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kslcyprus
Joined: Jul 02, 2008
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 07/02/2008 11:15 am
Name of Site/Business: Key Services Ltd
Site's Main Purpose: Ecommerce/Sales
Please Review the following:
Does the home page sufficiently convince people to go further into the site?
Does/can the site achieve its main purpose?
Appearance/Attractiveness
Typos and grammar
Search engine marketing. Can the pages be reasonably well indexed by search engines?
Additional Comments/Notes
This is my first attempt at webdesign for my family company, my main interest is SEO advice which currently does not seem to be working so any advice on this would be gratefully received.
I would like to know about the apperance as in another thread i was told it does not look very professional, what are your opinions?
Please do not hold back any feedback is good feedback.
Gemma
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Quadrille
Joined: Nov 15, 2000
# Posts: 1064
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Posted: 07/02/2008 11:59 am
For me, the big issue is that the site is designed from your POV, not the holiday maker.
All that stuff in the box should be on an "about" page ... tell me about the holidays!!
Even the "Please use our contact us page if you have any suggestions or experience any difficulty using this new site" stuff should be at the foot of the page - you don't start by suggesting 'difficulty'.
Imagine you are your target audience ... what would YOU want to see at the top of the most important page of the site?
The header has the right idea ... but it's way too vague (could be Greece!), and it's waaaaay too big.
Shrink the logo, shrink the sunset photo, shrink the buttons ... and gimme some gorgeous Cyprus sunshine and locality photos - not internals (could be Basingstoke?), not computer images of unbuilt houses.
Technical problem: when I mouseover links, I see no URL. That makes the site untrustworthy. What are you hiding?
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Quadrille
Joined: Nov 15, 2000
# Posts: 1064
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Posted: 07/02/2008 12:01 pm
I simply don't believe it ... the site is spread over two domains.
why?
(at least I know why you concealed the destination URLs).
OK, I see why, it's your sister company - but it's still a mistake, as the target audiences are different - people renting by the week do not tend to buy furniture. You'll find that I'm not the only person who gets confused.
And most of them won't come back for a second look.
It's bad practice (in my view) to make external, tenuously related links look like they are part of your site.
By all means link - but be open - "our sister site" or whatever.
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mj1256
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 809
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Posted: 07/02/2008 12:44 pm
more comments on your other thread
click here
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kslcyprus
Joined: Jul 02, 2008
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 07/02/2008 11:47 pm
Hi thanks for your review.
Our main target audience are people who have properties to rent not people looking to rent property, of which Furniture Packages are a popular and regularly requested extra hense the new website.
With regards to the Hidden URL,s i did not even know they are hidden, which ones are they and how do i unhide them?
Thanks for all of the suggestions in this and the other thread i will get on working on that (lot of work ahead of me)
All of the suggestions that you have made, is this with regards to the design of the site or are they to do with the Optimization as that is my first port of call.
If you could what would the first thinks you would do to improve my websites ranking
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Quadrille
Joined: Nov 15, 2000
# Posts: 1064
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Posted: 07/03/2008 03:00 am
design = SEO = design; it's always best to do the two together, partly because you if you do one first, you may want to do something different for the second; look at both together, and you can compromise if you need to.
But it's also important because you really don't want to attract people to the site, and have them leave, never to return - check your bounce rate.
For example, if your site is aimed at owners, rather than holidaymakers, then you have a serious design and content issue.
It's vital, for both design and SEO that you have a clear vision of your target audience; else the seo is wasted, and the design is negative.
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kslcyprus
Joined: Jul 02, 2008
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 07/03/2008 03:03 am
Do you think it would be best to split down the middle and have a seperate site for the Residential and Holiday lettings and a site completely dedicated to our Property Management Services?
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Quadrille
Joined: Nov 15, 2000
# Posts: 1064
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Posted: 07/03/2008 03:56 am
I do; but others may disagree.
For me, you need a clear vision to succeed in a competitive market; your chances of succeeding in two (or more) competitive markets with one site are fairly remote.
I'd suggest standing back and looking at *all* your businesses, and dividing them (from a customer POV) into separate entities. How you run the business need not change, but how you present it must change.
You won't see furniture stores mixed with real estate on the high street, and while you may see letting and property management together, on the web that's harder to do. A focussed site will almost always do better.
And yes, the web does have department stores, but Amazon etc., are a different breed on a different scale - it mostly does not work for small businesses.
It's not just a matter of marketing, it's also the first impression thing - walking down the High Street gives you a few seconds to assimilate and sort what you see, and you may make sense of a mixed store - on the web, it's low single-figure seconds, and if the visitor does not *immediately* have their search expectations confirmed, they'll likely be off elsewhere.
See what others say - but do check that bounce rate in webmaster tools; it can be a frightening experience!
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mj1256
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
# Posts: 809
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Posted: 07/03/2008 06:44 am
Do you think it would be best to split down the middle and have a separate site for the Residential and Holiday lettings and a site completely dedicated to our Property Management Services?
I think this is the right way to go, but, I don't think you have enough content to make it work.
Our main target audience are people who have properties to rent not people looking to rent property
Thats great, you've ideintified your target market, now you need to write your content from their perspective, not yours.
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