New Industrial (Oil Company)

If you have time and the inclination, I would appreciate your thoughts on:

www.precisioncompletion.com

You may find the e-mail harvester deterrence method on the Contacts page interesting.

Converted e-mail addresses to hex
Broke it up in 3 parts
Reassembled by javascript for browsers

Ken

I'm familiar with this obfuscator type, I've graduated to hivelogic's version.

As for the site, I think it's trying too hard for SE rank and too little to inform users once they get to the site.

Try a practical benefit of what you do. If "completion" means something of practical benefit, spell it out. I'm just guessing, but something like "Completions in 62% of industry baseline, which means our average customer saves $540,211.44 after our fee."

I'm hoping you can tranlate this to something which actually applies to your industry. In essence, it's your unique selling proposition. "...PCS Services meet and exceed the quality and safety expectations of our customers." ...Really -- who wouldn't say that?

I just heard a platform blew ...just went Boom. Turns out there was not a single person at any level who had been with the company a full year. My experience with "the industry"? About zero, just recall a radio show I was listening to. I wonder what the real target user hears.

Industry sites have to explain themselve just like everyone else. You want a brochure request or lead? Fine, then explain what you do in a way which positions your business against competition. The standard line "..Our visitors know all about our industry" precludes the need to have a site. Just about everyone can think of some information to communicate; name, rank and serial number aside.

Dcrux,

This is a variant that I devised (I think) I haven't seen it elsewhere. Can you recommend a good link for the hivelogic's version you use?

Yes, this is a Phase1 release to place an initial presence.

Obviously the subject of "Oil and Gas Well Completions" is a complex subject. There are admitted deficiencies, such as HTML pages for the "Completion Equipment", but the owners are aware of that and plan to continue down that road in a Phase II release.

I am interested in more specifics concerning what we can do to improve immediately.

It would be very costly, time consuming, have legal ramifications and be counterproductive to my client if we were to try and introduce a well completion builder or something of that sort on the site.

I would appreciate any specifics on shortcomings or enhancements you felt were appropiate.

For the given audience; primarily "completion engineers"... they know the equipment.

Yes we need to add field history...
Yes we need to add a client list (with big names)...

This is at least one, if not 2 feet in the door, in this industry..sure "prowess", "experience", history and technical accumen all come into play...Are you saying that we need to improve there?

Could you please expound on that statement a bit... Sure it's clean code, The Titles and tags are in order, and it is somewhat "optimized" as far as known SEO goes...Why would I introduce a site otherwise? Would you?

I have what I have to work with from the client in the Phase I Release, and it is quite a bit of material. Another client into "Coalbed Methane" has several on-line presentations and they swamp the rest of the site , as far as visitors go.

This isn't a poorly thought out introduction... If I have "holes" I need to fill them, with something a little more concrete. We can't tell the Industry how to complete all their wells on their Site, for free...that is a big part of their business.

I am a little lost at what you see we need to do.

Thanks for your time,
Ken

There are two points to expand on.

I was going to point to Hivelogic, but it seems they split off the services to another site -- it seems to be the Automatic Enkoder now. For piece of mind, any obfuscator (including this one) should be tested a little like a firewall -- they aren't. But I think you'll immediately see why I favor this one.

Second, SEO is okay and serves a purpose. Perhaps, in contrast, Search optimization, not search engine optimization explains the content side of this. It just seems like you can begin to tell when one compartment of web design overshadows the others. Not through looking at the code, mind you, but by looking through the site as a user and reader would.

Even if users know the job type you do, they don't understand why PCS should be the one to hire. This is the difference between a template, where you could safely change out the name, logo, address etc, with any competitor, and a site which explains PCS unique competencies. It's not the client list, but the reasoning behind why PCS got their business I'm trying to point out.

For example you might not be the lowest bidder on a project, but use some other factor to get business. Okay then, the general idea would be "We Fix The 5 Mistakes Of Competitors Who Bid Low Just To Get Your Business." Trouble is, B2B and industrial sites don't feel they need to do this, despite the fact none of their sales people would survive if they didn't explain this basic information.

1. Frames
http://www.precisioncompletion.com/p...iles/frame.htm

You know the arguments against it. I not always agree that you should not use frames. I think you use frames Ok.

2. Adobe link
You should supply a link to Adobe Acrobat reader where there is a PDF link.

3. Trademark
Is it possible to get a trademark, like NESCOS™ AS ?

4. SEO
In my veiw stupid not to SEO optimize the site according to your current knowledge.

5. Design and look
Good enough for me to include it in my linkcollection in the category

siteexamples + simple.

Also included in commodities + energy.

Could the left and right column on the front page stop at identical level above the footer?

6. First step
You say it is not finished. Good enough at this level.

7. Advice
Write the following down on a paper and have it at your table:
- Who is my goal group?
- How to maximize their experience on the site?
- What is the effect of implementing this new functionality? Does it confuse, or increase the value of the site?
- Make it simple, but no simpler.
- Be earnest, direct and real.

8. What about a conference room / chat / forum related to the site?
http://www.webmaster.com/main.htm
http://www.hotcomm.com/welcome.asp
http://www.oddcast.com/home/
http://www.relay.ezpeer.net/

I think that will be the next step in user experience, real time interactivity. Unique user experience and online service is the KW's.

__________________
Kjell Gunnar Bleivik:: Financial information at your fingertips
Learn object oriented programming where it started

Thanks guys - Good advice...

Of course implementation also depends on client's budget and our interface.

Ken

Your menus resize to 1 pixel less height on a:hover.

Did you mean this to happen? You don't do it on Mountain Eagle Marketing.

I would have made the left menu fill the whole left column horizontally.

What is the empty td at the top above the header image for?

Since you repeat the exact words of the header image in that text below the header image (which isn't a heading anyway) could you not just reference the header image in the style sheet and use an h1 with an id on that text. This way the page will load faster, you'll get your optimized h1 at the top of the page and you won't need that text with the h1 class under it - which, lets face it, is pointless.

Finally, you've got a load of attributes on your td's that could be referenced in a style sheet with no effort at all. This would surely be worth doing. It makes designing the page faster and easier anyway. And since you're so concerned with seo surely it's best to thin out the crap in your html so as to increase the proportion of relevant content.

On the upside your mark-up validates.

Sorry if this sounds very critical but, as Mr Franklin once said, "our critics are our friends, they show us our faults."

__________________
Communicating stylishly on the World Wide Web

Other than what publicsphere said (which I agree with 100%), I'd like to add 2 comments:

1) These guys need a logo. Gotsta have some kind of a logo. I don't know what, since I don't know the industry that well, but something. Maybe an oil derrick or something.

2) I don't care what you do to client-side obfuscate an email address; if you put it in some form or fashion on there that is server-side coded, it's going to get figured out, and it is going to get spammed to the seventh layer of Hell. Use a form that takes advantage of server-side processing to take care of that; people will fill it out, you can qualify them as potential leads/sales more, and you don't get 1/100th of the spam you get the other way.

3) On the frames issue: I'm with kgun just because it's easier to use the PowerPoint-generated code for their slides than it is to do anything else. Normally, I'm anti-frame, but in this case it works.

4) Again, like kgun said, you're going to SEO that site in that unique Ken-like way, right?

__________________
Toronto Web Design | Search Engine Friendly, Standards-Compliant Layouts | Walk on my Path (my blog)

Thanks for your input everyone. Some of the issues were under consideration and even action already...

It sure helps to have the input.

Thanks again,
Ken