your website:
Fail 1 The page should contain at least one and no more than two h1 elements.
Warn 1 The character encoding was not specified.
Fail 2 Each img element should have alt text.
Warn 4 Every img element that is less than 8 pixels high or 8 pixels wide OR has an empty alt attribute value should be removed and CSS techniques should be used for styling content.
Warn 6 Ensure that links that point to the same HREF use the same link text.
Fail 10 Heading elements that follow the last h1 should be properly nested.

swordsinfo

biko wrote: »

I recommend using tools like http://validator.w3.org/ and Firefox Accessibility Evaluation Toolbar
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/accessibility-evaluation-toolb/

Report from your website:
Fail 1 The page should contain at least one and no more than two h1 elements.
Warn 1 The character encoding was not specified.
Fail 2 Each img element should have alt text.
Warn 4 Every img element that is less than 8 pixels high or 8 pixels wide OR has an empty alt attribute value should be removed and CSS techniques should be used for styling content.
Warn 6 Ensure that links that point to the same HREF use the same link text.
Fail 10 Heading elements that follow the last h1 should be properly nested.

Now your talking. Cheers for the tool, will take a look at this tomorrow and sort the failures. Met with Karl this eve and mentioned all your points. He is having a look a the content from a learner point of view and will take pics next weekend.

Thanks for all your input.

afleming

Hi All,
Im looking for a little bit of feedback on a website I did recently www.foxycig.ie. Its an electronic cigarette online store and the client is very happy with the website itself, but the google presence is not progressing as fast as most of my projects do.

The sitemap was submitted about 2-3 weeks ago, the site is fairly well optimised for the keywords electronic cigarettes, but we are still not even in the top 5 pages of google.

I know the obvious flaw is the lack of relavant links to it as there are very few at the minute, but is it possible that Google is slow to recognise this as the title suggests a tobacco related product? The reason I ask this is that our google ads were all rejected due to the term cigarette as their policy is not to engage in tobacco related advertising - however the e-cigs have no tobacco !

I would appreciate any feedback on this or constructive criticism.

Thanks guys

condra

^
You should probably make a new thread for your own site.

afleming

condra wrote: »

^
You should probably make a new thread for your own site.

Ah - Ok. Will do. Sorry - Newbie.

swordsinfo

afleming wrote: »

Hi All,
Im looking for a little bit of feedback on a website I did recently www.foxycig.ie. Its an electronic cigarette online store and the client is very happy with the website itself, but the google presence is not progressing as fast as most of my projects do.

The sitemap was submitted about 2-3 weeks ago, the site is fairly well optimised for the keywords electronic cigarettes, but we are still not even in the top 5 pages of google.

I know the obvious flaw is the lack of relavant links to it as there are very few at the minute, but is it possible that Google is slow to recognise this as the title suggests a tobacco related product? The reason I ask this is that our google ads were all rejected due to the term cigarette as their policy is not to engage in tobacco related advertising - however the e-cigs have no tobacco !

I would appreciate any feedback on this or constructive criticism.

Thanks guys

Smashing looking site - love the logo. What framework did you use for this looking for a good eCommerce framework for future projects? Shopping cart integrates nicely with the site.

afleming

swordsinfo wrote: »

Smashing looking site - love the logo. What framework did you use for this looking for a good eCommerce framework for future projects? Shopping cart integrates nicely with the site.

Aw Shucks! Thanks - I used the Magento Community edition Framework and purchased a theme to skin it.

Have had very little trouble with Magento but it takes a while to get used to it, as its not as easy as Joomla to move modules around on the page etc. The only problem I had was when I wanted to move the site from www.foxycig.com to www.foxycig.ie at the clients request as it was quite tricky, but found loads of help on the web.

Saying that, I still cant get google to rank the website at all - so I hope thats not a Magento issue.

swordsinfo

afleming wrote: »

Aw Shucks! Thanks - I used the Magento Community edition Framework and purchased a theme to skin it.

Have had very little trouble with Magento but it takes a while to get used to it, as its not as easy as Joomla to move modules around on the page etc. The only problem I had was when I wanted to move the site from www.foxycig.com to www.foxycig.ie at the clients request as it was quite tricky, but found loads of help on the web.

Saying that, I still cant get google to rank the website at all - so I hope thats not a Magento issue.

Is Magento based on the zend cart framework? I have a look at the back end of that and just looked like an awful lot of confusion. I never sat down with it properly to give it a proper going over - is Magento a simplified version??

swordsinfo

Also have you seen this lads work - not one to be endorsing others work but after looking at his stuff i feel like an rubbish web developer
http://alanpower.net/