Hi

I would be grateful if you would drop by our new health website at www.healthandwellnessportal.co.uk

What are your first impressions? Do you think visitors will stick around? Is the site set up OK for SEO? Any other comments appreciated.

I can handle criticism, so be as harsh as you like ;) The site has no PR and hardly any visitors yet.
Thanks in advance for your advice, Colin

The site doesn't look bad. However, there isn't any content to speak of. Your SEO efforts hinge upon having content. Having above average to great content is what helps you attract links.

My harshest criticism is for the "build the container and the content fairy will leave me great content" thing. On occasion, you'll get a fairly interesting comment or three. Existing content gives people an idea of what new content should be there.

If you're doing something like health and wellness, you had better have contacts in the community who can contribute authorative content. I'd look skeptically at do-it-yourself home plumbing articles. Healthcare is on an entirely different level.

In print, containers (magazine, books, newsprint) are expensive. On the web containers are cheap. And content is what's going to attract more content.

Thanks for the tips, appreciate it! The lack of content is probably why the site has no PR. I will work on it urgently.

All advice gratefully received :)

Hi there,

Here are a few comments:

1.) There is a menu bar at the top, and then one on the side. When I first enter the site, I'm confused to where I should go.

2.) When I click on some of the links, there is not any quality content. For example, there are no Recipes. I would either add some recipes now, or remove the link. Same is true for Lifestyle.

3.) I am not sure how I can contribute a recipe or a lifestyle idea.

4.) There are pictures of books on the right hand side, but no links. I'm not sure what those are.

5.) At the top, local rate call #### ### ####. What is this phone number? Why would one call?

I would try to cut the number of sections in half. Focus on those sections, and develop some quality content. As those sections gain popularity, add more sections.

Good luck!!

Andrew

__________________
Andrew T Crane
Shining Star Marketing Solutions
Wedding Photographers | DC Catering

Good ideas! That's the sort of thing I need to know. It's hard to see these problems with my eyes. To me everything looks great ;) Thanks again

Is it just me or does the mixing up of animal wellness with human wellness seem a little odd? For instance, on your Wellness Resources page you have links to The Bolen Report, The Alliance for Natural Health and then a couple of animal links. If I were you, I'd separate the animal health from the human health. (I can see you've done that on the menu on the left).

As others have said, you need more content. I'd also emphasize the forum aspect more. I couldn't see a link to the forum on your main menu at first, but did find links to it from other pages. Maybe you should consider a link that just says "Forum" or "Wellness Forum".

Good luck anyway.

__________________
Remembering the men and women of Chailey, East Sussex 1914-1918

Chailey 1914-1918

Scrivener - charity copywriting and SEO

You have a nice start here. A few comments:

1) Double check spelling. I know you're in the UK so it's different from the US, but I noticed a possessive that was shown as a plural and such little things.

2) The site overall is a bit bland. Maybe some photos of healthy looking people would add vitality?

3) When going to the forum page, there is no way to get back to the main site. Might want to add one of your menus there.

4) Your product pages do not show the prices. I ad to add the blender to the cart to find out how much it cost. Also, when looking at the detailed view of the blender, there was no "Buy Me" button.

5) Some of the words used are quite technical. Maybe this is an other area where different countries vary? I saw where one could look up some of the definitions, but you might want to have a short, in plain English, definition within you text. People are lazy ;).

6) Finally, check out your competition and see what you can do to make your site unique. I'm not familiar with your market, so I cannot recommend anything specific here.

HTH :)!

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Agnes Smith Keys Home Furnishings, Inc. Tropical Vacation Rentals
Professional Upholstery Group

OK.

In terms of layout, I have a real problem with non centered websites. Don't know whether it was designed for 800x600 but on 1024x768 it is well to the right and in anything higher it is going to have a lot of space to the right.

The site doesn't validate see:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...ortal.co.uk%2F

There has been much debat about this elsewhere today, but of you are going to compete with the millions of sites out there, you MUST build a site that at least validates.

Using a table based site, whilst having merits means that in this case search engine have to get to line 190 before they find any relevant copy. Remember that before any one can see the site they have to find it.

Ouch. Just noticed the very large right column and stuff way down in centre column.

There is a fair bit of work still needing to be done.

Is this a Dreamweaver template?

Ian

__________________
Ian Young
http://www.iyesolutions.co.uk

Thanks for all the great advice, keep them coming! I have started making changes, but as Ian points out there's a fair bit to do ;) I did use Dreamweaver but not from a template, built from scratch.

Why do you think the right column is very large? Do you have any suggestions as to the max size for a right column, and why?

Anyway, thanks gagain everyone, Colin

Colin

May be worth having a good look at the middle column too as this may be causing the stretch. You are using nested tables so it is difficult to unravel from a quick look at the source.

Start by removing this section in the centre column:

"Recent Forum Discussion Topics
Holistic Medicine and Nutrition for Animals Advice
Recent Health and Wellness Articles
Eliminating Bird Flu Fears: 10 Facts You Need to Know
Cleansing the Organs of Elimination
Product Reviews"

and see where that takes you.

To see where you give the table you are working on a border of 1 (can take it out when you are finished, this will give you a better idea of where things are.

You could, of course, ditch this for a CSS based page.

On the page rank side, how long you had site up and running?

Ian

__________________
Ian Young
http://www.iyesolutions.co.uk

Ian

Thanks for your time, appreciated!

I have to admit, I deliberately left the blank space in the middle of the column to insert content above it, which of course I haven't done yet. Looks bad I know.

The page is CSS based but I am using tables also. Not sure if I made the correct decision here? The site has been online for about 5 weeks.

Actually, I did make some templates and pages are based on these. Oh, and the page validates now. Thanks for pointing this out to me. All advice gratefully received, Colin

Being a big proponent of alternative health, I love that you have launched the site and wish you great success. A few points:

Working on a high-res monitor, I also like to see a centered page. And, if the site is white like yours, I like the regions to the left and right of the page to be a light pastel color. Considering your topic, I'd select one of the healing colors such as a light green, peach or ochre. Pure white is tiring on the eyes and not-at-all healing nor welcoming.

Regarding content, here are some ideas:

Latch on to a few authorities who would be willing to write topical columns. Set down guidelines for them such as word count, submission schedules and so forth. Many experts would be willing to do this for free in exchange for inclusion of a short bio and link. Try to get interesting, even controversial people that represent a wide spectrum of alternative health issues. Don't forget, however, to include a disclaimer for their content.

If you have strong views on some health issues (like I do) consider writing regular editorials (summary intro on home page) addressing current topics of importance. Capsulize these editorials into press releases (prweb.com – practically free!). E.g. "Online wellness expert voices opposition to new drug laws. . ." These press releases get thousands of hits and are often put into the content of other sites.

If you get really desparate for content, consider approaching authors and ask if you might reprint content from their books in exchange for links to their sites. Authors are always looking for more exposure. Since you're in the U.K. you might approach Patric Holford (an old buddy of mine) at the Optimum Nutrition Institute. Readers are always looking for a place where they can find comprehensive info that comes from a variety of sources, so I wouldn't be shy about getting the permissions to reprint even hundreds of pages as long as you have a very easy way for people to access it.

Of course, since you've designed your site as html pages, as you succeed in adding hundreds of pages of content, you might regret that you don't have a database or XML driven content. I designed an html site that grew to about 60 pages and was then translated into five languages – the maintenance was a nightmare. Thinking ahead, you might talk with the experts to check out other programmed options.

Good fortune to you!