Pain Free Review requested ;)

[accountantpete]

Hi Leah - I would lose the third person type "about us" approach and it's far too spammy generally for my taste - but then I'm no salesperson.

The images are not too clear.

As Woodie says - it looks like a £44 site.

The big question is -even with a £2k site - are people searching for such sites,what is the competition and can you get the necessary SEO work done to promote the site.

[PainFreeMarketing]

Hi Leah - I would lose the third person type "about us" approach and it's far too spammy generally for my taste - but then I'm no salesperson.

The images are not too clear.

As Woodie says - it looks like a £44 site.

The big question is -even with a £2k site - are people searching for such sites,what is the competition and can you get the necessary SEO work done to promote the site.

SEO isn't my concern

I mainly want to attract local clients and will advertise locally by mail outs, in person visits and other paper promotions.

I have other high profile sites I can advertise the same service on if I want to increase my global clients (which I don't) I get project requests via those sites.

I don't understand your comment re the 'about us'. I don't refer to myself as 'us' I refer to myself as 'I', also how is anything I put on my own site spammy? Spam is mail you send to others without invitation.

Please clarify thanks

[LOS Design UK]

Hi

Just had a quick scoot over at your site and have one or two comments.

Firstly, the backgroung needs to be jpg'd. By giffing it you have lost the gradient.

Secondly, no direct link on any page back to the home page. Rule number 1, give em a link to the home page on every page

Thirdly, loose the background colour on your headings...very 1980's and not consistent with the image you are portraying.

Fourthly, remove the visible counter, very old school and lacks professionalism, get this info from your logs...

Finally, this site does not match your aspirations I am afraid, If I was looking to hire a professional for these services, this site would not give me confidence.

I appreciate that budget is vital, but is your business only worth a £44 investment when you fees start higher.

In my humble opinion, you could get a better suited template design that would not need you to learn design from the ground up and it would give a better corporate image.

At this stage in your business, you need to get the image bang on. If you spend £100's marketing, it is a waste of cash if they stop by your site and leave without action.

Balance your business plan and spend a little more on the site...it is your most valuable tool.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY take your time launching, get it right. This site smells of a 5 minute build. You only get one chance at a 1st impression...it is worth stopping, go to bed and then look again tomorrow. Honest

HTH

(BTW, NEVER ignore basic SEO, use every advantage you can to get ahead online.)

Kind Regards
Daren

[Entro]

More Picky-pickyness I'm afraid Leah, but that is both a way to get feedback, and just the way of the web.

These are mostly design points, so very subjective. However a lot have been tested.

The colour is one I'd expect from a seller of jewellery, baby clothes or the like. It's very girly. Your core audience, (I presume), is both genders so a stronger, gender neutral colour might be better. Blue is a normal choice for trust sites, maybe with a splash of red to say 'creativity'.

There is a great book on web design and usage; "Don't make me think" by Krug. He argues that traditional defaults are best used, for instance a link should be blue and underlined, so people only have to think about your message. Traditionally the navigation is either at the top or on the left. Yours is on the right, and this is further confused by the copy under the logo which could be seen as navigation.

The logo is both too small, and taking too much attention. Top left, (where the readers' scans begin), is a useful place, rather than centrally lost in a sea of white.

The font is too small. Testing has shown that sites with size 14 fonts are better read than those with smaller ones. Disregarding the highlighting, you have used different sizes and colours: this cheapens the site. Choose black, choose a size, and stick to it.

Those are the basic points. On the subject of cheap websites you could have built this for free using Wordpress, (apart from hosting and domain name costs).

Good luck.

PS The highlighting works very well within certain contexts. I'm not sure your offering is suitable for a long copy sales schpeil, and personally think it looks a tad tacky.

[Indizine]

I would also say £15 per hour isn't enough for this type of service. A virtual assistant charges about that for admin/secretarial services. After taking off your overheads, tax, etc that doesn't work out to much as an hourly wage for you.

The other thing to watch out for is asking for a website review which is Googled along with all these comments, and then offering web design as a service. If anyone then Googles you to find out more about you (ie a potential customer), they then find you asking people to review your website and find all these issues, it doesn't look too great.

[PainFreeMarketing]

Hi

(BTW, NEVER ignore basic SEO, use every advantage you can to get ahead online.)

Kind Regards
Daren

I can't make the changes you mention as I can't edit those features. The template is very basic.

I'll keep tweaking it though.

Thanks

[PainFreeMarketing]

I would also say £15 per hour isn't enough for this type of service. A virtual assistant charges about that for admin/secretarial services. After taking off your overheads, tax, etc that doesn't work out to much as an hourly wage for you.

I charge what I charge because I want local small businesses to benefit from these services. I don't want to price them out of the market.

I am not doing this to earn bundles of money. I enjoy it.

The bread and butter of what I do is backed up with good solid client base, testimonials, samples and more relevant testimonials re recently completed projects to follow.

I can remove the website feature if it muddys the waters.

[PainFreeMarketing]

Hi Entro

I have more blogs than I can count, blogger and wordpress.

And yes, they do look better in many respects but are limited in others.

I have a mrsite website too which actually looks better and I am toying with the idea of swapping domain names if that's possible?

[accountantpete]

SEO isn't my concern

I mainly want to attract local clients and will advertise locally by mail outs, in person visits and other paper promotions.

I have other high profile sites I can advertise the same service on if I want to increase my global clients (which I don't) I get project requests via those sites.

I don't understand your comment re the 'about us'. I don't refer to myself as 'us' I refer to myself as 'I', also how is anything I put on my own site spammy? Spam is mail you send to others without invitation.

Please clarify thanks

Personally I'd ignore my comments (you ought to see my site!) - but in your About page you don't refer to 'I' - its all 3rd person as in Leah founded etc etc.Spammy is Spamesque if you like.

[PainFreeMarketing]

Personally I'd ignore my comments (you ought to see my site!) - but in your About page you don't refer to 'I' - its all 3rd person as in Leah founded etc etc.Spammy is Spamesque if you like.

That's not the definition of spammy