New Website -what do the experts think?

Tech Chris

New Member
Hi All,

I have been heavily involved in the design of the new website for a web design company called Go Up. Obviously the first point of call for prospective clients will be the website so any criticisms / points of interest would be very beneficial.

Go Up

Obviously friends and family give relatively 'reserved' feedback so am very interested to hear what a web design forum has to say about it?

We wanted to go for a different feel to the rest of the websites that have a stereotypical photo of a large building or a glass walled office as the main feature!
 
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chrishirst

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Why does everybody (seemingly) have to have stupid great "slideshows" taking up two thrds of every damned page?????????

The text is too small do you people to raed your documents or marvel at yet another intrusive and distracting bunch of moving pictures?????????????

AND you need to learn about REAL SEO before spluttering useless "buzz words" and phrase all over the place. What exactly IS a nofollow tag????
 

Tech Chris

New Member
Hi @chrishirst. We prefer large images because we believe that it conveys a message instantly. People come to the homepage and immediately see that it is a Web Design and SEO company, also the images help to 'keep' users interested who would otherwise be put off by excessive amounts of text. Once they click on a more specific banner or drop down they are given much more information.

I will look into whether the text is too small, do you mean in the banner or on the website in general i.e. under the video on the homepage?

If you navigate to the SEO handbook it clearly demonstrates what a no follow tag is.

Thank you for the feedback anyway!
 
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chrishirst

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Put simply no follow tags prevent the passing on of link juice by telling robots not to follow the designated link
Totally completely and UTTERLY WRONG

If you had half an clue of what you are talking about you would KNOW that there is NO SUCH THING as a nofollow "tag"

http://webmaster-talk.eu/en/article...arch/search-engines/32-do-follow-or-no-follow

Basically you are just another clueless chancer masquerading as an "SEO" and getting anyone who DOES know what they are talking about painted with same colour of clueless as you are!!!!


We prefer large images because we believe that it conveys a message instantly.
Complete trash!!!! "splash pages" went out of "fashion" in the late 1990s and deservedly so, and here you are with a "splash page" on every damned document of the site.

Everyone I speak to who are just general website users with no interest in design, development or even owning a "website" of any kind, dislike huge useless "slideshows", blocks of extra navigation that suddenly appear and cover half the page if the mouse cursor strays within half an inch of the "menu" and many other other "kewl" things that designer/developers feel that no site is complete without at least one of them.
 

AsheSkyler

New Member
Maybe put the big green block of "Search Engine Optimisation" at the bottom of the page just above the footer and move the text up above the video?

I personally do not like headers that exceed 100px in height or giant images I have to scroll past to find out what the site or page is about. But, that's me.
 

chrishirst

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I personally do not like headers that exceed 100px in height or giant images I have to scroll past to find out what the site or page is about. But, that's me.

But it's not only you :D

I think that EVERY designer and developer should read "DON'T MAKE ME THINK" by Steve Krug BEFORE they even open their graphics tool or "site builder".
 
Clueless?? Okay sure you like to point out that sometimes people confuse tag and attribute, glad you know your terminology. But to call someone, who in my opinion has a nice site (minus the small font size and the Meta description is several characters over the limit) clueless for the wrong terminology is asinine. The grasp of nofollow is correct, and I noticed in your little article on this (yes I read it) the basing of dofollow, well school is still out on the effectiveness is still out. Bottom line is unless you are a god among web builders ( and you sir are NOT, and BTW I am not saying I am), you should really dial it down a notch.

On to the site itself.Images portray and tell me what this site is for and go let me know why I’m here. The video column perhaps could use some more gutter spacing on the right, but I like it.
 
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Tech Chris

New Member
I have no intention of causing any arguments with this post. Simply looking to get some views on the site.

Brian Angel - thank you for the comment, it is interesting that two people consider the font size to be too small and this is something that I will look to rectify. Will also notify Go Up of Meta Description discrepancies as their on-site optimisation is largely out of my jurisdiction.

Just to clarify, are you referencing the body of text below the video that is too small and/or the drop downs?
 

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
If I have read this correctly, you've designed a site for a (not your own) web/seo company.
Therefore the content as chris is referring to, whilst making valid points is aimed at the wrong guy. Although filling out the contact form would go to the right person I assume.
:)
From a design point of view big slideshows and large headers dont do it for me either...
 

Tech Chris

New Member
Hi Pheaddee,

Indeed, as they were a start up I was brought in on a freelance basis to be part of the in-house team designing the website (hence 'involved'). Although, as you state, filling in the contact form might be a more direct root than me passing on any relevant feedback.
 

Roddy

New Member
I have to agree that half a page of nothing is too much before you actually get to read anything useful.

The SEO page is particularly bad. There's so much junk on it that its almost unreadable.

If you cut out all the extraneous stuff the whole site would fit onto half a dozen informative pages.

Why do some designers feel that they have to fill the screen with stuff? Do they get paid by the square meter?
 

reverseengineer

New Member
I'm no expert but this site is very well designed. Love the slideshow animation and the colors are bright and not 'selly' if you know what I mean. I'd work the Go Up logo more frequently in your site. Every time you use the term, use the logo. Cheers.
 

krymson

Member
Time for my two cents i guess...

I get the feel of the website overall, it just needs some tweak. First off as already mention the font is way too small as well as the header area is far too large... too much white space in my opinion. All the info is below "the fold". Yes you have a nifty little slide show saying what all the company does, but what if javascript is disabled? Looks like your site is static and a lil boring, but the images do look nice though.

The images are pretty heavy, i'm on a really fast connection and they still load slow, what i like to call choppy loading because it loads it in sections., you might be able to optimize them a bit better, because... if you or they are SEO specialists you would know page speed plays a factor.

the SEO handbook section... far too much noise where the text is, you have shape and color and all sorts of weird crap going on there... to distracting.

On the contact page where it has the phone number and address and stuff, the font that says "Phone email address and web" WAY too light, hard to see it...

Lastly, I dont know what it is but switch between the home page and the blog, look at the air baloon area when you're doing this and you should see something happening, it's subtle but its an inconsistency

Its not a bad site, but there are is still things that can be improved upon to make the site much more efficient.
 

HireLogo

New Member
I think the site looks nice as long as someone else is doing the SEO. Whenever I see a company who claims charity benefits and they aren't a well known company, I tend to assume they are putting up a front to cover up shady stuff. If you feel that strongly just do it...I'm not sure you have to convince others your doing so.
 

CenTex Hosting

New Member
The site looks nice an clean. You might make the icons at the top in the nav bar change colors when you move the mouse over them.
 
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