Review much needed!

gnatik · #1 (**permalink**) 01-15-2007, 02:14 PM

Hi all!
http://www.DealsLocally.Com

Review of the above site is much needed at the moment, as I am about to finish off with my developers and would like to make the final touches in time. Would be great if you could provide pointers!

Basic site intro: It is a portal for gathering real bargains, discounts, special offers, and deals. Categories for the former mentioned are: Shops, Restaurants, Hotels, Entertainment, Services.

Site Design History: When we initially started, the idea was to make a site that searches by location and produces a list of results, and thus we wanted to keep the landing page very simple and to-the-point. It once only had the looking glass that you now see amongst many other parts. In fact when we thought of simplicity we referred to Google ... I guess at that stage we had not realized that our site needs to be SEO, and not many search for Google in search engines .

Thus we realized that we needed a lot more content and links on the landing page and the site evolved. There have been other interesting moments of realization, but as they say - the rest is history...

What I want to get out: I would really appreciate all the comments that you may have about the site and any improvements. If you have SEO suggestions, that would also be great.

Thanks in advance!

rbirdsall569 · #2 (**permalink**) 01-16-2007, 03:36 AM

Load time is good for dial up. There are a few html errors, but the css passes. Fails WAI automated testing.

There are no heading tags on your home page or the London page, I didn't check on the other pages I looked at.

The text on the home page seems to be more for the search engines for the user. I have a hard time reading through the whole thing. A couple of heading tags and paragraphs (and a re-write) would be helpful to split it up a little. I also think that this section needs to be above the fold.

The large magnifying glass -- I am not sure it adds any meaning to the site that is not already present through the use of your logo -- it takes up to much space. If you have to use it -- consider making it smaller.

The small block of Google link ads seem out of place where they are -- I think they should go either in the left column or right column.

The site has a lot of potential -- best of luck to you with it.

R

gnatik · #3 (**permalink**) 01-16-2007, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbirdsall569

Load time is good for dial up. There are a few html errors, but the css passes. Fails WAI automated testing.

There are no heading tags on your home page or the London page, I didn't check on the other pages I looked at.

The text on the home page seems to be more for the search engines for the user. I have a hard time reading through the whole thing. A couple of heading tags and paragraphs (and a re-write) would be helpful to split it up a little. I also think that this section needs to be above the fold.

The large magnifying glass -- I am not sure it adds any meaning to the site that is not already present through the use of your logo -- it takes up to much space. If you have to use it -- consider making it smaller.

The small block of Google link ads seem out of place where they are -- I think they should go either in the left column or right column.

The site has a lot of potential -- best of luck to you with it.

R

Thanks very much!
H1, H2 tags we are working on, and they should be there soon.
In truth, the text was for the SEs :) ... thing is, at the start, all we had was the magnifying glass, and later realized we needed text as well ... I take the point that it needs to be more readable.

gnatik · #4 (**permalink**) 01-21-2007, 12:18 PM

Anyone else to comment?

nseidm1 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-21-2007, 05:54 PM

Nice colors. I would rather see the site centered in the browser. Also seems to need SEO work. Lots of work ahead, but websites take long and they should never be assumed to be easy successes.

gnatik · #6 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nseidm1

Nice colors. I would rather see the site centered in the browser. Also seems to need SEO work. Lots of work ahead, but websites take long and they should never be assumed to be easy successes.

Centre instead of left?

What SEO work are you referring to? Anything in particular?

Thanks a lot for the review!

gnatik · #7 (**permalink**) 01-30-2007, 04:37 PM

Any more reviews? :)