Constructive critisism welcome...

[Gordon N]

as long as it's nice!

Finally got my new own new look site up and running. A few of the graphics are make-do until I can make/find better ones, but I wanted the new site up for a mail marketing campaign that is landing on doors over the next few days.

I am appealing to the SBF mob to decend on my site and either try to break it if that's your fancy, or have a snoop about and see what improvements you might suggest, or information that could be better presented etc...

Moray Web Solutions - Web Design, Web Development, SEO and Hosting

Be gentle, I am my own worst client!

Regards,

Gordon

 

[Idea15]

Wowsa! Brilliant site! And you even have a little green tick. ;-)

I have only one piece of constructive criticism. Your logo says "Web design | development | hosting" - so I assumed that was an image map.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Gordon,

From a design perspective I cant fault it. The use of the different colours etc really work for me and it certainly comes accross as very professional.

One thing that i'm struggling with is what you want me to do on the site. There are no call to actions so I found myself just clicking on links to see where they took me.

The SEO section is where my issues are really. I think it comes accross that you're really just starting out with SEO, the case study of yourself kind of confirms that. I dont think i'd be trying to sell a service where I have very little experience, you may have loads but the website doesn't tell me that. I know a little about seo and i'm not convinced by each page having Moray Web Solutions at the start. Maybe I am wrong here but the main keywords and phrases of the page should be at the start of the title as they carry more weight there, your company name should be at the end (I am of course willing to be shot down in flames here ).

Please bear in mind also that this is just my opinion

 

[ScottJ]

Nice site Gordon, my nit picking if you wanted it would be:

Your logo should point to your absolute url (Moray Web Solutions > Web Design, Web Hosting, SEO - Moray, Scotland, UK) and not/index.php

Once inside the site and another good reason apart from SEO to use absolute URL's, if you go to this page and then click the logo it's adding in /web-design/ so you get a dead page.

It looks very professional, not really sure if I agree with the font for your business name & phone number in the header - it almost clashes with the corporate clean and professional look of the site contrasted with a lazy handwriting looking logo text.

I'd look to integrate the blog on your own domain rather than blogspot.

But it's better than anything I could create - I'm a better critic than creator

 

[Gordon N]

Wowsa! Brilliant site! And you even have a little green tick. ;-)

I have only one piece of constructive criticism. Your logo says "Web design | development | hosting" - so I assumed that was an image map.

Thank you! You might have a point about that strapline though. Problem there is that it is part of my logo, and as such on all my business stationary and the graphics on my car and everything! - good spot but a can of worms (another sleepless night coming up!)

Thanks again,

Gordon

 

[Gordon N]

One thing that i'm struggling with is what you want me to do on the site. There are no call to actions so I found myself just clicking on links to see where they took me.

The SEO section is where my issues are really. I think it comes accross that you're really just starting out with SEO, the case study of yourself kind of confirms that. I dont think i'd be trying to sell a service where I have very little experience, you may have loads but the website doesn't tell me that. I know a little about seo and i'm not convinced by each page having Moray Web Solutions at the start. Maybe I am wrong here but the main keywords and phrases of the page should be at the start of the title as they carry more weight there, your company name should be at the end (I am of course willing to be shot down in flames here ).

Some good points , thank you. I will have a look at the 'call to action', it was designed as simple 'subject selector' type page but I will look at how I may guide the visitor on a more structured path through the site.

Case studies, very good point - hadn't looked at it from that perspective. I have been involved for some time, however I haven't kept or displayed results for any sites prior to MWS. I decided to put it in as a proof of ability, however I might well remove that page until I have more complete studies to show. (Big thanks for that one!)

Keywords and phrases wise - no flames required - different folks, different techniques. You are right that the closer to the start of the tag/title/page etc. the more weight they carry, however at the moment I am not top of the results for my own business name! (young site doesn't help, but my business name has keywords anyway).

Fantastic feedback , thank you.

Gordon

 

[Gordon N]

Your logo should point to your absolute url and not/index.php

Brilliant spot, this was to make it work on my testing server - fixed it now thank you!

Once inside the site and another good reason apart from SEO to use absolute URL's...

No need for absolutes, however you did uncover a problem with my Dreamweaver template file! Fixed, thanks for finding it though.

It looks very professional, not really sure if I agree with the font for your business name & phone number in the header - it almost clashes with the corporate clean and professional look of the site contrasted with a lazy handwriting looking logo text.

Point taken, problem is that is my logo as I mentioned to Heather.

I'd look to integrate the blog on your own domain rather than blogspot.

Already on it, half way through creating a theme for a self hosted Wordpress install - had to finish the main site first though.

But it's better than anything I could create - I'm a better critic than creator

And I need good critics, thank you very much for your feedback.

Regards,

Gordon

 

[PC]

Just my 2 Euro cents worth...

Its big and doesn't resize to smaller screen resolutions

The 'jazzy header' font looks a bit cheap.

Your favicon is 0pt x 0pt

Does your ga.js script have to be sooooo complicated?

and finally... some of your page logo's are slow to load

Other than that very VERY nice. Want a commission?!

 

[Gordon N]

Just my 2 Euro cents worth...

Its big and doesn't resize to smaller screen resolutions

The 'jazzy header' font looks a bit cheap.

Your favicon is 0pt x 0pt

Does your ga.js script have to be sooooo complicated?

and finally... some of your page logo's are slow to load

Other than that very VERY nice. Want a commission?!

It doesn't resize as it's designed to be fixed width, with 1024x768 taken as a realistic minimum screen res these days.

'Jazzy header font' - hmm think I am going to have to look at my logo again.

There is no favicon on the server, haven't made one yet?!?

ga.js - that's Googles baby, not mine.

Will have a look at the page title graphics, cheers.

Thanks very much for your feedback, this is exactly what I was after.

Regards,

Gordon

 

[TomB]

HI Gorgon,

Nice looking site, few points as you asked for.

Its very image intensive, you have 43 css image that are taking a long time to load:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.moraywebsolutions.com/

Try compressing the graphics slightly and maybe use gifs for images that don't need to be jpegs

I like the header font actually. it contrasts the professional business font think. a sort of creative flair if you like.

One thing for search engine purpose i read the other day is to have a h1 tag with a class that displays your logo and then put text in the H1 tag for your company name. I'll look out the link when i get get home tonight.

I would suggest creating an image map like Heather said though to add links to the main areas of your site.

nice clean css coding, well organised (I should take a leaf out of your book)

Site works fine without images

All a good site and plenty of content to offer visitors.

Makes me want to go and work on my own site now to tidy it up a bit, if only there were more hours in the day!

 

[Gordon N]

Try compressing the graphics slightly and maybe use gifs for images that don't need to be jpegs

I like the header font actually. it contrasts the professional business font think. a sort of creative flair if you like.

Good point, all the content headers use shifted header tags with graphic backgrounds - no need for jpg your right, will swap them for gifs tomorrow. I seriously need to optimise a couple of the page banners too, most of the big ones are the temporary ones though.

As for the logo font, the original concept was 'smart but casual' kind of along the way you took it!

Thank you for your comments, a little more work before I am done maybe. Need to finish my new blog theme too, and I picked up another client today so looks like I will be a busy boy for the next few days.... good times!

Regards,

Gordon