Critique my site please?

[Jamster123]

Everyone knows how valuable honest feedback can be , wondered if anyone could help with my site?

Its a wordpress site , designed with me editing on my own , in mind. I had it designed for me , but most of the content is my own ideas.

Im pretty happy with the design side of things but more concerned with content and how the site portraits me and the company.

We are a small company offering all trades but specialising in electrical rewiring. This involves moving people out of their homes for a few days , so Ive tried to make the site very personal with lots of info about myself to gain trust with the customer. Im not sure if Ive over done it with personal info , I even have a pic of myself, the mrs ( sure to direct some traffic now ) and our dog. Im just not sure how if its all a bit smarmy, especially the "about me" page.

I'm generally winning most rewiring jobs in my area however concerned maybe with my new brand image perhaps some customers are being put off ...I dunno why , do we look expensive ? overly friendly ? Trying to hard ?

Ive also started messing around with adwords. Im going to spend a few hundred a month on it while Im learning then set aside a large budget per month, so Id like the site to be solid to back this up.

Really appreciate any thoughts good or bad ..

www.jrcpropertysolutions.com

[Jamster123]

excellent stuff , exactly what Im after keep the suggestions coming please ..

I always knew the customer pics would be cheesy and debated on them for sometime so if I get enough negative feedback here Ill remove them. Quality of pics , I agree , could be better.

About me page - I like the idea suggesting a pic of me working rather than with the mrs , again enough feedback on this and Ill remove it.

There is a bathroom specialist in Glasgow who pushes himself as a family man/family company etc. He has the same idea on his site with pics of his family etc...the guy does really well from what I can see , and this is where Ive got this idea from..but like I say from day one Ive been debating this idea.

Grammar - Punctuation etc Im not too concerned with at this stage ..I have still to go over it in fine detail and have been meaning to do this for a while but simply not got round to it , so this is an easy fix I can do on my own (wordpress)

So far great thanks , exactly what I need !

edit - forgot to add , some of next years goals were/are ,

- To get professional pics done for the site ( since having my wedding pics done Ive realised the difference this makes )
- SELECT Registered ( already started process)
- NICEIC Registered ( already started process)
- Become VAT Registered - ( already done this year )
- Radio Advert

Incase it helps with overall view of company..

Edited by Jamster123 on Saturday 28th December 19:32

[Jamster123]

Thanks , This is a massive help to me ..

Seems to be a difference in opinion on the cheesy pics ...pretty much my thoughts since uploading them , but I guess so long as its not putting people off then all is good. It has been really hard to balance between the trusted tradesman/professional company.

Loads of great tips here and things I can change easily. Keen to here more opinions ...

[Jamster123]

will come back to these points , The blue phone numbers are actually just your device highlighting the numbers , it took me a while too figure this out ! , if there is any easy way to stop this happening Id be interested to know , they should be orange at all times.
cheers

[Jamster123]

Ok so defo going to drop the pic with dog and Mrs. Ideas of what to replace it with ? Action shot working or me with both vans maybe ?

Qualifications - I could add more info on "about me" page - good point.

Links on Rated People/trustatrader/Sjib etc - funny one this , I'm keen for people to know I have 72 reviews on rated people , but I don't want to draw too much attention to "rated people" as the potential customer could list their job on they're site therefore introducing another few tradesman into the mix . Again another part I've debated on , I think when I can display my SELECT and NICEIC badges on the site , I'll remove all "findatrade" type logos.

[Jamster123]

Again, All excellent feedback thanks, really appreciated...had over 700 visits from PH to the site since posting this !

My plan is to sit down over next week or so and try and implement/change some ideas. Some Ill manage myself, some perhaps for my designer.


Slightly concerned with the formatting on different devices/browsers, not sure how easy this is to fix.

More opinions welcome ..

Edited by Jamster123 on Sunday 29th December 21:13

[Jamster123]

yeah got google analytics just been messing around trying to figure things out. My ability on wordpress only really stretched to changing text and images etc at the moment , so will pass on other parts to designer.

[Jamster123]

Im just doing some thinking tonight and wanted to come back to this.

Im doing quite a bit of advertising on adwords. On good days I'm getting around 100 views on the site although this equates to around 10-15 unique visits ( I think, still learning with this ). This is for terms such as "electrician glasgow". Of 15 for example lets say 10 are just browsing and 5 are genuinely needing an electrician at that point in time. If my estimates are way off please correct me, as I said still learning. Id expect at least a few calls per day but at the minute I'm getting maybe 3-5 per week.

So, are my figures off or are people being put off my site for one reason or another?

If they are, I come to this...

Its been suggested that I look quite young ( I'm 30 this year so only now am I taking that as a compliment! ) but looking at my site do I look young and is this potentially putting customers off as they presume lack of experience?

Feedback was massively appreciated last time and again if anyone can help..

www.jrcpropertysolutions.com

[Jamster123]

90% of our work is electrical , our search terms are "electricians Glasgow" etc.. we specialise in rewiring but rank pretty well organically for "rewiring" terms.

[Jamster123]

Thanks, Ill keep at at adwords..Im still learning but getting there slowly.

Don't get me wrong we have plenty of work, Im just curious why some folk may not be following through after visiting the site.

Leaflet drop is something Ive never done purely because I was under the impression the conversation rate was very low. I usually deliver a drafted letter to all neighbouring properties when we finish a job. We get some hits from this but also a lot of wasted time.

[Jamster123]

lol.

Im trying to get some pro pics done for the home page now

[Jamster123]

Such a helpful post last time, would appreciate any thoughts on a new site Im working on. Still rough at moment...


http://macwebsolutions.co.uk/clients/jrc/

[Jamster123]

Thanks mate. Video was a first edit we done a while ago, very amateur but Im working on a new version.

[Jamster123]

Thanks Sparky. I debated with the quick quote form, but in all honestly I didn't get much coming through it so left out.

[Jamster123]

yeah read post, this is basic template plenty of errors but this is really to get a feel for the design at the moment. Be pretty silly going to this effort to leave those spelling mistakes in!

This is the home page, the images will all link to other pages, which Ill begin working on soon wondering peoples thoughts as to whether big improvement on last site ?

The old site will stay but will be focused on the property side of things and new site will be solely for rewiring.

Edited by Jamster123 on Thursday 26th June 22:52

Edited by Jamster123 on Thursday 26th June 22:53

[Jamster123]

Wondered if anyone might lend an opinion on the site at this stage ?

Text is not final so yes will be errors and 1 or 2 links not working and quit a few pics missing on some pages.

I go on holiday next week which is when I really going to push on with it so looking for any major changes anyone thinks I should make.

More concerned with the layout etc, would appreciate any designers opinions.

Having to scroll down on my screen at least, is that an issue for other users ? Everything looks very big and bold, again not sure if thats just my screen.

Thanks!
http://macwebsolutions.co.uk/clients/jrc/

Edited by Jamster123 on Wednesday 27th August 20:00

[Jamster123]

Excellent, Exactly the pointers Im after, I knew about the Facebook links.

The orange text is a tough one Ive tried a few different colours and can't decide what is best here. I looked at a few other sites and most seem to go for the white text.

Im taking most of my inspiration from here http://spyrestudios.com/33-brilliant-orange-websit...

[Jamster123]

Couple of things Im keen to add, and keen to get feedback on..

1- when you hover over the NICEIC badge, Id like some text to pop up like "Why NICEIC"? Then clicking takes you to the NICEIC site - doable?

2 - All logos are Jpeg or smiler at moment, they will be redone in better files, to create sharper images.

3 - Currently working a new video, current one a bit amateur.

4 - Recent projects - originally, I had this page displaying 3 different jobs, my designer suggested it would be better as a blog. Blog is basic at moment but Ill tart that up shortly. Thoughts on the blog idea over basic pics?

5 - scrolling down, is the page too big ? will folk forget to scroll down ?

6 - How are we portrait ? is is obvious what we do ? We mostly rewire houses, although those pics can be boring so Ive tried adding interesting pics, good move or bad move ? I have few more to add such as exterior lighting and other cool projects

Should add I pretty much designed the whole thing on my own using sketchbook! designer has just coded it up. So any basic design errors id be pleased to hear about.

Edited by Jamster123 on Wednesday 27th August 20:50

[Jamster123]

Wilmslowboy said:

My humble opinion.....

Less text (headline statements only)
Photos (on the carousel) suggest a little to much industrial, corporate world
Video is good, but not sure what I am supposed to take away from it

these guys design stuff for a living, check out their web site, it might be at the opposite extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to web sites, however this plain, large statement, clear language is the design language most are heading too.

http://method.com


Imagine someone only spends 30 seconds on you site, what do you want them to take away from it.

Originally I had envisioned the site very basic and very minimal like you suggest, but my concern is SEO. We are a small business so need exposure, so how would a site like the one you posted fair with SEO if there is hardly any text ?

Method appears multinational so Im guessing they are not massively fussed about "getting known" now but how would that work for me ?

[Jamster123]

cuneus said:

IMHO if your main market is house rewires the site does not convey that message at all - it looks very corporate

You really need to optimise:

59 requests for a simplish home page ? - Sorry for my ignorance, assuming this is to do with loading time ?

images e.g the vans picture can go from 160Kb to 52Kb with no loss of quality

You might consider omitting the bar under the logo since there is a lot of repetition there
HTH

Sorry for my ignorance, assuming the requests is to do with loading time ?

Can the pics be reduced with absolutely no loss in quality ?

I see what you mean about the repetition, perhaps I could change intro line to "Welcome to JRC"

Im concerned about the corporate feel, Im I overdoing it!?

I have a few pics to add still on the slider that show us actually rewiring houses so maybe that will help. Ive been trying to stay away from usual sparky pics of sockets and bits of cable , like everyone has.