IRS Installations

MuNKyonline · #1 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 10:19 AM

Hey guys, its been a while since I put a site up for review. Here's a clients site that's 99% completed - Installation & Handyman Services - IRS Installations Ipswich

This is just one section of the company and it's aimed at the general public and businesses that require installation services - kitchens, bathroom and conservatories etc and a newly launched handyman service. If the handyman service picks up then we're going to set up a seperate site for that.

The site features some handy estimate calculators and there is also a custom-built CMS for maintaining the tools and the news pages (wish i'd known about drupal before I started the project - hindsight meh!).

I've done the onpage SEO on the site and we're targeting 'kitchen fitter ipswich' and 'kitchen installation ipswich' and variations of that for each section. We've done over a 100 directory submissions and will be doing more link building soon. The site is ranking on first or second page for most target phrases already. More links I think will push the site into the top five results quite easily.

The site is accessible - anything that can resize - does! Try it out - everything expands and doesnt break/overlap. And of course every page validates.

Now i need you kind chaps to have a look through and see if I missed anything.

Please try out the calculators - are they user friendly? Could we improve them in any way? Give them a whirl

Looking forward to your responses guys!

chiron · #2 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 11:24 AM

Nice site, initial impression is a good one.

Perhaps toss the T/F/E contact info into the header?

Picture rollovers are not necessary to use, so it's not "bad" but I think most people will miss them as nav elements aside from accidental mouseover.

Would consider flipping (home page) the check marks of what you can do with the latest news scroller. Not a big fan of news scrollers, so a personal bias there, but I might replace it with a menu-dropdown (pick a kind) of the cost estimators on the other pages, since these buttons look nice and such tools beg to get clicked, unlike - again maybe just me - company news.

CAPTCHA might lower converts, ever tried hidden divs? Seems to work all right and bugs the bots, not the users.

spiderbait · #3 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 11:30 AM

Regarding the menu of pictures at the top, I think this could be a lot more effective if the mousover condition altered the opacity for the bottom half of the picture, revealing some descriptive text about that link and the services the link takes you to.

I'm not suggesting how you implement it, simply that it would make the links more obvious, provide a bit more assistance for people finding their way around and if done with real text and CSS it could give you an anchor text boost.

spiderbait · #4 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 11:45 AM

Regarding the cost estimators, I feel that you're not really promoting that functionality when I first arrive at the site. As a result, the homepage is selling the business' service, but not selling the benefits of browsing the site, which is okay if one page is all that's required to convert a visitor. Otherwise, I think you've got to do more to encourage visitors to visit your important content and convert.

Furthermore, when I click into a section I see the calculator button, but it's not immediately apparent that it's a button. It could just as easily be a section header graphic with no function. And you've missed an opportunity to steer more traffic into the calculator by linking the text that mentions the calculator.

So, overall, I think you will get more satisfied visitors if you help them to find what's useful and unique on your site rather than leaving them to discover it at random.

Finally, the tools themselves all require a postal code as a single field on a page by itself. I think this sends the wrong impression and will deter visitors by making them think the tool will be slow or difficult to use - page by page by page - even though it's not (I realize you're using some flavour of AJAX to refresh the form).

Personally, I'd prefer that the fields were all on one page or at least visible in some way from the first page of the calculator.

Lastly, although you mention entering the quantity of each service required at the top of the page, I still think the text input fields will be confusing to people. Plus, the form looks unnecessarily long.

How about a more compact looking list of checkboxes for each service and only if they check the box does it reveal the input box for quantity?

Anyway, I generally quite like the site. So, good work on all that.

MuNKyonline · #5 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiron

Nice site, initial impression is a good one.

Perhaps toss the T/F/E contact info into the header?

Thanks Chiron, i did try putting the contact details into the header but it looked a bit crowded. I was thinking that so long as i have it on every page and in a prominant place on the contact page then it should be easy to find.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiron

Picture rollovers are not necessary to use, so it's not "bad" but I think most people will miss them as nav elements aside from accidental mouseover.

Well they are only css rollovers, the main reason for those images was for decoration. Initially they were CSS background images. But then i thought why not make them img's and then get the power of the alt tags too. Then I thought that some people may try and click on them, so made them links. They link to the same pages as the primary nav at the top so it doesnt matter if they're missed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiron

Would consider flipping (home page) the check marks of what you can do with the latest news scroller. Not a big fan of news scrollers, so a personal bias there, but I might replace it with a menu-dropdown (pick a kind) of the cost estimators on the other pages, since these buttons look nice and such tools beg to get clicked, unlike - again maybe just me - company news.

I was thinking the same thing about the news scroller and the list on the homepage. I dont really like the news scroller either, its something the customer requested! I like your ideas about the menu drop down. I could put that right at the top with 'Get an estimate now for: [dropdown]. Neat idea!

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiron

CAPTCHA might lower converts, ever tried hidden divs? Seems to work all right and bugs the bots, not the users.

The capcha was put there to stop people spamming the tool. Otherwise the server will fill up with useless pdf estimates. What do you mean by hidden divs? How could that be used instead?

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiderbait

Regarding the menu of pictures at the top, I think this could be a lot more effective if the mousover condition altered the opacity for the bottom half of the picture, revealing some descriptive text about that link and the services the link takes you to.

I'm not suggesting how you implement it, simply that it would make the links more obvious, provide a bit more assistance for people finding their way around and if done with real text and CSS it could give you an anchor text boost.

Thats a great idea, really not sure how to implement something like that! I made them links to tie each picture with the section it represents. You're totally right though, a bit of text will help make that even more obvious. Your idea sounds like it would need some javascript. I'll have to have a chat with my programmer!

spiderbait · #6 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

Thats a great idea, really not sure how to implement something like that! I made them links to tie each picture with the section it represents. You're totally right though, a bit of text will help make that even more obvious. Your idea sounds like it would need some javascript. I'll have to have a chat with my programmer!

The simplest method would be to embed the text into a second version of each picture and use them as the mousover background via CSS. This wouldn't help with anchor text, but would cover the other bases.

More complex methods would involve manipulating the visibility of layers using the same positioning and either different visibility or different z-index. Javascript is probably the easiest way to accomplish this method.

MuNKyonline · #7 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiderbait

Regarding the cost estimators, I feel that you're not really promoting that functionality when I first arrive at the site. As a result, the homepage is selling the business' service, but not selling the benefits of browsing the site, which is okay if one page is all that's required to convert a visitor. Otherwise, I think you've got to do more to encourage visitors to visit your important content and convert.

Furthermore, when I click into a section I see the calculator button, but it's not immediately apparent that it's a button. It could just as easily be a section header graphic with no function. And you've missed an opportunity to steer more traffic into the calculator by linking the text that mentions the calculator.

So, overall, I think you will get more satisfied visitors if you help them to find what's useful and unique on your site rather than leaving them to discover it at random.

Finally, the tools themselves all require a postal code as a single field on a page by itself. I think this sends the wrong impression and will deter visitors by making them think the tool will be slow or difficult to use - page by page by page - even though it's not (I realize you're using some flavour of AJAX to refresh the form).

Personally, I'd prefer that the fields were all on one page or at least visible in some way from the first page of the calculator.

Lastly, although you mention entering the quantity of each service required at the top of the page, I still think the text input fields will be confusing to people. Plus, the form looks unnecessarily long.

How about a more compact looking list of checkboxes for each service and only if they check the box does it reveal the input box for quantity?

Anyway, I generally quite like the site. So, good work on all that.

Yes I agree about the calc buttons. I'll change the text on them to 'get an esitmate now!' or something along those lines.

I'm not sure why but the programmer moved the postcode section to the firstpage. I think it has something to do with how its handled as IRS have a limited area that they work within.

Yes the form is way too long, i have suggested to the programmer to include a title for each service. Then have a more link next to it which expands the box with a full description. I think it could be done quite easily using jquery. I believe he said that it would require a lot of the code to be changed and the customers budget has been pretty much exhausted.

Thanks for taking the time to look

chiron · #8 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:11 PM

Quote:

The capcha was put there to stop people spamming the tool. Otherwise the server will fill up with useless pdf estimates. What do you mean by hidden divs? How could that be used instead?

Have not hit myself with a DoS simulation for giggles, but most spam bots appear to bounce off a form field that is invisible to users but visible to bots, namely display: none on an inline form field that looks - to a bot - like it is a required field. If field is not blank then you can rubbish bin the whole form, being the concept. From what I have seen, doesn't flag as black in SEs though worth mention.

Trying to find an example, the guest book I used it on was a short-term memorial site. Was rather nice to stop the spam-n-porn bots without making the family and friends try to guess letters.

Here's one, CSS control looks to be on-page so it's fairly straightforward, notice in the source a first name field halfway into the form that is not there, visibly: www tourblazers com/learnmore

Not kind on screen readers, but then again neither are most captcha utilities.

"hidden honeypot captcha" in your favorite engine will probably get some more samples.

MuNKyonline · #9 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiron

Quote:
The capcha was put there to stop people spamming the tool. Otherwise the server will fill up with useless pdf estimates. What do you mean by hidden divs? How could that be used instead?
Have not hit myself with a DoS simulation for giggles, but most spam bots appear to bounce off a form field that is invisible to users but visible to bots, namely display: none on an inline form field that looks - to a bot - like it is a required field. If field is not blank then you can rubbish bin the whole form, being the concept. From what I have seen, doesn't flag as black in SEs though worth mention.

Trying to find an example, the guest book I used it on was a short-term memorial site. Was rather nice to stop the spam-n-porn bots without making the family and friends try to guess letters.

Here's one, CSS control looks to be on-page so it's fairly straightforward, notice in the source a first name field halfway into the form that is not there, visibly: www tourblazers com/learnmore

Not kind on screen readers, but then again neither are most captcha utilities.

"hidden honeypot captcha" in your favorite engine will probably get some more samples.

Ah! I think i've heard of something like that before. That is a good idea. I'm not keen on captchas as they're not always that readable. It would be good to find out if someone has tried and tested that method.

spiderbait · #10 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiron

most spam bots appear to bounce off a form field that is invisible to users but visible to bots, namely display: none on an inline form field that looks - to a bot - like it is a required field. If field is not blank then you can rubbish bin the whole form, being the concept. From what I have seen, doesn't flag as black in SEs though worth mention.

This is a good idea, but it's probably going to attract a bunch of posts about how this method will be a problem because of users with autofill utilities and so on.

So, to cut to the chase, I posted this response on another thread here at WPW which details a method that will not harm legitimate users but still gives you a recognizable form field to test for and trash the form if it contains that field.

MuNKyonline · #11 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:37 PM

Cool, i'll check that out, thanks

spiderbait · #12 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

Yes the form is way too long, i have suggested to the programmer to include a title for each service. Then have a more link next to it which expands the box with a full description. I think it could be done quite easily using jquery. I believe he said that it would require a lot of the code to be changed and the customers budget has been pretty much exhausted.

One more note on this issue:

jQuery may have the same capacity as wForms mentioned in the link I posted, I'm not sure.

But if not, you could easily use the same wForms script (that creates the hidden spam honeypot) to create both "more" links and checkboxes as I suggested.

This would make your form more compact and only reveal the extra info about each item when either the "more" link is clicked or the checkbox ticked.

chiron · #13 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 12:56 PM

Or that works too. =)

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode