new web site-opinons needed

[nigel79]

hi we have just had aour web site finished and now online,
it was designed by a friend who works in computers and does web design on the side. he has designed a few now, but has never had any feedback on the sites. im looking for feedback, both positive and negative so he can see where he can make changes ect.
the site is,
www.weldsolutions.co.uk
thanks.

[anonymous-user]

All the text(in the body) looks bad on my screen?? A different font for me.

[dilbert]

I think that's allright myself. I think the only thing you might want to try for is just slightly softer edges on radii of the artwork. Other than that, less is more in my view.

Edited by dilbert on Thursday 3rd July 09:50

[spikeyhead]

I like that, clear, simple, straightforward

[HiRich]

Yes, concise and to the point.

Relatively minor concerns:

• The main design jumps out of the screen (and in a bad way - I jump back when the page opens). I would suggest knocking down the font size of the navigation buttons, and the main copy. just try it a point or two smaller.
• On the links page, you could add a little more commentary on why they are linked. Are you recommended by the E30Zone? Did the photographer do your photos for the site? I would separate the link from the commentary.
• The "Contact Us" page crashed my browser, but it is old (Safari 1.3 on Mac OSX 10.3). At least the contact details appear in the header, so I can always find the contact.

On a broader scale, I think there's more you can do with explaining your custom services, and more clearly stating the work you are willing to do (affects the Home, Products and Services pages). On the latter, the "will visit your farm to weld up the plough" thing is quite well hidden, for example.
On the former, a bit more explanation could be in order. I'm not sure how, but it's about leading them through the process. This might include:

• We can work from full engineering drawings, pattern parts (e.g. a wishbone), or even fag packet work.
• We can advise on performance specs for radiators & intercoolers

I'm not sure of the answer, but the idea is to not scare off any of your site visitors, sort of:

• If you know what you want, just send us the drawing and we'll do you a quote
• If you don't really know, tell us what you do know, and we'll help you work it out from there.

[nigel79]

thanks for the coments, im going to look at altering a few things and also add a news section on the home page. i see where your coming from over the logo size and the other things from looking at the site.

[VEX]

I would repeat the navigation buttons (just smaller) across the bottom of the screen. Then I don't have to scroll back up to go to a different page.

V.

[B19GRR]

I would echo most comments, def agree with dilbert that the artwork needs to be improved with antialiased edges on the corners, also all the artwork with rounded corners should have a consistent radii (see under motor sports where the before/after images use a smaller radii to the ones on the right, I'd stick with the smaller radii throughout).

I'm not too sure about the dotted underlining of the links, it reminds me of a spellchecker highlight, oops see bottom of motor sport page.

Other than that it does the job fine I'd say.

Cheers,
Rob

[M400 NBL]

VEX said:

I would repeat the navigation buttons (just smaller) across the bottom of the screen. Then I don't have to scroll back up to go to a different page.

V.

Or freeze them as you would on an excel document.

[Scraggles]

nigel79 said:

hi we have just had aour web site finished and now online,
it was designed by a friend who works in computers and does web design on the side. he has designed a few now, but has never had any feedback on the sites. im looking for feedback, both positive and negative so he can see where he can make changes ect.
the site is,
www.weldsolutions.co.uk
thanks.

why under line lots of the text ?

can see now it is a hyperlink, but dotted unless mouse over the link

strange to go with a german hosting service, just hope they have good english support

[Batteryboy]

Only my opinion of course but..

I'm not a creative, so I'll only comment on getting you noticed on google, which is still the number one search engine. After all even if the site is a bit poor it's going to get visitors if google ranks it well.


For google friendly
all links on this home page should have matching alt text when you put the mouse over the link.

Weld solution logo is nice but in plain text makes google read it, it could be argued that the logo should be named wed_solutions.xxx again to help google understand what the image is if you retain the image, same again for the other images,

keep content relevant.
Link to radiators is to a page that does not contain the word aluminium in the url for example. check other pages for this, the url string content can be very important to search engines.

contacts page
Create a custom pin on google to show on your map.
e.g.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&q=mds+ba...

have close look at good websites to see what meta tags are used.
In your you give priority to "About Weld Services" would "aluminium welding" be more appropriate or perhaps "custom aluminium radiators"

Have a think about who are your target market. do a random google search and try to see why the first site that came up was first?

Google will like the fact that you are using google analytics.

I've got to go out now, but I'll edit this more later.