Website Feedback Needed

[That Guy]

I was asked by a friend to put together a site for her new domestic cleaning business. Now I am not a web designer I simply dabble in my spare time. The site I have put together is NOT a template it is XHTML and CSS I have put together myself.

Briody Hartwell - Domestic Cleaning Gloucestershire

When making the site I have done included the following:

- Simple URL Structure
- SEO Friendly Pages (to the best of my limited knowledge)
- Fast Loading Pages
- Simple Naigation
- Supplied as much info on the site as possible
- Includes Google Analytics
- Submitted sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools
- Site is XHTML and CSS Valid

I am looking for any help, problems or suggestions for the site which you think will make it better.

.htaccess File Content:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hartwellcleaning.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hartwellcleaning.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.hartwellcleaning.co.uk/ [R=301,L]
ErrorDocument 404 /

Robots.txt File Content:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

sitemap: http://www.hartwellcleaning.co.uk/sitemap.xml

As I said above I am not a web designer so but gentle, but at the same time all comments and suggestions welcome.

 

[suarve]

Can't comment on the site due that absolutely shameless SEO link you seem to have posted.

 

[RoyMi6]

Afternoon all, long time listener first time caller!

Anyway, thought I'd make my first addition to the Overclockers forum a helpful one - and being a web developer what better post to start with.

First of all, got to agree with Suarve - very shameless, but we've all got to start somewhere.

I actually quite like the site, nice and clean and simple. The only thing I'd maybe address is some of the spacing around your content. It's a fixed width site so you know how it's going to appear so think about your line lengths - make it more readable.

Following on from this that homepage is just one chunk of text that I haven't even bothered reading despite the fact I'm commenting on your site - why? Because I'm lazy and don't care, I know what you do, you clean. Get some bullet points on the homepage of the services you offer.

There's a lot you can do with typography and the simple addition of your basic H2 and H3 tags to split up your content and deliver your message without going over the top.

Also, centred content... it looks like the menu of a cheap restaurant

Get some simple stylised blockquotes on the go: http://www.cssnewbie.com/example/styling-blockquotes/

The "background image" one will be easy enough to do and look just right.

Is it used too much? Yes
Does it add originality and flair? No

Who cares, just don't centre your content

On the same lines there's a lot can be done with a contact form without a lot of work.

http://www.noupe.com/php/beautiful-forms.html

Even just lining up your fields names on the left of your input boxes in my opinion will make it look a lot better.

Oh, and one last thing I've just noticed - your address and phone number on all your pages (apart from 1) are in images - get them as plain text to make them more searchable.

If your asking seasoned web developers to critique your site it's something they'll notice. It gives a kind of "tacky" feel to it on top of the usability and search engine issues.

You've also got a design issue in IE6 - your #sidebar div is too wide and is dropping below the #content div. If you reduce the width of #sidebar it should pop up into the correct position. If you do add padding to your #content and #sidebar divs watch how it works in IE6 as the box model bugs will catch you out.

FYI - http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage - Great wee tool.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask if you need anything explained.
Roy

 

[AJK]

Two main points:

Lines of text which are 750px wide do not read well. You need to: (1) condense this text, particularly on the homepage as mentioned, into easily readable and digestible content such as headings with short snappy paragraphs or bullet points; and (2) reduce the width, or break the text content down into columns or a similar structure. IMO.

WHY are your phone numbers and email addresses given as images? And WHY does clicking on the email address not result in sending an email? Basic flaw.

 

[That Guy]

Can't comment on the site due that absolutely shameless SEO link you seem to have posted.

Just a quick comment about the link. The reason that the link is like that is because I copied and pasted my post from another forum I posted on which has vbSEO installed. This converted the link to how it is now.

It was not intentional.

 

[That Guy]

OK few changes:

- Have fixed IE6 Sidebar Issue
- Adding Meta Keywords (I know Google doesn't use them, but other browsers might)

I agree the site text does need working on. This was what my friend emailed me over. I will be making changes over the next few weeks until I get it how I want it.

More comments welcome

 

[suarve]

Things that jump out to me:

- Left and right hand columns seem to merge into one, should make the right hand column stand out a bit more
- No call to action buttons
- Bottom links should be text, not an image
- Content text need padding
- Contact form - centered form look field and feel more of a pain to fill in
- Testimonials - don't center align this. Could be laid out a lot better using blockquotes.
- Slideshow - could rename the image files and produce better alt text for a small SEO plus