www.maxwebsolutions.com

maxwebsolutions · #1 (**permalink**) 01-24-2004, 11:56 AM

I would appreciate any constructive feedback about my website. I just started a web solutions business and I would like some feedback about my site.

http://www.maxwebsolutions.com

Thanks!

<Mod edit to comply with Site Review Rule #1 - Syren>

disciple · #2 (**permalink**) 01-24-2004, 12:31 PM

Hi,

With a company name like yours I think it is important to ensure that everything is PERFECT. If you are offering solutions then your site must be an example of those solutions.

Following are my personal opinions so please take them as such. I am not sure how to put my negatives in a positive light so here are the negatives as I see them.

The logo is to cheesy for a "professional" company.

Certified Internet Professionals - What certification? I would want to know.

Text on your pages butts up right on the border.

The gray is dark and makes reading the text a little difficult.

I think the whole design needs to be more polished. Your name is advertising something that your site is not portraying. It shouldn't be too difficult to lighten it up a bit and use css to format it better. I think these two steps would help tremendously.

philip5 · #3 (**permalink**) 01-24-2004, 02:40 PM

Hi,

I agree with 'disciple' - your site has to be perfect to illustrate that you do what you say you do - i.e. provide a complete practical solution.

First some general comments...

1. The flash file on every page is distracting, can be annoying and doesn't add anything - only words sell, not images. Period! If you check out any of the internet marketing 'guru' sites that really sell their products, you'll see the common theme is a simple easy-to-follow design with words that sell, as opposed to 'flash' images. If you want to provide visitors with examples of what you can do with 'flash', put it on a different page on its own, and find an example that uses it to enhance a product for a potential client, (although I'd personally find it difficult to think of an example where 'flash' enhances anything).

Minor point - an increasing amount of internet-savvy people now turn off the 'Active X' downloads facility in their browser, to prevent unscrupulous sites downloading something in the background without their knowledge. This means that individual 'flash' files have to be manually accepted, which slows up the page download, causes frustration and means they may not be seen anyway.

2. Your grey pages against a grey background look bland on a larger resolution monitor (I viewed at 1280 x 800) - why not make the page or the background contrasting colours?

If you're going to keep the page background colour as grey, I'd increase the font size to 2 for easier readability.

3. All your pages need a headline. All the marketing research I've ever seen indicates that 90% of people read the headline and make a decision whether to read on, based on the headline. Guess what - if you don't have one you'll probably lose a lot of visitors who may have liked your product enough to purchase. You've got around 7 seconds to capture their interest and you need to use it wisely to convey the best of what you're offering. Make sure it's in <head> tags as headings and the <title> tag are probably the most significant items for search-engine friendly pages these days.

4. If you're not a 'known-brand' company, you need testimonials on your web site to sell anything. Trust is the single biggest obstacle to visitors ordering anything and one of the best ways to alleviate their concerns is reading about other people's (genuine) positive experiences. Try to have one or two testimonials per page with a link from the one that appears furthest up the page to another page that contains only testimonials.

5. It would be better if you mention your company less, and concentrate more on what you can do for your clients. Remember the quote "Tell me about my lawn, not your lawn seed" when you write your pages and you won't go far wrong.

Re specific pages:

1. The Portfolio page takes a long time to load - your website images are too small to see much detail, yet the file size is from 50-70k for each image. Anyone knowledgeable about images or websites isn't going to be impressed with this. You could get the same detail in 10-15k for these images using any reasonable imaging software.

2. The 'Web Development Quick Quote' form could look more professional. I suggest putting it in a table so you can line up all the fields on the form, rather than have them all left-justified as currently.

3. Case Study page: The 'hipnotik' image takes a long time to load - no surprise as it's 197k, but only 207x64 pixels..? Same as above, this image could be about 10k without any loss of detail. Most of the lines on this page start with 'Max' - this is a good example of what I meant in #5 above - it gives the impression that it's all about you, not your customers.

4. Web Hosting page: Some of these terms won't mean anything to small businesses looking for their first web site - you need to explain them. You also have a "FREE WEBSITE w/MaX Hosting Plan, Limited Time Only!" caption - you need to say what this means.

5. Reseller page: You have a caption stating it's "The best reseller commission in the internet industry". This just isn't true! Also, there doesn't appear to be any way of applying to join it...?

All of the above points (and more..) are available in the free guides on our website below, provided in an effort to try to prevent other small businesses having to go through the same long, slow, full-of-conflicting-advice learning curve that we encountered when we developed our own first site.

Whilst most of my comments are tried and tested principles of marketing copy and web site design that make sites sell, some are purely my own design opinions. Either way, I hope you find them useful!

Good Luck!

Phil Chapman

maxwebsolutions · #4 (**permalink**) 01-26-2004, 11:18 AM

I appreciate your responses to my website.
I will take all your suggestions into considerate as I try to polish the website.

thanks again

voodooboy · #5 (**permalink**) 01-26-2004, 03:04 PM

Wow! This is the first time I have seen one response cover everything I saw and then some.
The only thing I can add, is to do your research. Go to sites like:
http://www.coolhomepages.com/
http://www.cwd.dk/
http://www.thebestdesigns.com/index.html

Look at what is out there, see what other design companies are doing. Don't copy, but be lead by example.

You have a good start. But that is all it is, a start. And don't be upset by that, we were all there. I just wish I had a forum like this available to me when I started. :o)

janeth · #6 (**permalink**) 01-26-2004, 03:49 PM

Hi:
You have a good web site, but there are a couple of things that I would change:

It is important to have contact information in all of your pages.

I would get rid of the flash under the logo

I think you need to work on your logo

The text you are using is too hard to read... The bold text and the small letter makes it difficult.

There is also a lot of white space on the pages

All your pages should have a home button

You should align your text to the left and not center

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