Hello,

I am brand new to this forum and am delighted to have this opportunity to receive some pertinent feedback and advice from such clever people as I have read in a lot of the posts on such a broad range of topics.
Thank you for allowing me to join.

I cannot use my cell phone much less do websites. So, I paid for my websites to be set up under a content management system, so that I can add and delete pages along with editing those pages myself, as if I was working in a word document.

Then in January of this year, I also started a blog, and I paid for a Pro Version of Typepad.
In February I have purchased the top-of-the-line Pro version of 1ShoppingCart to take over as my online store and handle my monthly newsletters, etc. But I have no idea what I am doing there. I paid a woman to implement the 1SC on to my site and 5 weeks later nothing is still happening; so I think she knows not nearly as much as her testimonials from web gurus like Michael Port et al would portend.

I digress ... feedback, criticisms, ways to improve, etc. And don't spare the horses my ego can sustain constructive criticism. Just realize, I will have no idea what to do when you give advice and I will need to find someone who can help. I also may not even understand what you are telling me! LOL.

Executive Wisdom: Strategies for Business Excellence - Executive Wisdom: Home (Corporate site)
Society for Executive Wisdom: International Association of Business Leaders, Owners & Managers (Corporate networking site)
Executive Wisdom for Business (Blog)

Thank you!!!
Rgds,
Ric

1. I expect to be able to click on your logo in the upper-left corner to go home.

2. Change your home title from
<title>Executive Wisdom: Strategies for Business Excellence - Executive Wisdom: Home</title> to
<title>Executive Wisdom: Strategies for Business Excellence - Ric Willmot</title>

3. Change Los Angeles, CA Tel to USA Tel. Better yet, get an 800 number. I only pay $1 USD per month for mine.

4. I am OK with your white, black and red color (colour) scheme, but I hate the green bar smack in the middle of the homepage.

5. I would not use Verdana for bold text. The upper case letter I in Verdana is extremely ugly.

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Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com
sitting in my basement with my iMac

Thank you, Dave.
Rgds,
Ric

Looks good. Welcome to the forum. I like the overall look A white background might lighten the overall look a bit. Looks good.
Maemae

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The Graphics Shoppe~2000+ Commercial Use Graphics!
http://thegraphicsshoppeclub.com

Excuse me, but I get the impression from your web site that you are a "speaker". But for the life of me I can't find anywhere on your site that tells me what you talk ABOUT. And what are your talks supposed to do for the people in my organization/group?

This lack of information doesn't encourage me to contact you for anything.

You need to define the above things front and center on your site - rather than putting all those logos of what I would guess are places you've been.

And if you are going to have a web site it would be a good idea to try to learn how it is put together so you can at least communicate effectively with whomever is doing the actual design work for you. I do web site design gratis for selected non profit organizations and it is a huge help to me when the people I'm working with understand enough about web sites and their design that I can explain to them why it is important to do the visual design in a certain way and why Search Engine Optimization is so important and what is needed on the pages for effective SEO.

Good luck.

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The Weedy Lady at
http://www.happydaycards.com
Free E Cards for holidays and all occasions, fun pages and great recipes.

It's very . . . dark. The look is okay, and certainly businesslike, but it does come across as harsh. Too much contrast, and this color scheme is very dated, like mid 1990's.

Next comes the shopping cart product descriptions. I'm looking at one called "Value Based Pricing." What, exactly am I GETTING for 55 bucks? A book? An ebook? A cd? The paragraph on the page? What? You need to be a lot more explicit with those descriptions than you are, and I think you're going to have to learn your way around the shopping cart admin section to make that happen.

In the news section you have:
"Pundits have been shouting form the rooftops bemoaning the current skills shortage and grimacing the temerarious Gen Y for what seems like a decade. But despite the jeremiads of some, few organizations have taken steps to develop a useful strategy to diminish the negative impacts on their business."

Rewrite and correct grammar and spelling, and keep a copy of "The Elements of Style" in hand while doing so, or, even better, hire an expert copywriter to do it for you. This applies to most of the site. You're supposed to be a master of the spoken word, but what's written on your website doesn't make me confident that you're worth your fee. (Temerarious? sheesh!)

In the "See Ric Speak" section, ditch the IFrame. None of that content is SE spiderable as it is.

Your calendar has dates from two months ago. You'd be better off using something like google calendar or yahoo events and pulling it into your cms via an rss feed, since those tools will automatically remove outdated stuff. Or maybe your cms has that feature or a mod that can do it and you're not using it? You never want your website to look "out of date".

That's all I have time for. I think you need to go over everything with a fine tooth comb and work out the still existing tangles and knots.

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Custom WordPress Themes, CubeCart templates, ModX templates, Movable Type templates. ~ B1tchslappin Political Blog ~ GreenSpeak Community Action

I echo BJ's comments, especially regarding some of the grammar/spelling and the product descriptions. I didn't get enough info to understand what some of the products were, or how owning them would add value. What tough questions do they help a manager/strategist with?

And - echoing Weedy Lady - I didn't get enough specific information about the type of speaking you do. Some of the hyperbole muddies the waters: "Ric Willmot is seen as the thought leader for strategic business improvement." This is the sort of exaggeration that would damage your credibility with business people who have researched business strategy.

I would say it's unusual to find a website like yours that does not have an "About" page. The only bio info I could find was in the FAQ. Not putting this info up front has two negative effects - it makes me think there is something to hide, and it irritates me that I have to run the info to ground. Two emotions not conducive to booking engagements or buying products.

An About page is also where you might explain what you mean by "Jungian philosophy".

The graphic images advertising events on the home page are attractive enough, but they work against you in a number of ways:

- Cumulativly the image files along amount to over 250 KB. This makes for a large page that will load slowly.
- All of the text is "hidden" in the images and cannot be read by search engines. In other words people doing a search for the term "psychology of leadership" won't be led to this page.
- Only one of the images has decent Alt text. (Rest your cursor on an image and the text box that appears is the Alt text.) The value of Alt text to search engines is open to dispute, but there it is a good practice to include meaningful text. The banner image has none, and most of the others have the image file name as the Alt text, a bad practice.

Some of the "Client Results" make the business sound like a business consulting organization, a la E&Y, but the website is geared more toward spot "fixes" (workshops, keynote speaking, that sort of thing). This makes it even less clear what an engagement with you would entail - or lead to.

Work with a copywriter to pull the disparate aspects into tighter focus on key services.

... Duane

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www.draydesign.com

Your pictures are everywhere on the product covers. Where is your profile? Do people have to google your name to search for it? The video of you at the following url is quite impressive:
Global Display

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Health, beauty, slimming & feminine care products for the modern women

Too many different fonts. The bolded italics are very difficult to read. The overall look of the page is dark.

Why does the blog look so different from the rest of the site?

I don't like all the banners at the top of the page. I understand why they are there but there should be a better way to set it up.

The little red check mark is neat but so hard to read that it is really not needed on the site.

The site design is not bad.

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Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

Thank you to everyone for your input.
I really appreciate the effort some of you have gone to.
Now the work begins.

Kind regards,
Ric

I set it up using TypePad Premium Service.
It is a template at the moment, and so yes, I need to get someone to help me make it more like the branding in the other sites.
But given I still can't use my cell phone - it was the best this little black duck could do on his own!

Rgds,
Ric