p3
New Member
Probably won't do any good but I'm going to chime in, from head to toe.
Home Page:
1. Your header. Why so big? You are taking up all your above the fold real estate with this big ugly thing. Your "signs and graphics" is as big as your logo. They are competing and I don't know what to look at. If anything, make the phone number bigger so people can get a hold of you faster since they have to scroll three times to see any useful info.
2. In your <head> tags, don't keyword stuff. Your meta tags are full of words that aren't on any of the corresponding pages.
3. Move the text above images. Content is king. use more <h1> and <h2> tags along with <p> tags. You have zero <p> tags.
4. Google's search engine is built on back linking. The more sites that link to yours build your credibility. Makes sense, when you talk about something you learn, if you reference a book, that book has credibility - more than you. You have outbound links, helping someone else's back linking. Not downing your deal you have going, because internal links are good too.
5. Never have a button with "other". While we're on topic of the buttons - these definitely should be handled with CSS. You should be properly using <ul> <li> tags when building those then using <span> tags to change text to images.
6. Your images. I have a tough time on my own site with quality images too, so I can't dog on you as I need to do this myself. However, shrink down the damn google maps thing. If someone wants directions, they can find them by clicking the button, we don't need to see the entire surrounding zip code. Your images stretch out passed the header. Stick to constraints.
7. I would suggest labeling the pictures on the bottom of the home page to say what you're showing along with links to the corresponding categories.
Service Pages:
1. Read the first few steps for the home page. This just is so gaudy and unprofessional.
2. Create content that is good, compelling, original.
3. Images. Don't have them take you away from the page you're on. Use something like this: http://highslide.com/ (I only suggest this because it's super easy to use) and you can add content explaining what you did in the image shown.
4. Fix your broken images
5. Ditch the "links" page. This is very early 2000's. Include these links within content on your site. The yellow pages link could be on your contact along with yelp. Your social links (youtube, facebook, google plus, etc.) can be along the bottom in the footer. Square could be put on the bottom footer as "payments accepted". Since you are concerned about these links, they would then be on every single page. Or if you go against this piece of advice, explain what the hell a "links" page is. "Hi, we're D'Siznez and we want to take you away from our core business!"
Contact Page:
Change the content. Repetitive content hurts your SEO. Copy and pasting hurts SEO. You need original, compelling, short, interesting copy. Contact page is the same as the home page. Same crappy image, same huge map. I would probably put a form for someone to fill out in order to email me. Why make them click more, open up an email client to email you? You can also guide them into giving you relevant info with a drop down of category of product they would like made, size and other things.
Overall, I think you should really think out your website, the flow of your end user. I "viewed source" on your page and it is very primitive and looks like it was either built in dreamweaver or by someone in the early 2000's. I'm not sure why more of the sign shop people don't utilize wordpress but it is a great tool. It has a lot of functionality built in, can be added on to and maintained by someone with little knowledge. If you are very set on building your own page, I have a feeling you may get defensive, but I believe that is just from a lack of understanding web technologies and how things work. If this sounds about right, and YOU want to build this site better, I highly recommend checking out this book:
HTML & CSS
It is one of the best out there in my opinion. It has credibility, as it is recommended by lots and lots of people in the industry....similar to how back links work
At the end of it all, the main point is this: You say the average Joe Schmo won't know the difference between fonts and whatever else. Go ask people what site they would take more serious. Yours, or something like this?
Chances are, it's the latter of the two.
People may not know what a font is, or what font is what. People are going to know what looks good.
Hope it helps.
I encourage anyone to give me feedback on my website as well. I had some stuff about the gallery in the past and have been working on a fix for it to make it better, just haven't found the best way so it is what it is for now.
Home Page:
1. Your header. Why so big? You are taking up all your above the fold real estate with this big ugly thing. Your "signs and graphics" is as big as your logo. They are competing and I don't know what to look at. If anything, make the phone number bigger so people can get a hold of you faster since they have to scroll three times to see any useful info.
2. In your <head> tags, don't keyword stuff. Your meta tags are full of words that aren't on any of the corresponding pages.
3. Move the text above images. Content is king. use more <h1> and <h2> tags along with <p> tags. You have zero <p> tags.
4. Google's search engine is built on back linking. The more sites that link to yours build your credibility. Makes sense, when you talk about something you learn, if you reference a book, that book has credibility - more than you. You have outbound links, helping someone else's back linking. Not downing your deal you have going, because internal links are good too.
5. Never have a button with "other". While we're on topic of the buttons - these definitely should be handled with CSS. You should be properly using <ul> <li> tags when building those then using <span> tags to change text to images.
6. Your images. I have a tough time on my own site with quality images too, so I can't dog on you as I need to do this myself. However, shrink down the damn google maps thing. If someone wants directions, they can find them by clicking the button, we don't need to see the entire surrounding zip code. Your images stretch out passed the header. Stick to constraints.
7. I would suggest labeling the pictures on the bottom of the home page to say what you're showing along with links to the corresponding categories.
Service Pages:
1. Read the first few steps for the home page. This just is so gaudy and unprofessional.
2. Create content that is good, compelling, original.
3. Images. Don't have them take you away from the page you're on. Use something like this: http://highslide.com/ (I only suggest this because it's super easy to use) and you can add content explaining what you did in the image shown.
4. Fix your broken images
5. Ditch the "links" page. This is very early 2000's. Include these links within content on your site. The yellow pages link could be on your contact along with yelp. Your social links (youtube, facebook, google plus, etc.) can be along the bottom in the footer. Square could be put on the bottom footer as "payments accepted". Since you are concerned about these links, they would then be on every single page. Or if you go against this piece of advice, explain what the hell a "links" page is. "Hi, we're D'Siznez and we want to take you away from our core business!"
Contact Page:
Change the content. Repetitive content hurts your SEO. Copy and pasting hurts SEO. You need original, compelling, short, interesting copy. Contact page is the same as the home page. Same crappy image, same huge map. I would probably put a form for someone to fill out in order to email me. Why make them click more, open up an email client to email you? You can also guide them into giving you relevant info with a drop down of category of product they would like made, size and other things.
Overall, I think you should really think out your website, the flow of your end user. I "viewed source" on your page and it is very primitive and looks like it was either built in dreamweaver or by someone in the early 2000's. I'm not sure why more of the sign shop people don't utilize wordpress but it is a great tool. It has a lot of functionality built in, can be added on to and maintained by someone with little knowledge. If you are very set on building your own page, I have a feeling you may get defensive, but I believe that is just from a lack of understanding web technologies and how things work. If this sounds about right, and YOU want to build this site better, I highly recommend checking out this book:
HTML & CSS
It is one of the best out there in my opinion. It has credibility, as it is recommended by lots and lots of people in the industry....similar to how back links work
At the end of it all, the main point is this: You say the average Joe Schmo won't know the difference between fonts and whatever else. Go ask people what site they would take more serious. Yours, or something like this?
Chances are, it's the latter of the two.
People may not know what a font is, or what font is what. People are going to know what looks good.
Hope it helps.
I encourage anyone to give me feedback on my website as well. I had some stuff about the gallery in the past and have been working on a fix for it to make it better, just haven't found the best way so it is what it is for now.
