Critique My Website

Critique My Website

Author
Discussion

F31Simon

Original Poster:

48 posts

124 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
Hi, I have recently started a new business and would love some feedback on my website which I put live last week. The URL is in my profile.

Thanks
Simon

Dejay1788

1,311 posts

128 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
It looks great to me, had a quick nosey around it, nearly everything works as it should however:

- Link in the footer - WHAT A VIRTUAL CTO - Typo? What is?
- Perhaps try to place a phone number near the top of your page. It's amazing how many people don't scroll down a page.
- If you click on your logo it returns a broken page, redirect it to your home page.
- Possibly on your banner, write Chief Technology Officer so instantly people know what you do? I didn't have a clue.

Other than that, you've got a smart looking, well thought out website with a blog going already. I notice you haven't included any social media profiles on your website, do you have any?

Edit: Your help page is blank too.

F31Simon

Original Poster:

48 posts

124 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
Thanks for the quick reply Dejay, will have a look at addressing your comments this afternoon. In terms of social media, we do have a twitter feed, its linked in the footer, again, need to try and make that a bit more prominent.

maffski

1,866 posts

158 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
If you're hoping to get shares from social media it might be worth getting the opengraph and twitter card tags in there to ensure it's displayed correctly (e.g. identifying which image to use)

cc000001

34 posts

133 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
I think it looks good and is nice and responsive.

The only obvious issue I could see is that the Terms of Service page is blank (link from footer).

Possibly add the phone number to the header (as has already been mentioned) if you think that it needs to be displayed prominently on all pages.

F31Simon

Original Poster:

48 posts

124 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
Thanks for all the comments folks, I will look to address them in the next few days.

In terms of the phone number, I am deliberately keeping it hidden, after all I am offering virtual services, so I expect most/all of my clients to be hi-tech and used to dealing with emails, etc. Need to deal with the empty pages though, pretty quickly smile

jammy_basturd

29,776 posts

211 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
Sorry but I'm going to be a bit more harsh.

In general it looks like you've got a template and then just replaced placeholder text with your own copy, rather than thought about what content you wanted and then merged that with a design. Given the market you're going into I really would have spent some time with a designer.

Menu - "WHY A VIRTUAL CTO" - again, doesn't really make sense. "Why Use A Virtual CTO?" maybe? Above the menu you have a Language selector with just one language - why?! The search box in the menu doesn't work.

Your header image/copy reads like notes rather than well formed, targeted text.

The home page is really quite bad. The layout is awful because there is very little content. Of the three modules one contains a grammatical error (no capital on 'Able'). Then your call to action is a button stuck in the bottom right corner, which is the last place a visitor will look (literally, read up about the F pattern of eye motion) and it's a "Download Now" button that goes to your contact page!!

What Does a CTO Do page - far too much text, very few of your visitors will bother reading it. I haven't. Most of the content conforms to a 1170px wide container, but not the Options section. Looks odd.

Why A Virtual CTO page - too little content. Just the right amount of text, but it looks lost.

Why Us page - good start, probably the best page on the website. You have extensive knowledgeFinance, Music & Media, Telecomms, and Manufacturing industries? Really? Don't tell us, show us! Case studies, customer testimonials, etc.

Had a quick look at your Blog. Read the Exploring the MVP page. Doesn't make any mention of Lean Startup which is the methodology from which MVP was created. Nor the Build, Measure, Learn cycle. Or Product/Market fit.

It really does seem like the website has been rushed together, with the emphasis put on more sales/marketing guff than having any real substance behind it. I'd seriously look at spending some money on a copywriter and a designer.

DSLiverpool

14,671 posts

201 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
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Why make your address so visible, email and phone etc but making a domestic address so visible lessens it

cuneus

5,963 posts

241 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
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I really hope you didn't pay someone - did you ?

This screenshot summarises the lack of attention to detail:


cc000001

34 posts

133 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
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cuneus said:
I really hope you didn't pay someone - did you ?

This screenshot summarises the lack of attention to detail:

Think you might be being a bit harsh there. It's a responsive website so that block of text isn't a fixed width. It'll render differently depending on your screen size/browser window size.

jammy_basturd

29,776 posts

211 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
I think you've been over-excited to show off the website before it's really at a stage where it's ready for feedback.

Having said that, are you sure you've considered the business model? You're trying to make customers out of people/startups that have precious little money spare.

Usually with startups, the only way you get them off the ground is if you do the work yourself (therefore you are the tech), or you put a team together and get seed funding. To get seed funding you already need to have the team is in place. But you need to get into the door before the team is decided, especially as CTO is such a critical aspect of the startup, but this is the stage when the startup will have no money.

On top of that, any startup that fits your customer profile can just engage with a full stack dev, probably on a similar day rate and get both the work done and the advice.

cuneus

5,963 posts

241 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
cc000001 said:
cuneus said:
I really hope you didn't pay someone - did you ?

This screenshot summarises the lack of attention to detail:

Think you might be being a bit harsh there. It's a responsive website so that block of text isn't a fixed width. It'll render differently depending on your screen size/browser window size.
NSS

cc000001

34 posts

133 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
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cuneus said:
NSS
Ha. Just thought it was worth mentioning getmecoat

cuneus

5,963 posts

241 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
cc000001 said:
cuneus said:
NSS
Ha. Just thought it was worth mentioning getmecoat
Yes and you claim to run a "web agency"

The example I gave is either laziness or stupidity (or both!)

cc000001

34 posts

133 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
cuneus said:
Yes and you claim to run a "web agency"

The example I gave is either laziness or stupidity (or both!)
I just didn't think it was a show stopping issue. But, ok it's sloppy to have a line break like that when the site's at full width.

mikef

4,826 posts

250 months

Tuesday 26th May 2015
quotequote all
Content is everything

Throughout the page it says "we" and "our". Then "20 years industry expertise". Is that 4 interim CTOs with 5 years IT experience each? (that's not even a senior programmer, is it?). Or one interim consultant with 20 years and somehow ashamed of being an individual freelancer? That's what I'd be thinking if I landed on this

cuneus

5,963 posts

241 months

Wednesday 27th May 2015
quotequote all
cc000001 said:
cuneus said:
Yes and you claim to run a "web agency"

The example I gave is either laziness or stupidity (or both!)
I just didn't think it was a show stopping issue. But, ok it's sloppy to have a line break like that when the site's at full width.
Never said it was a show stopper, I said it was indicative

Here's another:

The single biggest file on the home page is 452KB

http://www.virtualcto.services/Content/Unify/img/b...

OK it's very poorly optimised but it is also scaled from 1000px x 667px to 54px x 54px