Crirtcal analysis & construstive crititism please.

afishyfish

Hey guys.
I recently re-vamped my website.
http://www.tradeshutters.ie

Would appreciate any feedback.
Positive or negative. Suggestions more than welcome.

tricky D

It needs a lot of work:

The layout is too thin, there is another 200 pixels safely available for you.

The header layout needs reworking and logo is not linked.

Launching a Flash video especially without user choice is not a good idea.

The copy content is not sales oriented. It needs to address the customers issues, indicate your solution(s) and call to action. Instead, there's just a load of blocks of unmemorable text.

The order of navigation could be much better prioritised.

The Get a Quote form isn't embedded properly and really shouldn't be embedded at all.

As seen on TV needs some text for info and context.

Product page layouts need reworking.

Flash gallery would be better using some better technology for implementation.

Technically, the site uses tables for layout and styles inline as opposed to in an external file. This will impede you in trying to fix your site by adding unnecessary overheads.

The SEO needs a lot of work apart from a few h1s, some of which use less than good practice.

The typefacing needs work too.

Your biggest issue by far is the sales techniques or big lack of them. Whoever has done this site has not put themselves in the customer's shoes at all. There are no price indications at all and if the text on the site was spoken in the physical shop, customers would be put off. Also, there are no case studies, promos, offers and other incentives.

hope that helps and good luck

Pixelcraft

It looks very amateur, no design principles to speak of

No call to action, everything is just thrown at the visitor, no path for a visitor to follow

I auto closed when that video started playing

ShutterCo or Tradeshutters?

Everything else I could list would just be a symptom of the above I'm afraid. Your shutters look lovely, top quality but unfortunately your website looks the opposite.

I like the 'about' page, it's good to have transparency and not be faceless.

afishyfish

Thanks guys.

I pretty much designed it myself. (First attempt)
I knew it needed alot of work but just wanted to get an good review of what needed to be done.

On the trade shutters / shutterco thing. We changed company name but couldn't switch the url without our page rank/google listing suffering. It bugs me but as far as I know its pretty tough to change it over. Am I wrong?

Thanks again.

stephenpalmer

Pretty good website, Although you really have to turn off the auto play on the video. You should give users the option of clicking play, not just shoving it in there face.

Also with the indexing in google and page rank, you could of just done a site reditect so if anyone typed in your old name it would just redirect them to the new site(url).

Good website otherwise! Good luck

afishyfish

Thanks again for the review.
Can any of you recommend a good web designer or company?
Emphasis on good. I don't wish to pay for a second rate job only to discover I need to have it re-done.

tricky D

You can post a RFP at "I need someone to..." - The Work Wanted Superthread (Read first post before posting)

and over on Irish Webmaster Forum.

Try to write as comprehensive a specification as you can.

afishyfish

I was sort of hoping for a recommendation, rather than guys recommending themselves.
Everybody is great if they're describing themselves, know what i mean?
Anybody ever heard of http://www.activeonline.ie/
They appear to be pretty good.
Pricey though. Just got a ballpark quote. €3-4,000 for a full design service.
I'll admit I don't know the going rates, (this could be about par for the course) but it sounds expensive to me.

GroupDeals

Outsource using Elance or Freelancer - you will get quotes for half that and the quality is just as good

afishyfish

How would I know if the guy is any good. Do these fellas have portfolios or something?

bigdong

There is some way to change your website adress without losing Seo work, use redirecting to another site and if people will open your old site they just will be redirected to new domain.

afishyfish

Yes, but the old url still shows up in the search results.
I'd like to change this.