Help with my website
Help with my website
Author
Discussion

cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
Hello, I've seen a few of these posts and have been impressed by the level of feedback.

I have just in the process of starting a car transport and storage business and I was wonder if you could critique my website.... I've done it all myself, and its a wordpress site hosted by 1&1.

Secondly, how do I get the website known, what is the best way to increase traffic, especially in search rankings.

I will apologise, because it's a car website, and this is a car business, I'm not trying to get business from it, but just need the feedbake before I start advertrising it.

www.prestigemotortransport.co.uk

shelf1985

138 posts

189 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
You clearly have a nice premises, a nice truck and a nice trailer.

Why not just stump up a few hundred more for a professional website?

What you have done is good (better than i could do) but if i had a prestigious car and enough wealth to then have it transported and stored correctly (i dont have either) i would probably wouldn't entrust it to someone with a homemade website.

hyphen

26,262 posts

120 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
Very small delay on the last two links as they are seperate pages.

Nothing major but thats on my high speed broadband, check what its like on slow speed/mobile.

Also your font/styling is the subject of concern in this weeks news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/23/inte...

Contact link is normally the last link on websites, yours is the 4th. Feels a bit odd.

shelf1985

138 posts

189 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
And sort out your phone number maybe get a land line divert. Comes back as a completly different business (still saying its active) with completely different location on google.

Doesnt exactly scream out 70 years experience of ice road trucking and heavy haulage :-)

cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
hyphen said:
Very small delay on the last two links as they are seperate pages.

Nothing major but thats on my high speed broadband, check what its like on slow speed/mobile.

Also your font/styling is the subject of concern in this weeks news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/23/inte...

Contact link is normally the last link on websites, yours is the 4th. Feels a bit odd.
Link speed seems ok to me..

Contact link has been moved.

Testimonials will be added.

As for the number, I will be getting a landline number, but I only got the unit a week ago, and it's not been installed. The landline will then divert to my mobile. But until I get the landline it has to be my mobile. Which is linked to my other business.

I will get some more professional photos once everything else is paid for.

These are my competitors:

http://www.russellstransport.co.uk/
http://straighteightlogistics.com/exotic-car-trans...
http://www.beechesrecovery.co.uk/Prestige-Car-Tran...
http://www.westbournemotors.co.uk/p-prestige-vinta...
http://www.transcars.com/prestige-car-transport/

Is mine that much worse it's noticeable that I did it?


Edited by cowboyengineer on Monday 31st October 21:35

hyphen

26,262 posts

120 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
cowboyengineer said:
Link speed seems ok to me..
That there is poor customer service smile

You don't tell the customer 'ok to me' you listen and investigate and find the cause!

silentbrown

10,988 posts

146 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
It's a Wordpress site, I think. Nothing wrong with that...

However, a couple of issues I see.

For the small photos here you're serving full-sized 3+ Megabyte files and relying on the browser to shrink them to the page. This is horribly inefficient and makes the page slow to load.

http://prestigemotortransport.co.uk/car-transport

Also, something truly weird is happening to the size of the fixed header bar as you scroll down, distorting the top-left logo.

silentbrown

10,988 posts

146 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
cowboyengineer said:
As for the number, I will be getting a landline number, but I only got the unit a week ago, and it's not been installed. The landline will then divert to my mobile. But until I get the landline it has to be my mobile. Which is linked to my other business.
I don't think I'd ever have a conventional land line ever again. Get a geographic number from an IP phone company like Nimvelo.com and redirect it to wherever. Ready in minutes.

cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
hyphen said:
That there is poor customer service smile

You don't tell the customer 'ok to me' you listen and investigate and find the cause!
OK, as another user has said, the photos hadn't resized properly, so I've gone through them all, cropped a few and resized them all to 600x400, so they are now a couple of hundred kb rather then a couple of mpeg per image. Hopefully this should speed it up somewhat.

cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
silentbrown said:
I don't think I'd ever have a conventional land line ever again. Get a geographic number from an IP phone company like Nimvelo.com and redirect it to wherever. Ready in minutes.
I will look into this tomorrow.

Cheers

cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
silentbrown said:
It's a Wordpress site, I think. Nothing wrong with that...

However, a couple of issues I see.

For the small photos here you're serving full-sized 3+ Megabyte files and relying on the browser to shrink them to the page. This is horribly inefficient and makes the page slow to load.

http://prestigemotortransport.co.uk/car-transport

Also, something truly weird is happening to the size of the fixed header bar as you scroll down, distorting the top-left logo.
I can't figure out why it resizes. On mobile devices it's fine. Just on the desktop site?

silentbrown

10,988 posts

146 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
cowboyengineer said:
I can't figure out why it resizes. On mobile devices it's fine. Just on the desktop site?
Happens in Chrome and Firefox on Desktop PC, and in Chrome on Android phone. Haven't tried anything else.

It's possibly a wordpress plugin confict.

Have you written the CSS yourself, or is this just a stock theme?

Ah, found your theme. https://themify.me/demo/themes/ultra/

Looks like the header is meant to resize. My guess is your 'logo' image is just a little too tall for the theme so is getting shrunk.




Edited by silentbrown on Monday 31st October 22:58

cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Monday 31st October 2016
quotequote all
Yes it happens in all my web browsers except on my iPhone?

No I didn't write the code myself. It's just a theme.

I'm not sure I like my logo and I will probably change it.

davepoth

29,395 posts

229 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
One thing - the gallery only shows two cars. If you've got more examples I'd be inclined to use them, even if the shots aren't quite so pretty.

tpalmer

88 posts

129 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
First I'd suggest addressing that logo. It most definiltey doesn't represent prestige.

On the layout and typography front, it needs some work.
It looks very basic, and there's not a huge amount of consideration for the hierarchy of information.
On the typeface front, you might find this article of interest: http://www.fontsmith.com/blog/2016/10/19/fonts-and...

As mentioned above, I'd be tempted to get a landline number through a VOIP service and redirect to mobile too.
For a few £ a month, it'll help add credibility.

Hope this is of some help!

Frimley111R

19,353 posts

264 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
cowboyengineer said:


Secondly, how do I get the website known, what is the best way to increase traffic, especially in search rankings.
PPC - Pay Per Click
Get a Facebook page
Join Facebook car groups
Facebook advertising
PH advertising

Look at where your target market are, what forums, websites are they on? Go there.


cowboyengineer

Original Poster:

1,419 posts

144 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
tpalmer said:
First I'd suggest addressing that logo. It most definiltey doesn't represent prestige.

On the layout and typography front, it needs some work.
It looks very basic, and there's not a huge amount of consideration for the hierarchy of information.
On the typeface front, you might find this article of interest: http://www.fontsmith.com/blog/2016/10/19/fonts-and...

As mentioned above, I'd be tempted to get a landline number through a VOIP service and redirect to mobile too.
For a few £ a month, it'll help add credibility.

Hope this is of some help!
Does any one have any recommendations for VOIP services

feef

5,209 posts

213 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
Also, assuming you are a Ltd company, you have a legal requirement to display certain company information on your site (as of 2006)

https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited-company/signs...

feef

5,209 posts

213 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
cowboyengineer said:
Does any one have any recommendations for VOIP services
I use Vonage. Something to check is whether the VOIP provider can link the phone number to a geographic location for the emergency services. I believe there are also regulatory requirements surrounding that for companies whereas for an individual it would be an inconvenience.

22

2,867 posts

167 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
quotequote all
cowboyengineer said:
Does any one have any recommendations for VOIP services
I use Twilio after a PH thread mentioned it. I'm very simple in the world of tech, but it was easy to set up. Short bit of code (they talk you through it) and anyone who calls rings my mobile (and can be set to ring several people until someone answers). Also super customer service.

Mine is for a hobby and hardly has any calls - but I started it with $20 and only had to top it up once.