New site

dombooth

dombooth

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Location
Sheffield
Hi all,

I know I tried at doing a new site a few months ago but I tried WordPress and I didn't like it, so back to coding! :)

Main reasons for the new site is to improve on SEO, and so that I can upgrade/change the site/add pages as and when I want.

With the current site the menu isn't really any good to add new pages into it.

Old (current) site: http://www.kivetonpcrepairs.co.uk/

New (in progress) site: http://www.kivetonpcrepairs.co.uk/newsite/

I've only started on the layout etc at the moment but will try to keep this thread up to date with how I'm getting on.

Any tips and advice are much appreciated.

Regards,
Dom
 
not a good idea to use a black background on a sales site. There's research to this effect that it hinders conversion. People are less interested in staying on dark sites.

Also, your logo needs a revamp.

Jim
 
Tips - nothing design wise BUT definitely something sales-wise.
Ask yourself questions about your site
- how will people arrive there?
- what will they be looking for?
- what actions do you want them to take while visiting your site? Afterwards?
- what will their state of mind be?
- how can you lay out your landing page/pages to take advantage of their needs and state of mind to get them to take the actions you want?

For instance - if your prospect arrives from a search "emergency computer repair" then you know a few things - it's an emergency, most people want to TALK to someone in an emergency, most people will pay more in an emergency, your response has to immediate as it's an emergency. Make sure then that your content takes advantage of that (focus on same day turnaround or whatever), that you feature your phone number is very prominent and that you have testimonials right there from satisfied emergency clients. Thinking like this will kick your conversion rate through the roof.
 
16k_zx81 said:
not a good idea to use a black background on a sales site. There's research to this effect that it hinders conversion. People are less interested in staying on dark sites.

Also, your logo needs a revamp.

Jim
Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

Thanks for you comments.

What colour would you recommend? My colour scheme is Orange/Black.

In what way does is need a revamp? I've been running for 2 years and don't feel that changing my identity would be a good move now.

Dom
 
seedubya said:
Tips - nothing design wise BUT definitely something sales-wise.
Ask yourself questions about your site
- how will people arrive there?
- what will they be looking for?
- what actions do you want them to take while visiting your site? Afterwards?
- what will their state of mind be?
- how can you lay out your landing page/pages to take advantage of their needs and state of mind to get them to take the actions you want?

For instance - if your prospect arrives from a search "emergency computer repair" then you know a few things - it's an emergency, most people want to TALK to someone in an emergency, most people will pay more in an emergency, your response has to immediate as it's an emergency. Make sure then that your content takes advantage of that (focus on same day turnaround or whatever), that you feature your phone number is very prominent and that you have testimonials right there from satisfied emergency clients. Thinking like this will kick your conversion rate through the roof.
Click to expand...

Hi, many thanks for the tips.

People arriving: from searches (emergency computer repair / laptop repair kiveton / pc repair sheffield etc etc)
Looking for: computer repair, very few of my clients are that urgent but I am trying to get into small businesses.
Actions: look round the site, call me, and book their system in for repair / call out etc.
State of mind: not sure on this one.
Layout: will try some things soon.

Dom
 
Dom,

I love the old look! I do not praise websites often but yours stands out.

I think your old site is stunningly attractive and better than I have had for years (from an image and look feel perspective); I like it a lot. Before I changed it much, I'd be interested more in Jim's research against black. I do think I would keep at least a bit of the black boarder, near the top against the orange which is so stunning. If you decided to put the greys.....Perhaps radiate the lighter graphic grey scales and colors towards the lower side of the page where more content resides. IMO your site is better than the sample grey site that Jim posted but I do not know much.

As far as content......I created a website (with my business kind of background[mind], i am not html or programer type personality). Form 'a me telling you-the customer' who I am and what I do sort of thing. It was a static site, simple, 5 pages almost a template....actually it might have started as a publisher or power point template that I added my photos, colors and text too. I gave that publisher file to my brother who is a Html coder and he built it for me but took a while to get too it.

So in the 6 months that he got around too it, I went and created a wix edit myself, site for dummies but only after reading about 20 Google/website and SEO books from Amazon.com, top published and recognized authorities. I also read everything that Google themselves post on their site about making good google friendly sites. Their mantra is good content, content, content aimed at the customer not Google.bots.

With all this new knowledge, hundreds of hours or reading, blogging on SEOmoz and other site.... I created a 22 page of good content (one page for each of the key terms I target (also embedding semantic linguistic similarities), doing much of what the books recommended for good SEO but all white hat and no gray or black hate stuff. That second site has not ever come close to ranking as well as my old site written without the benefit of all the Google SEO advice, SEO forums advice, books on how to optimize websites advice........ So I got an evaluation from a top California Website SEO guru who makes his living with SEO for restaurants in Los Angeles and I also consulted with a Google SEO guy who worked for Yahoo for a dozen years and I got graphic redesign by the Top art talent for Ebay. All of this advise got me exactly where I am now....not much better than what I had already did myself 2 years ago without any Google specific or seo knowledge. Without spending thousands on gurus and advertising specialists. So I pretty much come to the conclusion that this field is smoke and mirrors- a racket.

So do not contaminate yourself with a bunch of research in this field. Just use basic advertising layup sense. It shoudl look attractive, it should look professional but not over the heads of the people you target. If you target fortune 500 clients it will have that look and feel if you target mom and pop it will have a retail feel (thus my dog logo designed by the ebay advertising rep who worked for the top advertising agency in the USA at the time). Tell your customers who you are and what you can do for them as well as how your business is different from other choices that they have.

Just as in every flyer or mailer advertisement, you always want to tell your customers in a prominent way "who you are" (how you are different from competition; "what you can do for them"; what you want them to do: "Call Now" "Call us for appointment" "Call us for our nearest store" or some call to action. This should be on every landing page. This is what others are getting at above....

Stay away from the SEO vudu and just do things that make sense:

There is meta data for your geo location use it, give a thoughtful description, make your title say what you do | where you do it. If you use photos use photos you have taken rather than clip art. If you wish to see an example of my old (site that still does better) and new 2 year old website look at my sites below. The west store is the original site I did with no knowledge of Google SEO or how to do a website information. I used basic advertising ideas but failed to put the call to action. The rest of the links go to my new site which does not do nearly so well as the old site.

I am no expert, this is just one mans opinion and facts based on my own study of my few cases.

I did also build a site for http://www.KS-Sprayfoam.com and it ranks multiple times in the first page of it's 7 key terms often first and third. There are not nearly as many spray foam insulation companies as there are computer repair.
 
Last edited:
Tony_Scarpelli said:
Dom,

I love the old look! I do not praise websites often but yours stands out.

I think your old site is stunningly attractive and better than I have had for years (from an image and look feel perspective); I like it a lot. Before I changed it much, I'd be interested more in Jim's research against black. I do think I would keep at least a bit of the black boarder, near the top against the orange which is so stunning. If you decided to put the greys.....Perhaps radiate the lighter graphic grey scales and colors towards the lower side of the page where more content resides. IMO your site is better than the sample grey site that Jim posted but I do not know much.

As far as content......I created a website (with my business kind of background[mind], i am not html or programer type personality). Form 'a me telling you-the customer' who I am and what I do sort of thing. It was a static site, simple, 5 pages almost a template....actually it might have started as a publisher or power point template that I added my photos, colors and text too. I gave that publisher file to my brother who is a Html coder and he built it for me but took a while to get too it.

So in the 6 months that he got around too it, I went and created a wix edit myself, site for dummies but only after reading about 20 Google/website and SEO books from Amazon.com, top published and recognized authorities. I also read everything that Google themselves post on their site about making good google friendly sites. Their mantra is good content, content, content aimed at the customer not Google.bots.

With all this new knowledge, hundreds of hours or reading, blogging on SEOmoz and other site.... I created a 22 page of good content (one page for each of the key terms I target (also embedding semantic linguistic similarities), doing much of what the books recommended for good SEO but all white hat and no gray or black hate stuff. That second site has not ever come close to ranking as well as my old site written without the benefit of all the Google SEO advice, SEO forums advice, books on how to optimize websites advice........ So I got an evaluation from a top California Website SEO guru who makes his living with SEO for restaurants in Los Angeles and I also consulted with a Google SEO guy who worked for Yahoo for a dozen years and I got graphic redesign by the Top art talent for Ebay. All of this advise got me exactly where I am now....not much better than what I had already did myself 2 years ago without any Google specific or seo knowledge. Without spending thousands on gurus and advertising specialists. So I pretty much come to the conclusion that this field is smoke and mirrors- a racket.

So do not contaminate yourself with a bunch of research in this field. Just use basic advertising layup sense. It shoudl look attractive, it should look professional but not over the heads of the people you target. If you target fortune 500 clients it will have that look and feel if you target mom and pop it will have a retail feel (thus my dog logo designed by the ebay advertising rep who worked for the top advertising agency in the USA at the time). Tell your customers who you are and what you can do for them as well as how your business is different from other choices that they have.

Just as in every flyer or mailer advertisement, you always want to tell your customers in a prominent way "who you are" (how you are different from competition; "what you can do for them"; what you want them to do: "Call Now" "Call us for appointment" "Call us for our nearest store" or some call to action. This should be on every landing page. This is what others are getting at above....

Stay away from the SEO vudu and just do things that make sense:

There is meta data for your geo location use it, give a thoughtful description, make your title say what you do | where you do it. If you use photos use photos you have taken rather than clip art. If you wish to see an example of my old (site that still does better) and new 2 year old website look at my sites below. The west store is the original site I did with no knowledge of Google SEO or how to do a website information. I used basic advertising ideas but failed to put the call to action. The rest of the links go to my new site which does not do nearly so well as the old site.

I am no expert, this is just one mans opinion and facts based on my own study of my few cases.

I did also build a site for http://www.KS-Sprayfoam.com and it ranks multiple times in the first page of it's 7 key terms often first and third. There are not nearly as many spray foam insulation companies as there are computer repair.
Click to expand...

Hi Tony,

Huge thank you for a very interesting long post!

It means a lot that someone love's my website. :)

When I first made it (2 years ago) it was designed by a good friend of mine: Natalie @ Crush Design, and coded by me.

Back then the only layout method I used were tables, inside tables, inside tables, inside tables. (You get the idea.) The way it was made makes it very difficult to add new pages to it without messing up the layout. I'm not coding using div.

I think what I'll do is keep the website design as it is, but recode it using divs and the new menu.

Dom
 
I have to agree with Tony, and Jim.

I love your original site Dom, it's there, special, great layout, good colour scheme.

However a couple of things I noticed (only glanced at it).

Prices. Could you not raise them?, they do appear to be on the low side. Least to me.

Refurb page.
"What does this mean?
It means, where possible, we can rebuild your computer using newer and faster components, giving you a practically new computer for a fraction of the cost."

Not sure if your aware of this or not, but you can not rebuild a clients machine, and then 'sell' it back to them direct. This is what it reads like to me. This is against the TOS for the refurb program. If found out, they will kick you off the program.

Other than that, adding a few more pages, (using the keywords your targeting), I would personally stick with the old site.

Edit: just read your last post about the tables, inside tables.. Shame :(
 
Cadishead Computers said:
I have to agree with Tony, and Jim.

I love your original site Dom, it's there, special, great layout, good colour scheme.

However a couple of things I noticed (only glanced at it).

Prices. Could you not raise them?, they do appear to be on the low side. Least to me.

Refurb page.
"What does this mean?
It means, where possible, we can rebuild your computer using newer and faster components, giving you a practically new computer for a fraction of the cost."

Not sure if your aware of this or not, but you can not rebuild a clients machine, and then 'sell' it back to them direct. This is what it reads like to me. This is against the TOS for the refurb program. If found out, they will kick you off the program.

Other than that, adding a few more pages, (using the keywords your targeting), I would personally stick with the old site.

Edit: just read your last post about the tables, inside tables.. Shame :(
Click to expand...

Thanks Nige,

Prices will be something to look at soon enough when I've recoded the website.

Refurb:
When I sent off my application for it they asked if I had a webpage advertising it, put that on and was accepted. :eek: LOL!

I didn't write it to mean that and will re-write it soon! Thanks for pointing that out!

It is a shame but gets me off the Xbox I suppose. :)

Dom
 
I am slightly familiar html and with cascading style sheets CSS.

Is div something to do with CSS?

If so, yes if you can write some CSS and extend your site to an expandable template that would be nice and likely worth the effort.

I read a book on HTML back in 1998 or so and the tables thing is why I said for get that crap! I only recently read HTML 5 and might consider learning it along with CSS and scripts after that but I am afraid that learning to code would stifle creativity so I just put it in something I know like Word/publisher/power point and then give it to a guy who knows coding for conversion.
 
Tony_Scarpelli said:
I am slightly familiar html and with cascading style sheets CSS.

Is div something to do with CSS?

If so, yes if you can write some CSS and extend your site to an expandable template that would be nice and likely worth the effort.

I read a book on HTML back in 1998 or so and the tables thing is why I said for get that crap! I only recently read HTML 5 and might consider learning it along with CSS and scripts after that but I am afraid that learning to code would stifle creativity so I just put it in something I know like Word/publisher/power point and then give it to a guy who knows coding for conversion.
Click to expand...

Yeah divs are more to do with CSS but are a lot easier to maintain IMO.

Updated: http://www.kivetonpcrepairs.co.uk/newsite/

Dom
 
I like it Dom.

Only thing I would look at (if it was possible, is the background on your logo, is not the same shade black as the rest of the top bar.

It drew my eye to the difference in shading.

PS, I've not forgot about the memory mate, just been run off my feet the past couple of days. I'm getting to the post office tomorrow, so will bag it up for you, and get it off, so you should receive it Wed. Sorry about the lateness..
 
Cadishead Computers said:
I like it Dom.

Only thing I would look at (if it was possible, is the background on your logo, is not the same shade black as the rest of the top bar.

It drew my eye to the difference in shading.

PS, I've not forgot about the memory mate, just been run off my feet the past couple of days. I'm getting to the post office tomorrow, so will bag it up for you, and get it off, so you should receive it Wed. Sorry about the lateness..
Click to expand...

Thanks. :)

On this site:
http://kivetonpcrepairs.co.uk/newsite/
?

Ahhh, I see it now, you're eyes must be a lot better than mine!

I'll ask my graphic design person if she'll have a look at it.

No worries mate. :)

Dom
 
The site is well designed and looks great, though I would consider the folllowing:

  1. White text on a black background is a strain on my eyes. I much prefer black on white.
  • The black header could be slighly less high similair to the old design.
  • Make the 4 images; COMPUTER REPAIRS, VIRUSES , SETTING UP, and FAST SERVICE clickable links if you don't intend doing so.

Great job.
 
I like it. Needs more images to make it more personal. Do you have any pictures from your shop/work space? Any of you and your staff? Let your clients feel like they "know you" before they come and see you. It increases their comfort level and your conversion rate.

The drop down menu is broken in Chrome. Once you use it once and click on a page it never comes up again.

I would put more testimonials on the interior pages as well. I would highlight what's in it for the client that hires you. Very important.

Take the legal tab off the top...seriously. That should be relegated to a small link in the footer. That never bodes well for anyone when they highlight/feature their terms that highly.

The four service boxes on the front should link to internal content. You don't have any flow on the site. There's nothing telling me what to do and it's not obvious what the expected flow or response is. I would create that flow and make it obvious (very difficult to do, I'm still working on perfecting that).

The black and orange is quite adventerous and aggressive. It's neat. Might not be my first choice (don't forget that colors play a HUGE part in the decision making process) but it's still very interesting and I'll be quite intrigued to hear how it works for you.
 
Agreed with above with one addition: A lot of people browse on mobile devices now. Tablets, phones, iPods. It's not easy to read and navigate on a mobile device. If you can't make it responsive, then you should at least build a mobile version.
 
Robando said:
The site is well designed and looks great, though I would consider the folllowing:

  1. White text on a black background is a strain on my eyes. I much prefer black on white.
  • The black header could be slighly less high similair to the old design.
  • Make the 4 images; COMPUTER REPAIRS, VIRUSES , SETTING UP, and FAST SERVICE clickable links if you don't intend doing so.

Great job.
Click to expand...


1-Black/Orange is my theme colours so can't do much about that really
2-Yeah I could chop a bit off it, thanks.
3-It's on the list. :)

Dom
 
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